The Stature Gap

I'm not sure I buy the notion that McCain is too much of a rageoholic to be president. For one thing, I've had some anger management issues in my life and McCain doesn't seem that bad off to me. For another thing, coming from someone else I might worry that he'd inadvertently start a horribly destructive war with North Korea or something, but McCain's made it clear in the past that his considered view is that a horribly destructive war with North Korea could be a good idea. The anecdote that highlights McCain's real problem is here:

A platform that had been adequate for taller candidates had not taken into account the needs of the 5-foot-9 McCain, who left the suite and went looking for a man in his early 20s named Robert Wexler, the head of Arizona's Young Republicans, which had helped make arrangements for the evening's celebration. Confronting Wexler in a hotel ballroom, McCain exploded, according to witnesses who included Jon Hinz, then executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. McCain jabbed an index finger in Wexler's chest.

"I told you we needed a stage," he screamed, according to Hinz. "You incompetent little [expletive]. When I tell you to do something, you do it."

5'9" is probably too short to be elected president and, even worse for McCain, this is an anecdote from 1986. In the intervening 22 years he's almost certainly shrunk due to spinal compressional and he's actually below average. We used to elect short men to the White House before the invention of, you know, photography but there's no way this is going to fly in a modern context.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/04/the-stature-gap/44486/