The NYT endorses Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

Here and here. I was going to mention it yesterday, but it's a travel weekend for me and, also, I found it boring.

I do find it amusing that as I was typing the previous sentence — in this restaurant, The Driskill Grill, where I'm eating breakfast — I overheard a man at the next table say: "I like Obama. I like Edwards. I don't like Hillary Clinton."

From the Times:

Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe.

Why does that apply to Mitt Romney, who doesn't seem like the angry type? I think we could sort all the candidates — from both parties — by the level of their emotional heat. Giuliani and McCain are hot. Romney and Huckabee are cool. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are hot. Barack Obama is cool.

(There's a sense in which Mitt Romney is hilariously uncool and utterly not in the same category as Obama, but I'm not talking about that.)

To be fair, the NYT referred not to the emotional style of the candidate, but to the emotional quality of some "small" "fringe" that a President would govern "from and on behalf of." But how does that apply to Romney? Here's their disqualification of Romney:

Mitt Romney’s shape-shifting rivals that of Mr. Giuliani. It is hard to find an issue on which he has not repositioned himself to the right since he was governor of Massachusetts. It is impossible to figure out where he stands or where he would lead the country.

Shape-shifting? In other words: flexibly and pragmatically bending one way or another in an effort to respond to constituents. Isn't that exactly the opposite of "of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe"?

The NYT rhetoric is absolutely incoherent.

Ha, ha, suddenly I don't find the NYT endorsements boring at all. It must be these Texas scrambled eggs and sausage fortifying me.

So let's see why we're supposed to like Hillary Clinton more than Barack Obama. If the idea is to get away from "governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe," isn't Obama perfect?

Mr. Obama has built an exciting campaign around the notion of change, but holds no monopoly on ideas that would repair the governing of America. Mrs. Clinton sometimes overstates the importance of résumé. Hearing her talk about the presidency, her policies and answers for America’s big problems, we are hugely impressed by the depth of her knowledge, by the force of her intellect and by the breadth of, yes, her experience.

Oh, now it's all about experience and expertise.

Why worry about governing "from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe" when it's your small, angry fringe?