There is nothing new about John McCain’s temper, it was thoroughly covered during the 2000 election and when it was brought up earlier in the year by Mitt Romney it seemed like old news and the last ditch attempt by a losing candidate. For some reason the news media seems intent on covering the fact that McCain occasionally loses his cool. The latest is an Associated Press article which highlights the following McCain quotes:

“F— you,” he shouted at Texas Sen. John Cornyn last year.

“Only an a—— would put together a budget like this,” he told the former Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, in 1999.

“I’m calling you a f—— jerk!” he once retorted to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

The last time I checked McCain has never run into the Capital building and punched the President pro tempore in the face. He has never thrown a bunch of books at a reporter. John McCain has never gone on a bender and told the Queen of England to shine his boots. In short, the man might get a little heated but I don’t see that it has ever ground the greasy wheels of government to a halt or brought shame upon the nation.

I do remember a time in our history when the former Vice President Aaron Burr shot and killed the former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Now I know many people like to look at the history of our government through rose colored glasses. I can assure you from my reading of history that our system of government has been run by a very endearing but what amounts at times to a rather motley crew of brilliant but not always refined or civil men and women.

Like old war movies we often think of government without the cursing, without the drinking and without the philandering, even though so much of what we know about our elected officials today tells us otherwise. Would I like to see my politicians acting civil and not shouting obscenities at one another? Sure, do I expect them to, not at all.

I find it hard to believe that in our presidential lineage figures like General Jackson, Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and yes even Ronald Reagan did not let their tempers flare. I find it hard to believe they never cursed their opponents, never were angered by news and yes I am sure a few of them even slammed their fists or the palms of their hands against their desks in anger. Hard to imagine, but I am sure it is true.

I see nothing wrong in anything recounted in these stories. Show me the evidence that John McCain’s temperament is so obscene and so unfit for duty that we would all rally against him and you can prove me wrong on this point. Until the evidence exists I just see a waste of time and newsprint when there are so many other things about John McCain to be written that would flare a voters blood.