McCain's acceptance speech

Again, scattered thoughts:

• The words "I fought corruption" should never pass the lips of a charter member of the Keating Five.
• "I fight for you" is a clever tag line, and I presume the image that the McCain campaign has settled upon.  This will allow them--just barely--to keep making the ridiculous claim that John McCain doesn't like to bring up the fact that he was a POW.  If John McCain didn't want to bring it up, he would have instructed his staff not to mention it to every single person they talk to, including the barista at Caribou Coffee.
• Ack!  The dreaded "Free America from Dependence on Foreign Oil" meme rears its ugly head.  This is high definition hogwash.  Drilling isn't going to save us from Demon Oil any more than windmills will.  It might make us some money.  But we'll still be part of a world economy that will be pigheaded about buying their oil from funny people who don't even speak English.
  
• John McCain does not seem particularly comfortable talking about God.  The lines are there, but they're mechanical, clearly recited by rote.
• McCain claims he'll cut government spending.  I'll believe it when I see it.
• Boy, the folks at the RNC really hate national health care.
• Just as with Obama, the actual policy/issues content could have been taken straight from the RNC! Greatest Hits 1980-2004 compilation album.  McCain's main contribution is the shocking revelation that--you probably didn't realize this--he was a POW.  I'm more impressed by his delivery than I was by Obama's, but that's because my expectations were lower than they were for Obama--objectively, Obama's delivery was still probably better.  Frankly, the Fog of War has erased the thing from my mind.  It's probably PTSD from all the blinking things on the convention stages.
  
• The other major change isn't really a change--it's a relative shift to emphasizing the martial virtues.  This, I think, is why Kerry seemed so ridiculous "reporting for duty"--his political persona was about as far as you could get from the warrior ethos.  McCain is the real thing.  Too much of the real thing, for my taste--he seems to think that the values that guide a brigade should also guide the nation at large.  This is a bad idea for the same reason that we should not be run by the codes of the Bar Association or the Hippocratic Oath.