Bumiller: "Can I ask you about your ... why you are so angry?" McCain: "Pardon me?" Bumiller: "Never mind, never mind."The best way to counter John McCain's suggestion that he is the only one running for the presidency who is tough enough to take care of whatever crisis someone is calling the White House about at 3 a.m. (video link), and is to paint him as an emotionally unstable wild man, who isn't temperate enough to exercise the necessary judgment and self-control to refrain from lobbing nukes whenever some world leader pisses him off. As always, The Times is willing - eager, even - to do the dirty work for the Dems. But if having a bad temper disqualifies one from being Commander-in-Chief, the media should also examine Hillary Clinton's temper and how it will affect her judgment. Here's former Bill Clinton advisor Dick Morris on Hillary's temper in a January 18, 2008 interview on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes":
Hannity: I want to ask you specifically, though: Bill Clinton's temper. Even The New York Times dealt with this today. You always said her temper was far worse, but his flaring up apparently is becoming a big negative and a big problem for the campaign. Morris: Well, her temper is a cool, angry, "I'll, you know, slit your throat in the middle of the night" temper. ... Morris: His temper is an explosive, wild rant that calms down very quickly, but you're seeing an undue amount of it. ... Hannity: You know, it's funny, 'cause Gail Sheehy wrote she's angry not all the time but most of the time ... So, they both have a temper problem.For that matter, why didn't the subject of Bill Clinton's temper come up when he was running for president? In this "Hannity & Colmes" interview (video link) Morris recounts one occasion in which an infuriated Bill Clinton roughed him up:
In May of 1990 I was helping to consult on Clinton's last campaign for governor and he had fallen behind his opponent three weeks before Primary Day. And we got together at midnight in the governor's mansion. I suspected he'd had a drink and he isn't good at holding it when he does. And he began screaming at me, cursing at me, yelling at me. And I got furious and I screamed and cursed back at him and I stormed out of the governor's mansion. And as I was halfway through the kitchen to the door, I heard him run up behind me, grab me around the waist, threw me to the ground, knelt over me with his fist back to punch me. And Hillary grabbed his arm, pulled him back and said, "Bill, Bill, stop! Think about what you're doing. Stop!" And Clinton got up, sputtering an apology. It cooled our relationship. ... Eileen [McGann], my wife, said I should have sworn a criminal complaint about it ... And when the reporters came around asking what happened, Hillary said "say it never happened."To be sure, McCain has been known to yell, swear like a sailor and become sarcastic, but he has never assaulted a colleague as far as The Stiletto knows. Nor has he ever thrown a book at a Secret Service agent, as Hillary has in a fit of pique.
