|
|
Article: THE REAL MEASURE OF A GOOD PRESIDENT IS HIS COMPETENCE, NOT CHARACTER.(Editorial)(Column)
- Article from:
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Article date:
- November 11, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The presidential character issue is back (it never seems to be gone for long). Does John McCain's terrific anger tell us something terrible about him? Does Al Gore's putative beta-ness on the Greek alphabet scale - or the attempt by Naomi Wolf, feminist and political adviser, to push him to alpha-ness - mean that he does not have the virility to rule? The questions are typical of the slippery way ``character'' is invoked as an indicator of electability.
In a country where the two-party system works toward compromise and the muting of issues, we lack the clear ideological clashes of multi-party contestants in a parliamentary system. Since defined views rarely keep ...