Deflate The Rhetoric Already

John McCain is, for the most part, a class act and he proves it again:

Senator McCain does not deserve boos and President Obama does not deserve derisive laughter from this crowd. It is one thing to think a policy is misguided and harmful. It is something else to confuse advocacy of a bad policy with a desire to subvert the Constitution.

To the nice, well-meaning lady who asked Senator McCain that question, I have a very simple response: the Constitution does not contain any limits on the amount of money that Congress can spend. If you don't like Congress spending all that money, your concern is political, not Constitutional.

To Senator McCain: you should lead off with validating the woman's concern, not defending the President. Yes, an assurance of the President's fidelity to the Constitution should be in your answer, and you can also insert yourself in the response. Try this response out for starters: "Well, gee, ma'am, I think you're absolutely right to be worried about all that money and all that debt. You're absolutely right on. And you'd better believe President Obama knows we're still under a Constitution, and he won't forget it, either, because I'm right there in Congress to remind him of that. That's why he's talking with us in Congress about all that spending because under our Constitution, we in Congress control the spending, not the President in the White House."

See, you don't have to give up being partisan, you don't have to give up being an advocate for the policies you think are best, and you don't have to tell people things they don't want to hear -- and you can still be respectful and within the boundaries of sanity while discussing political issues. With that said, I'm glad Senator McCain gave the response he did rather than throwing out red meat to the crowd.