Divide and Conquer.

Witty George Will makes -- and strongly suggests that McCain make -- the best case for voting McCain:  divided government.  The idea is that even gridlock is better than a galloping monopoly -- galloping off in either direction.

Along the way, Will has some funny things to say about Palinmania, delicately suggesting it's a passing fancy:

The tech bubble was followed by the housing bubble, which has been topped by the Palin bubble. Bubbles will always be with us, because irrational exuberance always will be. Its symptom is the assumption that old limits have yielded to undreamed-of possibilities [...]

Its symptom is the assumption that old limits have yielded to undreamed-of possibilities.  That's vintage.  Let me stop and savor that for a moment.  It reminds me of so many things.  Especially the 1960s and the 1990s, with their convictions of liberation from the moral and financial laws of gravity, respectively, and their brash contempt for the deflationary warning nothing is new under the sun.  It takes Will so many fewer words to say it than it took me:

In the affluent, manic late ‘60s and late ‘90s, we really believed we had the power to reinvent ourselves. New ideas, new freedoms, or new technologies were going to bring forth the new, improved human at last. Then we woke up from that dream on recession’s morning after and found ourselves stuck with the same old, same old: greed, lust, wrath, envy, pride, gluttony and sloth. Almost as fast as Woodstock had turned to Altamont, the Internet turned into a huge hard-core peep show. (“Porn More Popular than Search,” read a Yahoo Technology News headline in 2004.) The paradisal wealth of the ‘60s had been built on war, the Utopian profits of the ‘90s on fantasy and fraud. The “old Adam” of theology was still way too much with us, unscathed by all the latest therapy and gadgetry; maybe only wised-up theologians, like old cops, could take him on.

Anyway, back to George Will:

Palin is as bracing as an Arctic breeze and delightfully elicits the condescension of liberals whose enthusiasm for everyday middle-class Americans cannot survive an encounter with one. But the country's romance with her will, as romances do, cool somewhat, and even before November some new fad might distract a nation that loves "American Idol" for the metronomic regularity with which it discovers genius in persons hitherto unsuspected of it.

Delicious.

Comments

[Khaki Elephant]

Is it me or has Will become more poetic of late?

[Outis]

Palin ... delightfully elicits the condescension of liberals whose enthusiasm for everyday middle-class Americans cannot survive an encounter with one.

Oh, that IS delicious! Thanks for cutting me a piece of cake for dessert, Annie.

Its symptom is the assumption that old limits have yielded to undreamed-of possibilities ....

Hmm, that sounds an aweful lot like the reaction to some other politician currently hogging the stage.

[Outis]

Of course, the difference is that Obama really can surpase old limits. Why, my soon to be 81 year-old mother has even decided to vote for a Republican for the first time in her life!

Actually, she's just voting against Obama, as she decided long before most that he's an empty suit. (She decided that even before I did - but she had the advantage of watching news channels 24/7 several months before I did.) But I still find it funny that a woman who passed on Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater and Reagan will now pull the lever for McCain. Unfortunately I haven't been able to talk her out of that, nor have I been able to talk my wife out of voting for McCain. IF I hadn't already been toying with the idea of voting for Obama this might have made me consider the idea!

[Outis]

Sur-PASS! Sur-PASS! They say typing skills are the first thing to go.

[mw]

I have been beating the divided government drum for two years on my blog. I voted for John Kerry to get divided government in 2004 and lost. I supported a straight Dem ticket in 2006 to get divided government and won. This year I will vote to re-elect divided government by supporting John McCain.

This scholarly article from a Constitutional lawyer puts more than a little academic cred behind the divided government thesis.

Anyway, Amba, I just wanted to let you know that I recently initiated a "Coalition of the Divided" blogroll for anyone who says anything vaguely positive about divided government. You are now a member in good standing.

[amba]

MW: Honored!

Outis: with a little effort, your family's votes can cancel each other out, in which case you will have attained your original objective of not voting1

[Christopher]

It's always good to hear from a conservative of Will's sort.