Whatever happened to individual responsibility?  Those used to be a Republican buzzwords, but they've faded from the lexicon lately.  

The absence was even pronounced in John McCain's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night.  According to the transcript, President Bush was never referred to by name.  As amazing as this is, the candidate of the President's party running to succeed him in office wants change but has nothing whatsoever to say about the current office holder.  Unless McCain is arguing that Bush actually made no decisions during the last eight years, a conspiracy theory I've heard advanced in other quarters (though generally as a joke), at some point the man has to be held accountable for his actions.

I had the same problem eight years ago when I decided not to vote for Gore because as an idealistic and new attorney, not to mention former federal law enforcement officer, I couldn't accept his refusal to publicly condemn President Clinton for his perjury.  For this voter, some things just need to be said publicly.  Gore needed to do it then, and McCain needed to do it Thursday.

McCain is now in a similarly awkward position, but one that I'd hoped his highly-touted ethics and maverick streak would have guided him through.  He claims to be an agent of change, but in this speech couldn't or wouldn't renounce those individuals who brought us to this point.  A campaign of change implies that things have gone wrong, but a refusal to identify the causes of the needs for change suggest a state of denial that make his pledge of change seem lukewarm at best.

There were parts of his speech that I whole-heartedly agreed with, most notably this section:

“I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Sen. Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.”

It was correct, and what needed to be said.  People within the current administration caused a lot of Americans to lose their trust in the Republican Party.  But it doesn't go far enough, and I'm not certain any Republican nominee can go far enough within the framework of the party.  I am a Republican, but I'm not sold on the idea that the Republican Party, or their candidate for President, has done nearly enough to break from the last eight years to warrant consideration of four more years of Republican control of the White House.  Maybe it will be necessary to wait for a fresh generation to work their way up through the system if we want to see real change within the Republican Party structure.  

I'm willing to wait for those new leaders to emerge then see four more years of the status quo.  

Without some evidence that McCain knows the roots of the need for change, how am I as a voter supposed to believe he can accomplish the needed change?  As things stand now, I have to conclude he can't.

One last point: He really looked tired to me.  In a campaign where he wants to avoid his age and health becoming issues, he really needed to come across better.