First, in response to a Chris Wallace question about his temper, McCain said:
.. if I lose my capacity for anger, then I shouldn't be president of the United States. When we have corruption in spending that ends up with people in federal prison, I get angry.
When I see greedy people like a guy cashing in millions of dollars on the backs of this Bear Stearns takeover, I get angry.
When I see the waste and corruption in Washington, I get angry. And you know what? The American people are angry, too. Look at the polls. Look at the polls.
This is a good answer, and a true one. Though anger gets a bad reputation, I've found that anybody who has ever done anything great has been a little bit angry about something. Whether it's injustice, poverty, or crime, there are things worth getting angry over -- and great leaders find constructive ways to harness it. Rosa Parks was angry about being put in the back of the bus, Ronald Reagan was angry about taxes and Communism, and the lady who started MADD was angry that her son was killed by a drunken driver ...
WALLACE: ... if I may, he had been supporting the Iraq war. He was one of the biggest supporters. Of course, you had voted for it as well. And you were talking about him as being a member of a Kerry administration.
KERRY: No, I — we had a conversation about whether or not to explore the issue. We never got to the full exploration, Chris, number one.
... But this interaction regarding Howard Dean's comment that John McCain is an "opportunist" was, perhaps, my favorite:
WALLACE: But if I may, do you think that John McCain was an opportunist when he was supporting the troop surge when no one else in the Congress was supporting the troop surge?
KERRY: No, I don't believe that.
WALLACE: Do you think John McCain was an opportunist when he refused to take early release from a North Vietnamese prison camp because he was the son of an admiral, because he said he was going to stay there for years, as long as all the other Americans did?
KERRY: Chris, please. I think you almost insult my intelligence and my values and those of every American. Nobody ever would insinuate that John McCain is anything but a hero for his activities in the prison camp...
WALLACE: Well, Howard Dean called him a blatant opportunist.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member