John McCain on "Why I want to be president":
I want to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest.
[. . .]
America wants hope. America wants optimism. America wants us to sit down together.
Barack Obama:
And I want to be president because that's the America I believe in and I feel like that American dream is slipping away. I think we are at a critical juncture.
Gene Healy on McCain and Obama wanting to be president:
In the original constitutional scheme, the president wasn't supposed to be the Empath-in-Chief or a national life coach-cum-self-help guru, charged with getting us off our duffs and uniting us all behind a higher calling. He was there to faithfully execute the laws, defend the country from foreign attack, and check Congress with the veto power whenever it exceeded its constitutional bounds. The formless, boundless vision of presidential responsibility revealed in Obama and McCain's answers shows us how dangerously far we've travelled from that modest, unromantic conception of the president's role.
Hallelujah and amen.
