Today in Slate, Christopher Hitchens phoned in a piece on John McCain’s temper–a subject that could benefit from frank analysis. Hitchens merely uses the occasion to unload a barrage of comic euphemisms, but at least something of interest is touched upon. Hitchens writes:

About two decades ago, facing a group in his state GOP that resisted proclaiming a state holiday for Martin Luther King Jr., he shouted, “You will damn well do this” and rammed the idea home with other crisp and terse remarks.

Remember when, once in a while, politicians would lose their cool over a matter of principle? All we’ve seen this election go-round are tantrums in response to personal slights and manufactured anger designed to create the illusion of character. The problem for Democrats is that genuine outrage requires intolerance–and if there’s one thing the Left can’t stand, it’s intolerance.

Damning America? Unfortunate but tolerable. Engaging in domestic terrorist acts in the 70’s? Regrettable but tolerable. What, after all, was John Kerry’s national security goal? “[T]o get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance,” i.e., tolerable. And now that we’re at war? After five years of hard-won progress, we are supposed to understand that while letting Iraq slip into the hands of either Sunni or Shiite extremists would be perhaps a “nuisance,” it would be . . .tolerable. A nuclear Iran? Tolerable. And on, and on.

There’s something wrong with a leader who can’t muster a little justified outrage and even anger in response to the abominations of the enemy. Hoping is the easiest thing in the world. It’s getting mad in a multi-culti, PC world that demands audacity.