Billy Kristol is a Comedian

It's hard to read Bill Kristol and not burst into uncontrollable laughter these days, but sometimes he outdoes himself. The basic premise behind today's column is that McCain needs to take a complete mulligan on his entire campaign efforts to date, and get back to some state of grace in which the American people can get to know the real McCain/Palin ticket as a couple of Happy Warriors who is amenable to bipartisan rule and willing to govern reasonably and competently from the center.

William the Bloody:

And let McCain go back to what he’s been good at in the past — running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate. Palin should follow suit. The two of them are attractive and competent politicians. They’re happy warriors and good campaigners. Set them free.

Provide total media accessibility on their campaign planes and buses. Kick most of the aides off and send them out to swing states to work for the state coordinators on getting voters to the polls. Keep just a minimal staff to help organize the press conferences McCain and Palin should have at every stop and the TV interviews they should do at every location. Do town halls, do the Sunday TV shows, do talk radio — and invite Obama and Biden to join them in some of these venues, on the ground that more joint appearances might restore civility and substance to the contest.

It's a lovely idea, but ignores the reality that this campaign will end up exactly where we knew it would all along. The campaign is McCain, it is unfocused, erratic, angry, incoherent and nasty, even a bit addle-brained. At the time McCain was ensured the Republican nomination, I predicted that he would "bring on the nasty", and I've not been disappointed. Pundits like Kristol have in their mind a version of McCain that not only doesn't exist, but has been proven to be demonstrably wrong time and again. From his well documented temper to his long history of erratic swings, both in policy and in approach, McCain is less a maverick and more of an angry old coot. The American people have come to realize that the more that they know of McCain, the more they dislike him.

UPDATE: Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly piles on Kristol a bit more:

This is, of course, the same Bill Kristol who devoted his column just seven days ago to urging McCain to do the opposite, attacking Obama with guilt-by-association smears. Kristol said he was looking forward to McCain taking off the "gloves."

McCain's strategy coincided nicely with Kristol's previous advice, and most evidence suggests the tactics failed. So, Kristol is now arguing that McCain should disregard all that advice from last week, and take his new suggestions to heart.

And if you want to get right down to it, Kristol was banging the table for Palin for veep months before anyone had even begun to experience her profound absurdity.