by Frances Simon

Created on: March 10, 2008   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

There is no love lost between President Bush and John McCain. The 2000 Republican Primary was a story of negative campaigning and brilliant but nasty strategies created by Karl Rove. John McCain had been in the lead prior to the implementation of this MO.

More recently, John McCain and President Bush have been locked in battle on a number of issues. Most highly publicized of these was the question of whether or not waterboarding is torture. McCain was eventually pressured into voting for legislation that declared this as a reasonable means of extracting information from prisoners of war.

The video of President Bush endorsing John McCain would have been amusing if it had not been so concerning. This depicted Bush as providing McCain with the least respect possible. On his part, McCain was already distancing himself.

The tone of this meeting was set even before it occurred. John McCain was late to the event. Bush came out at the scheduled time, presumably unaware of McCain's delay. To fill the time he performed a tap dance.

While we can't be sure if McCain's delay was an intentional attempt to demonstrate his lack of respect for Bush, or if Bush's tap was a metaphor for his impending endorsement of McCain, these are both curious to the observer. While Bush's endorsement was said unequivocally, the obvious difference and distance between the two men was emphasized by their body language. Not only did they appear uncomfortable with each other, but there was a physical distance between the two that spoke of the conflicts that had preceded this expression of unity.

The spoken endorsement reflected this distance and discomfort, as well as Bush's low popularity rating. Bush stated that he would do whatever McCain wanted. If he wanted him to appear with him he would do that. If he "wanted him to dislike him" he would do that. This was hardly a ringing endorsement.

Clearly, President Bush's endorsement was strictly motivated by the desire to keep a Republican in the White House. Had Bush been asked to choose a republican candidate for the presidency, McCain would probably have been his last chose. However, the thinking of the Republican Party is that anyone would have been better than McCain.

The religious bias with which George Bush has run his presidency has not disappeared simply because he will be leaving office. A candidate with a more moderate position is not someone he would have chosen to follow him into the White House. However, as the most important republican in the United States, he had little chose but to endorse the Republican's Party's nominee for the leader of the free world.

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