Hard Call

John McCain grants an interview to The New Yorker's Ben McGrath, and the results are exceeding strange.

They meet in the Park Avenue office the publisher of his recent book Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them. (Hmm. Hard Call. Shouldn't it be Tough Calls? Not only is that the more common phrase, but McCain's version suggests rough trade rather than, say, Gertrude Ederle's decision to swim the English Channel.)

McCain muses about how he'd rule on some of today's harder calls:

...an obvious contemporary issue came to mind. “Is Iraq a hard call?” he said. “I think it’s not that hard, because I have had no doubt. It hasn’t been a struggle within me.”

He identified Pervez Musharraf (“My distinct impression of him is he’s basically a humble, modest man who lives a fairly Spartan life”) and Nicolas Sarkozy (whose name he pronounced “Secorsi”) as leaders who could, in time, merit inclusion in a sequel. President Bush’s commuting of Scooter Libby’s sentence, he said, amounted to dodging a tough decision: “I’m very reluctant to second-guess, but I have to say I would have pardoned him or not pardoned him.” Bud Selig’s treatment of Barry Bonds was much the same. “I would have done one of two things: not go or stand up and applaud,” he said. McCain is still an either /or kind of guy.

What? Seriously, what is McCain saying here? He's no lily-livered waffler: he'd definitely do A! Or maybe B! But he draws the line right there, decisive deciderer that he is. (Unlike weaselly Bush, who chiseled out some b.s. third option.)

Good to know where he stands.

ADDENDUM: Man do we not need another Pollyanna judge of character. Musharraf - who gained power via military coup - is a "humble, modest man"?

What does that remind me of?

... when U.S. President George W. Bush first met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sovenia, it seemed he'd found a kindred spirit when it came to democratic values.

"I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country," Bush declared after their 2001 visit.

Criminy. Good thing McCain will get nowhere near the presidency.