Well said. And, to put a crueler point on it, McCain is not exactly long on physcial. charisma himself. Bush's appeal to the ladies is a wholesome but undeniably vigorous one--active, loyal, steadfast. McCain turns his face when the camera comes around, trying to show his "good" side. His demeanor is frail when he's not gloating over his latest betrayal of conservatives, trying to score points with the MSM. Perhaps he can be of use as a distraction as we groom a better prospect...
He just doesn't have the juice. By 08, he'll be nearing his mid-seventies.
As for the neocons, I took pains to draw attention to the intellectual "wing"--I don't know that there's anything else to be concerned with. I invite you to do a long read by googling (or dogpiling) up "Balkan neoconservative" and "balkan neoconservative Kristol" for some rather alarming reading of the attitudes and philosophical foundations of these elitists. You don't have to be a paleo to distrust the neo literati--
2. The "neocon" term is a pet peeve of mine to the point, perhaps, of idiosyncracy. I am not waiting for cues from Bill Kristol or many of his contemporaries. I DO believe, as they do, in a verrrrrry aggressive and unilateral and interventionist foreign policy and military policy. am ready to concede that the administration has badly mismanaged the manpower needs of the military by depending on reservists whose sacrifices are very great since they often have families and businesses of their own and mortgage commitments and what not that are devastated by a foolish desire to downsize the active duty military at all much less during wartime. Also, most men are at their physical peak in their late teens and in their twenties not during their thirties ad forties.
3. Some of the "neo-literati" are the paleos who run outfits like the Rockford Institute and go all weepy over anti-war poetry while drinking and posing as conservatives. Movement conservatives are people who focus on conservative policy and, at best, treat literature as a hobby. The paleowhatevers are people who were never credentialed under Ronaldus Maximus and have made up a myth of "neo-conservatives" hijacking Reagan to explain their career failures. I live not far from the Rockford Institute and am thus more allergic to their tripe than most people who can more easily ignore them.
McCain has made himself a permanent excommunicatee from conservatism.
BTW, the paleo Rockford Institute suffers from obsession with the colorful cultures of Serbia and Montenegro. They for their isolationist reasons and I for my very different reasons (why waste blood and resources on the Balkans/If Slick Willie supports a war, it just MUST be wrong), agree ultimately that there should have been no American involvement there.
One last observation on the marriage front. A real man sees his wife as something far more than a mere physical package even at marriage or he is a fool. When he marries, he ought to be asking what woman best qualifies as mother of his children and to be there at his own death? If divorce should occur, will she have the moral spine to act as a real mother regardless of custody arrangements?
Then he can turn the same spotlight on himself and ask why such a woman should be interested in marrying him with all the faults he knows he has. Is he willing and, indeed, eager to accept that the upbringing and well-being of his children and his own role in that upbringing is far more important than his own transitory entertainments? Likewise that his wife's well-being is more important to him and objectively than his own? History teaches that men are expendable and that principled women are not expendable.
Thanks for your kind response. May God bless you and yours.