As I listened to McCain’s speech on March 4th, when he had finally clinched the nomination for the Republican Party, I thought, “Wow, this speech is vapid.” To me, it seemed like a right-wing cliche beads strung together haphazardly.

Then, I came across the same critique of McCain on education. Blogger Matthew Yglesias says, “Strolling through John McCain’s policy proposals is a fascinating experience . . . lurking behind every link is a nearly-astounding level of vacuity.”

I agree with Christopher Hitchens that cliche is a problem in politics. Hitchens touches lightly on Romney, but most of his criticism is levelled at Obama. To be honest, I think Obama has less of a problem than McCain. Obama has the wonkiness to back up some of his rhetoric. McCain doesn’t.

To comment on cliche in general: We’ll unfortunately never eliminate our cliche-driven politics until we eliminate cable television. I don’t see that happening any time soon.

ADDENDA:
I should go through the speech and prove what I said about it.

Possible memes against McCain… he doesn’t care about the details, he’s less wonky than Obama. Then again, that opens Obama up to the pointy-headed intellectual charges. How about: as incurious as Bush?

Sorry about the kitchen sink notes. That’s why I shouldn’t brainstorm aloud. But if I don’t write this down, then I’ll never get anywhere.