Late-Night McCainiacs

The showbiz bible Variety reports that moribund "comedy" program Saturday Night Live is "harking back to its rebel roots" by booking Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as a guest host for its next season.

What are the senator's rebel bona fides? His brave legislative actions lately have included sponsoring bills that would: gin up federal funding for detecting performance-enhancing drugs in athletes (McCain's bill would ensure that no such grant could be less than $500,000); raise automobile fuel mileage standards (which even at their current levels are known to cause 1,300 to 2,600 additional traffic deaths a year because of the tradeoff between fuel efficiency and auto safety–talk about trading blood for oil); and create a United States Boxing Administration. McCain seems to be the legislative equivalent of SNL's 1980-81 season (remember Charlie Rocket?).

What makes this Republican Vietnam war hero/war criminal so darn cool to a large segment of the American liberal-not-radical media? Some blame Vietnam guilt (they didn't go, while McCain bravely flew airplanes for about 10 hours and dropped bombs).

But based on what he gets the most press for, McCain's main attraction seems to be his tireless cheerleading for "campaign finance reform"–that is, placing further legal restrictions on citizens' ability to be involved in the political process (while coincidentally helping guarantee that incumbents like him have an easier time winning re-election). For this assault on our political rights, he gets a book-length tongue bath from Washington-insider reporter Elizabeth Drew and a berth on Saturday Night Live.

Riding the continuing wave of adulation symbolized by the SNL gig, there is even some talk of a 2004 independent presidential run for McCain. The country would be better off with Tim Kazurinsky.