Mark Steyn, substituting for Rush Limbaugh yesterday, reminded listeners of a 2008 interview in which Daniel Craig, asked who would be the better James Bond, McCain or Obama, said
“Obama would be the better Bond because – if he’s true to his word – he’d be willing to quite literally look the enemy in the eye and go toe-to-toe with them,” Craig told Parade magazine in an issue which hits newspapers on Sunday. “McCain, because of his long service and experience, would probably be a better M [James Bond’s boss].”“There is, come to think of it, a kind of Judi Dench quality to McCain,” Craig added.
AccessHollywood, October 23, 2008
As Steyn said, on the face of it this is ridiculous—while McCain is now too old for active duty, McCain is about a thousand times more qualified to be James Bond than Obama.
McCain was, like Bond, a Commander in the Navy, a fighter pilot, shot down and tortured by Communists. McCain, as younger healthier man was trained in unarmed combat and pistol shooting, boxed at the Naval Academy, and did a fair amount of James Bond-like womanizing.(That's him above right.)
If he hadn’t gone into politics, and if he hadn’t been so badly injured in Vietnam, he could have done anything James Bond could. (An even more fascinating thought—this is also true of Enoch Powell.)
Barack Obama’s career, by contrast, has been conducted entirely indoors, in offices and classrooms. He’s never had a real job. He may look like James Bond in a dinner jacket (perhaps a slightly darker George Lazenby) but he’s the exact opposite of the Man of Action.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd says that when she’s sitting at her desk, writing a "tough" column, she fantasizes, that she's "Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit, giving a kung fu kick to any diabolical mastermind who merits it." In fact, what Ms. Dowd does for a living is nag and whine.
That’s more or less Obama’s role, too.
However, in office, Obama’s relentless drone warfare and his decision to allow the raid on Bin Laden show that he may have an essential ruthlessness which McCain lacks. After all, if McCain had had that kind of ruthlessness, he would have been President in 2008.
McCain is the fellow who wouldn’t allow his supporters to use the name Barack Hussein Obama, and said in 2008, "I have to tell you. Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don't have to be scared of as president of the United States."
But that still doesn’t make Obama James Bond—his role is more like that of either
I'll leave it up to the reader to decide.
