Taking the High Road?

John McCain came clean yesterday about the superficiality and trivialization of campaign coverage and didn't let himself off the hook:

"The hectic but repetitive routine of presidential campaigns often seems to consist entirely of back-and-forth charges between candidates, punctuated by photo ops, debates and the occasional policy speech, followed by another barrage of accusations and counter-accusations, formulated into the soundbites preferred by cable news producers. It is a little hypocritical for candidates or reporters to criticize these deficiencies. They are our creation."

The headlines, obviously, are focusing on McCain's vow to end the Iraq war by 2013. What is equally noteworthy, in my view, is his disavowal of partisan warfare. It struck me as an explicit disavowal of the Bush/Rove 50-plus-1 approach to politics. McCain even offered to come before Congress, a la Question Time in the British Parliament:

"I'm not interested in partisanship that serves no other purpose than to gain a temporary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end," he said.

Barack Obama, in promising a new kind of politics, has been saying much the same thing. Maybe this helps explain why each man has had a successful 2008. Average Americans looking at Washington see endless wrangling and maneuvering and few results. The Clintons pushed health-care reform. President Bush pushed Social Security reform. Nothing happened. Now McCain and Obama are promising to work across the aisle.

But can they maintain that lofty tone in the bump and grind of an intense campaign? Already we've had McCain trying to paint Obama as the candidate of Hamas and Obama trying to cast McCain as envisioning a 100-year war in Iraq (and that was before Obama slammed Bush for seeming to suggest that he and the Democrats are Nazi-like appeasers). High-minded exchanges are great, but what tends to happen in a campaign is that each side feels aggrieved by charges from the other side and uses them to justify its own rhetorical broadsides. McCain and Obama have talked about touring the country this summer for substantive debates. I doubt it will happen.

One thing's for sure: Many on the right hated Mac's speech. Michelle Malkin doesn't want no stinking bipartisanship:

"The fatal flaw lies in McCain's persistent belief, shared by the MSM and Beltway pundits, that partisanship in and of itself is at the root of all our ills.

"McCain's problem is that he has allied himself, for the unprincipled, empty cause of mindless "bipartisanship," with people and causes that move our country in the wrong direction.

"I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who makes common cause with La Raza/The Race.

"I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who sneers about profits like Ralph Nader.

"I don't want a Republican presidential nominee who talks and walks like Al Gore.