All right, Hitch, you did the right thing in the end.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Christopher Hitchens endorsed Obama a few days ago, despite having previously -- inanely -- acted as cheerleader for the Palin/McCain freak show. For a number of years now, it has ceased to matter what Hitchens has had to say. I say that and yet, I had expressed -- in less than gentlemanly terms -- my dismay when Hitchens sleep-walked his way through a preposterous hatchet-job against Obama in a recent installment of his column in Slate. So I guess it must matter, at least a little bit.

So, I'll give credit where credit is due. Hitchens concludes his article with three paragraphs that I believe articulate the moral necessity of voting for Obama in this election, irrespective of which section of the political spectrum you occupy in normal times. Because McCain is really that unhinged, Palin is really that vapid and idiotic, and the times are not normal.

Moreover, given the interventionist economic measures pursued by our Republican White House, the huge deficits for which Bush is responsible (like his father and Reagan before him), anyone who espouses a "free market" ideology will have to look elsewhere than the Republican Party this year for their candidate. so these laissez faire types may as well line up behind such conservatives as Hitchens, David Brooks, George Will, and, satisfyingly, Christopher Buckley (son, of course, of William F., and who has, as a consequence, parted ways with the National Review, the publication his father founded), and make the only morally tenable decision available to them when they're inside the voting booth.

Anyway, here are Hitchens's concluding paragraphs, in which he doesn't mince words:

The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: "What does he take me for?" Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.

Read the rest of Hitchens's endorsement, in Slate.

Citing McCain's "boiling moralism & bottomless reservoir of certitude," conservative George Will questions McCain's fitness to occupy Oval Office.

A recent Crib From This post discussed the growing number of conservative journalists and Republican politicians who have expressed serious reservations about supporting McCain or have withdrawn their support outright. On last Sunday's This Week on ABC, longstanding conservative columnist/commentator George Will described McCain's recent behavior as "unpresidential," concluding that "John McCain showed his personality this week...and made some of us fearful."

Will reaffirms his criticisms of McCain's temperament and character in today's Washington Post:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama. ....

For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Post of Sept. 17; and the New York Times of Sept. 19.)....

By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions." This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases." ....

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

This is not mild criticism. That it comes from perhaps the most stalwart, respected and intellectually honest figure in American conservatism is a significant development. I mean, seriously. If George Will is starting to lean toward supporting Obama, it means there's hope that pretty much any conservative -- even my parents -- could be convinced to support the Democratic candidate in November.