John McCain as Blogger

Jonathan Chait zings Andrew Sullivan by noting that he has a lot in common with John McCain, in the sense that both men view world events in moral and ideological, rather than data-driven, terms.

It's a fair point, but Chait loses his mind when he suggests that John McCain would make a great blogger. The obvious dig here is blogger, not president. But of course John McCain would be a horrible blogger, as anyone who thinks about it a moment would conclude. Assuming he figures out how to log onto the internet, would anyone be able to stand the constant repetition of hawkish boilerplate and analogies to POW life? It would be an unending, digitalized stream of grandpa's "when I was young" rants.

This hints at something deeper, which is that Sullivan and McCain are actually quite different in their political styles. What makes Sullivan a compelling read is that he regularly cross-examines himself. Viewing the world in moral terms is his starting point, wheras for McCain (and Bush) it is the end point. This has led Sullivan into a commendable fit of apostasy, which is a strength, not the weakness that Chait would have you suppose it is.