McCain's debating style: "Get offa my lawn, you punk!"

Whoa. John McCain reminds us that he is an old, cranky bastard, as Mark Kleiman writes.

Today, John McCain was one of only three Senators who failed to show up for the debate and vote on Sen. Jim Webb's improved GI Bill. (Ted Kennedy is in the hospital, and Tom Coburn was at a funeral. McCain was at a couple of big-ticket fundraising events.) But McCain had made it clear that he opposed the Webb proposal because he shares the concern of the top brass that improved GI Bill benefits would lead to an increased rate of exit from the enlisted ranks.

Barack Obama, after acknowledging McCain's service, criticized him for opposing the bill. Obama was too polite, and too wise, to say what he could have said: that McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals and the husband of a multi-millionaire beer baron's daughter, never had to rely on the GI Bill for an education or the VA hospital system for his health care, and that McCain's opposition to the Webb bill reflected his constitutional incapacity for empathy with anyone less fortunate than he is. Obama said of McCain:

I respect Sen. John McCain's service to our country. He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the president in his opposition to this GI bill. I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him and the president more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing, but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them.

McCain responded with an astonishingly intemperate blast at Obama.

And a waaay we gooo.

It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. Let me say first in response to Senator Obama, running for President is different than serving as President. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.

When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. I grew up in the Navy; served for twenty-two years as a naval officer; and, like Senator Webb, personally experienced the terrible costs war imposes on the veteran. The friendships I formed in war remain among the closest relationships in my life. The Navy is still the world I know best and love most. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well .

Wha?

Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election.

Perhaps if John McCain would take the time to actually do his job on the floor of the Senate rather than screaming at his opponent for, um, disagreeing with him, we could have a more temperate discussion. But what fun would that be? Just calm rejoinders like this from Senator Obama.

I am proud to stand with Senator Webb and a bipartisan coalition to give our veterans the support and opportunity they deserve. It's disappointing that Senator McCain and his campaign used this issue to launch yet another lengthy personal, political attack instead of debating an honest policy difference. He should know that this is not about John McCain or Barack Obama — it’s about giving our veterans a real chance to afford four years of college without harming retention. Senator Webb’s bipartisan bill will do this, and the bill that John McCain supports would not. These endless diatribes and schoolyard taunts from the McCain campaign do nothing to advance the debate about what matters to the American people

I can't wait for the debates.