Eugene Robinson (WaPo) made a great point on Hardball.

[chupacabranation]

Regarding McCain's unwillingness to look or even interact w/Obama...

He said that McCain has a need to treat someone as an enemy, rather than a worthy opponent...A need to personalize a conflict, in order to get himself psychologically in the game. An all-or-nothing mentality.

I find that a frightening quality. Life, and Presidency, is not Rocky IV, there's a lot more nuance to it.

Anyhow, I thought that was an incredibly trenchant observation.

[PA Democrat]

1. Great observation.

It frightens me to think of him in the role of president. We need to rebuild relationships all over the world. You don't do that by treating someone with contempt. I see McCain as being incapable of diplomacy and as you stated as being incapable of nuance.

[Pirate Smile]

2. To McCain, he is Mr. Honorable so anyone against him is dishonorable &deserves to be treated as such

Imagine him dealing with foreign powers - anyone who doesn't agree with McCain totally will be an enemy and deserving of bomb, bomb, bombing.

[uponit7771]

3. I've learned something from Obama, you don't have to woop your enemies ass to get their attention

[RoyGBiv]

4. And that does not work in a leader ...

It makes you a poor leader.

Very good observation. Thanks for posting it.

K&R

[lapfog_1]

5. World politics is a *lot* like a chess match or poker.

if you personalize it, you give up a huge edge to your opponent.

in the poker world, you are "on tilt". McCain is predisposed to being on tilt in every hand. He would lose all of his chips very quickly. Games are built around players like that (i.e. cool collected winning players learn to find a table where there is one player on tilt, they sit down at that table and proceed to clean them out).

[kristopher]

6. I think it might be a trigger for his rage.

There is a lot of information in eye contact, and McCain was on guard against losing his temper. I'd bet the two are related - he loses it when he sees a certain something in the eye of people he is in conflict with.

[bluedeminredstate]

7. That is scary

when you think about the many ways that could go horribly wrong if he was the POTUS.
Thanks for posting this - I didn't hear Robinson say it, but it really does ring so true in McCain's case. "The Enemy" is a phrase you hear warmongers use all the time when referring to any party that is opposed to US policy whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, the so-called War On Terror, etc. and I really think this is exactly how McCain views Obama since his views don't match McCain's.

:scared:

[HughMoran]

8. McCain clearly showed that he lacks the temperment to be President

Between an incompetent VP choice and his psychologal issues with his "opponents", we just can't afford to have these losers in the WH.

[calmblueocean]

9. I'm telling you, in the morning and over the next couple of days, the eye contact story has legs.

So to speak.

It's really just a bizarre, insulting thing to do, to refuse to look at your opponent. The momentum behind this is going to build and build. I want to hear John McCain on the record trying to explain why he refused to look the first major-party black nominee for president in the eye for the course of an entire debate.

[jkshaw]

10. Agreed!

[young_at_heart]

11. I became uncomfortable watching him as time went on

It was so very noticeable and weird.

[Jennicut]

12. The constant laughter at Barack was off-putting as well

Bizarre and rude.