From the Mind of Meegs

What bothers me about McCain wanting to postpone the debate isn't the curious implication that he can't focus on more than one thing at a time, though that is perplexing.

It isn't the self-contradictory nature of the whole thing. In this situation, saying you want to stop campaigning is in itself a form of campaigning. That's interesting to think about, but not quite bothersome.

What bothers me is the idea that, in times of trial, open communication with the citizenry is the thing most easily dispensed with. What irks me is thinking about how that mentality might play out on the heels of the least transparent administration ever.

It's like this. The debates represent our least filtered access to the candidates. Sure, the debates are still tightly controlled environments. But for once, the candidates have to stand up in front of all of America, on live TV, and tell us directly what they think. No going back. No stepping aside. No teleprompter. No pause button. No do-over button.

Normally, we just get the few decontextualized snippets that some reporter decided we should hear (and, FTR, I think the press plays a critical role in an open society, so I don't mean that derisively). Or, we get the campaign manager telling us what the candidate really meant to say, or what the candidate really would like to say. Or, we get a "joint statement" that's been edited and re-edited so as to put on the best possible face.

I guess McCain wants to seem like the gets-stuff-done guy. He wants to seem like the guy who can't be bothered with political pageantry when there's a job to do. Really, I think he just seems like a career politician who thinks that problems are best solved by retreating to our ideological bunkers and passing some piece of legislation with that old reliable Washington-knows-best mentality. Facilitating open communication with the proletariat? Pooh-pooh! We have no such time for these non-essential activities! Please to be satisfied with this pre-typed, spin-doctored statement.

It bugs me. Here we have the first in a small handful of best chances to hear from the candidates themselves. Here we have our best chance to foster some of the transparency that is crucial to a democracy. And when McCain needs to clear his schedule, that's the first thing he thinks about disposing of? Look, cancel your Letterman appearances or whatever. But don't take away my chance to hear my elected leaders be answerable, without hiding behind some campaign manager or PR man, for their actions and beliefs.

We're finally ridding ourselves of an administration that felt it was answerable to no one. Now, suppressing evidence in order to drag us into an ill-advised war is much worse than postponing one debate. And maybe McCain has learned from Dubya's mistakes and plans to be a more open president, should he be elected. But so far, he is not establishing a pattern that inspires my confidence on that front.

I can't help but see this move as related to the campaign's curious decision to bar most of the press from the simple act of taking pictures of Sarah Palin as she meets with world leaders in her "No, really...I do know foreign policy!" tour. It's not like this is an outrageous request. It's standard operating procedure for all politicians, at least until now. But now we don't even get the decontextualized snippet. Is one picture going to convince me that Sarah Palin knows diddly about foreign affairs? No, of course not, anymore than her proximity to Russia is going to convince me of that notion. So in one sense, you might say it means little.

But like McCain's suggested postponement of the debate, it doesn't exactly make me believe that the McCain-Palin administration would foster the free and open exchange of ideas that they, as alleged mavericks, claim to be all for. I've already lived through eight years of being told to shut up and trust the government because they're the smart ones. I don't need four more years.