The Week

Cheer up! Things could get much worse.

The financial blizzard and the first debate have lit up the presidential candidates like flares. John McCain is a man of the Senate, proud of its friendships, and reveling in the free hand that senators are given. He uses his stature to express the same nature he showed as a Navy pilot: aggressive, risk-taking, self-directed. Barack Obama is professorial, and writerly; he intellectualizes problems, the better to distance himself from them. Because he is eloquent, Americans have been slow to appreciate his underlying stance, though they may be starting to. We have put both types in the White House before (Andrew Jackson and TR for McCain, John Quincy Adams and Woodrow Wilson for Obama), with mixed results. McCain is a hero, possibly a leader, hopefully an executive; Obama would be the ideal historian of the Obama administration. We hope Bismarck was right when he said that God looks out for drunkards, children, and the United States.

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Presidential Election

Cheer up! Things could get much worse.

The financial blizzard and the first debate have lit up the presidential candidates like flares. John McCain is a man of the Senate, proud of its friendships, and reveling in the free hand that senators are given. He uses his stature to express the same nature he showed as a Navy pilot: aggressive, risk-taking, self-directed. Barack Obama is professorial, and writerly; he intellectualizes problems, the better to distance himself from them. Because he is eloquent, Americans have been slow to appreciate his underlying stance, though they may be starting to. We have put both types in the White House before (Andrew Jackson and TR for McCain, John Quincy Adams and Woodrow Wilson for Obama), with mixed results. McCain is a hero, possibly a leader, hopefully an executive; Obama would be the ideal historian of the Obama administration. We hope Bismarck was right when he said that God looks out for drunkards, children, and the United States.