John-Wayne-McCain?

John McCain took the opportunity to play Camera Cowboy this weekend and warn Russia of "severe consequences" over the Georgia crisis.

OK, there are two problems with this:

First of all, he's not the President. We know he wants to be, but he isn't right now (and probably won't be, if there is a God--of course, I said the same thing when Bush was elected--twice--so maybe I can't use that as a benchmark anymore). As such, McCain doesn't get to decide foreign policy. President Bush does that, and Bush only attacks weak leaders who don't really pose a threat. Putin is a ruthless, glacial monster who openly mocked Bush behind his back after Bush famously declared seven years ago that "he had a good feeling about him." (We've since learned to disregard Bush's feelings--they're as poor as his reading skills.) Putin isn't afraid of the U.S.--he's a steely-eyed android who poisons his opponents. McCain's bullfrog-faced bluster isn't likely to cut ice with him.

Secondly, the whole McCain-military thing is wearing out its welcome, when you consider that the war he runs around crowing about was one that we sort of, you know, lost.

But he portrays himself as a tough guy because he spent time as a prisoner of war. No doubt he had a very hard time, but let's think about this for a minute. Now forgive me if I'm wrong here, but being captured by the enemy was not exactly a measure of success the last I heard. That he makes this a centerpiece of his whole campaign really speaks to the absolute vacuum of ideas in his head for how to run this country. That he makes fun of Obama's oratorical gifts is just another example of sour grapes.

Couple that with the fact that he got his success the second-oldest way in the world--marrying it--and it becomes harder to see what's so wonderful about him. All you have to do is look at Cindy--she looks emaciated and terrified standing next to him, and it's not hard to imagine her wearing a dog collar and eating out of a bowl on the floor while he spanks her ass. I don't want her as my First Lady. We already had Nancy Reagan, and that was one waif too many.

Call Obama what you want, mislabel him as a Muslim (if that's all you brought), make stupid puns about his name, say that the "hope" platform is empty (although nobody can deny that's what we're sorely lacking and may be our only salvation), but you can't deny that he earned his success by himself. From absolutely nothing. I don't care about his pastor (who I believe threw Obama under the bus with his comments, anyway, so it becomes irrelevant). I don't care about all these alleged ties with the radicals in Illinois. He's a black man in Chicago, dealing with the black communities' problems. You know what? Some people living in those communities and dealing with those problems are radical! Go figure. Guilt by association is a paltry measure of any person.

You want guilt by association? Try these names on for size: Tom DeLay. Tom Reynolds. Karl Rove. Dick Cheney. These sons-of-bitches are as soul-dead as the most corrupt Democrat you can pull up to devil Obama with. And Obama's just plain smarter. Clearly he was better educated than the hillbillies who've been running the show here for the last eight years, and I'll bet he drinks out of a glass instead of a brown jug. That gives him an automatic leg up.

And this whole "experience" thing? Please. How much has our previous leaders' "experience" helped us lately? They've used it to cheat us, involve us in pointless wars, and steal the bread right out of our mouths, while they play the terrorism-bogeyman card and try to pass their thievery off as necessary to protect us. If that's the kind of "experience" we've come to expect, then the bar has been sadly lowered.

The reason that Putin and the rest of the world view us as a bunch of idiots is that the country has been represented by idiots for so very long. One screwup after another, and we're left with an eight-year-old black eye that refuses to heal. Maybe if these world leaders got to deal with a savvy, diplomatic politician, they'd begin to see the side of us that's been missing for so long.

One thing's for sure: McCain's dirty jokes and "folksy" sense of humor won't fly on the diplomatic front. And neither will his pale, watery "tough guy" act.