Jonah: I think you may mistake the conservative discomfort about McCain. Speaking for myself, my problem with McCain isn’t about policy specifics—I abhor his immigration views, obviously, but then I held my nose and voted for W last time, and could see myself, under certain narrow, special circumstances, voting for Giuliani, and they’re both as bad as McCain on immigration. Rather, the things people point to—the maverick stuff, the moral preening for the media, limits on the First Amendment, maybe even Kyoto—are symptoms of a larger problem; specifically, that he’s a bonapartist or, as Grover puts it, a caesarist. I don’t mean just that he has a big ego and thinks he’s the greatest thing since the hula hoop—that’s pretty much a job requirement for politicians. Instead, (and again, this is just the vibe I get from him, I don’t have any youtube videos to point to) he acts as though he’s the embodiment of the General Will, the personification of the Nation, “the man on the white horse”, as the French say. I don’t mean to sound unhinged about the man, but his character—his political temper, at least—is simply incompatible with republican institutions.