McCain’s presumption

Who was it who claimed to be “the American president Americans have been waiting for”?

A reader has a question for McCain far nastier than any of those I came up with:

Do you think it was presumptuous of you to claim to be “the American president Americans have been waiting for”?

In case anyone else has forgotten, as I had:

It strikes me that our side isn’t as good as we might be, and not nearly as good as the other side, in whipping up pseudo-offense at remarks from our opponents.

John McCain is “the American president Americans have been waiting for”? In two hundred and twenty years we’ve never managed to produce a real American President until John McCain came along? We’ve had to make do with such un-American nonentities as Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, TR, and FDR, until St. John came to rescue us?

Oh, thank you, Your Heroic Majesty! Let’s just skip the election and proceed directly to the anointment and the coronation.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com