McCain Enters the Octagon

Virginia Postrel highlights this section of a David Plotz article on Ultimate Fighting to underscore McCain's weird let's ban everything instincts. For example, McCain decided at one point that UFC bouts should be banned:

When I tell people I'm an ultimate fighting fan, they invariably respond: "Don't people get killed all the time doing that?" But no one has ever been killed at the UFC--though boxers are killed every year. No one has even been seriously injured at the UFC. On the rare occasions when a bout has ended with a bloody knockout, the loser has always walked out of the ring.

But this does not impress boxing fans, who are the most vigorous opponents of extreme fighting. McCain sat ringside at a boxing match where a fighter was killed. When I asked him to explain the moral distinction between boxing and ultimate fighting, he exploded at me, "If you can't see the moral distinction, then we have nothing to talk about!" Then he cut our interview short and stormed out of his office.

I, for one, can't see the moral distinction and it seems troubling to contemplate the idea of a president who's banning stuff based on moral distinctions he can't even be bothered to explain. It was, however, straight-talky of him to at least come out and admit that he has no defense of his position on the issue besides a desire to impose his tastes on the country.