John McCain's Hysteria (and Joe Elliott's)

I don't usually just recycle others' posts, but this one is (a) so spot-on and (b) so important a point that I'm going to make an exception. Here's the full text of Matt Yglesias's post titled The Hysteria-Based Foreign Policy:

Matt Welch has an excellent little reason article putting John McCain’s heated Georgia rhetoric in the context of McCain’s larger record of overreacting to every international event. He wasn’t just worried by North Korea’s nuclear program in 1994, he called it “the most dangerous and immediate expression” of “the greatest challenge to U.S. security and world stability today.” He didn’t just favor military action over Kosovo, he wanted “infantry and armored divisions for a possible ground war” thrown into the mix as part of “an immediate and manifold increase in the violence against Serbia proper and Serbian forces in Kosovo.” But he also thinks that Islamic radicalism is “the transcendent issue of our time” and also that the standoff with Russia is the first “serious crisis internationally” since the end of the Cold War, since Russia is aiming “to restore the old Russian Empire.”

In short, not only is Russia on the march beyond Tbilisi to Ukraine, Finland, and substantial swathes of Poland but that’s not even the transcendent issue of our time. And North Korea’s nuclear program is “the greatest challenge to U.S. security and world stability today” but that’s not the transcendent issue of our time. And Islamism is the transcendent issue of our time, but not a serious international crisis or an especially great challenge to U.S. security and world stability. Now of course there’s no way to make sense of that, because it’s not supposed to make any kind of sense. McCain just thinks that overreacting is the right reaction to everything. It’s a hysteria-based foreign policy.

As a bonus side note, it's remarkable how apt the lyrics to Def Leppard's "Hysteria" are when applied to John McCain's weak-in-the-knees media cheerleaders:

Hysteria

Out of touch, out of reach yeah
You could try to get closer to me
I'm in luck, I'm in deep, yeah
Hypnotized, I'm shakin' to my knees

I gotta know tonight
If you're alone tonight
Can't stop this feeling
Can't stop this fire

Oh, I get hysterical, hysteria
Oh can you feel it, do you believe it?
It's such a magical mysteria
When you get that feelin', better start believin'
'Cos it's a miracle, oh say you will, ooh babe
Hysteria when you're near
Out of me, into you yeah
You could hide it's just a one way street
Oh, I believe I'm in you, yeah
Open wide, that's right, dream me off my feet
Oh, believe in me

I gotta know tonight
If you're alone tonight
Can't stop this feeling
Can't stop this fire

[Repeat Bridge]

[Repeat Chorus]

Oh, I get hysterical, hysteria
Oh can you feel it, do you believe it?
It's such a magical mysteria
When you get that feelin', better start believin'
'Cos it's a miracle, oh say you will

Ooh babe
Hysteria when you're near

Come on