Vanity: Fair?

"Life isn't fair."

That, in part, was Senator McCain's response when questioned this week about why he has fallen behind Senator Obama nationally and in a rash of important battleground state polls.

Implicit in his response was an underlying sanctimonious arrogance and vanity, on full-display in last week's first presidential debate (one of many more likely reasons to explain his slide than the random cruelty of fate). It's as if McCain were saying, "Look. We all know this job should be mine. I've served in the military. I was a prisoner-of-war. I've been in the Senate for longer than the other guy's been eligible to vote. I'm a proven leader, a maverick. What can I say? I'm getting screwed."

Because, apparently, if life were fair, McCain and the moose-dressing marble-mouth at his side would be well on their way to an electoral landslide, based on the promise to continue the policies of fairness that resulted in the following:

Josh Wolf, a twenty-six year old California blogger, spent seven months in federal prison after refusing to turn over a video to the FBI, which documented police brutality at an otherwise peaceful protest demonstration.

Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon attorney, was held for two weeks, without ever being charged for a crime, after being wrongly accused by the FBI for involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

Tariq Ramadan, a formerly tenured professor at the University of Notre Dame, whose visa was revoked, resulting in the loss of his professorship, by the State Department after he provided charitible donations to two organizations with alleged connections to Hamas, thus categorized by the U.S. government as "terrorist fundraising organizations."

Would Senator McCain simply say to these men, whose lives changed irrevocably because of policies he, himself, supported and continues to support, "Hey, life isn't fair?"

As Edward Abbey wrote, "A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government." Someone ought to clue Senator McCain in on the following: Life isn't fair, but it's made exponentially unfairer by a government that defines patriotism for its people and limits their free expression.

That, my fellow Americans, is why McCain is falling increasingly behind Obama. And, that, for once, seems quite fair.