Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is still suffering from computer problems. He supposes he last recourse will be to wipe his hard drive and reload everything. He has a good backup of data, so that shouldn’t be a big problem… Just a big nagging chore over a weekend…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has wanted to comment on the financial meltdown occuring right now. Alas, between family time and computer time being limited, he hasn’t been able to carve out a bit of time to write something cogent. And this crisis deserves cogent thinking. It is a problem of tremendous complexity that has many causes and is beyond a short sound bite/short blog response. For the most part your Maximum Leader is glad he’s had computer problems because if he’d just started spouting off about the financial crisis it is likely he’d have written some pretty damned stupid stuff. Indeed, when he does write about it; it is likely he’ll still write some damned stupid stuff.

But someone out there is not writing stupid stuff. That someone is, as he often is, George Will. Your Maximum Leader was surprised, but in general agreement, with the tenor of Will’s latest column on John McCain. The harshest part of Will’s piece today was the close:

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

Your Maximum Leader has been pretty confident in the leadership abilities of John McCain from the primaries on. He’s said that John McCain was the only Republican who could possibly win in November. That is still the case. But listening to McCain over the past week have caused your Maximum Leader to shake his head and say “John… John… What the hell is wrong with you?”

Carry on.