The average 72-year-old American male has about an 85% chance of surviving to 76-1/2. John McCain is a cancer survivor three times and has a variety of health issues resulting from his imprisonment, but as president he will get the best of health care (the kind uninsured people don’t get); let’s assume these balance out.
(Doris Kearns Goodwin just pointed out on MSNBC that one in five vice presidents have succeeded to the presidency following a death or resignation.)
He proposes to roll a die, and if it comes up 1, to put the country in the care of a nice young woman with a history of running a town of 8000 and, for about a year and a half, a rich state of less than a million people, with a unique and specialized economy of oil extraction and vacuuming money out of your pocket through Washington. By accepting a responsibility so far above her qualifications and experience, she instantly exposes some serious deficiencies in reality engagement, not realizing that she’s being used in a most cynical way.
The word reckless barely covers a bet like this (one in six is the odds in Russian Roulette with a conventional revolver, but in Russian Roulette you blow out your own brains, such as they are, not the welfare of a whole big country). Judgment? Puhleese!
