Given the dicey nature of politics, it’s not surprising that a fair number of politicians, including both of the men now running for president, enjoy some form of gambling. Barack Obama famously enjoys poker (though it’s also said he used it as much as a networking tool when he was starting out in Chicago politics as he might like it as recreation). John McCain enjoys my other favorite game, craps.

Now, the thing about craps is that, while it looks complicated, it’s actually extremely easy and simple once you learn to make the correct bets and avoid the wide variety of sucker bets the game offers. In fact, it’s so simple, far simpler than blackjack, that I’m not sure why I find it more exciting than, say, bingo or slot machines, both of which bore me silly. Maybe it’s the fact that you do occasionally get the roll the dice yourself that gives you the illusion of control. If anything, learning that John McCain likes craps makes me like him slightly more — even if the fact that Obama plays the more cerebral game of poker, I’m sure much better than me, is one tiny additional reason to respect him. Still, I don’t like reading about  how McCain appears to be taking a hard luck gambler’s approach to his transition.

And it worries me how McCain, as per Michael Kinsley (via HuffPo) apparently went supercalifragislistically ultra-ballistic in the most obnoxious (drunken?) way possible in reaction to the kind of mild faux pas/conflict that’s pretty common in craps, which after all involves a bunch of strangers jammed around a small table. Kinsley makes some kind of dumb statements in this post, but I believe the thrust of it, which includes this lowlight:

“McCain immediately turned to the woman and said between clenched teeth: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME.’ The woman started to explain…McCain interrupted her: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME,’ he repeated viciously. The woman again tried to explain. ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?’…..

Kinsley, who was born in 1951, absurdly calls John McCain “the best Republican presidential candidate of my lifetime.” Personally, I’d prefer Sydney as a potential president. Knowing how to behave is important. [Update: It just occurred to me this is probably unsafe for work — well, depending on where you work. It contains a few loud f-bombs dropped by Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s mullet head.]

Of course, maybe the poker player who’s way too cool to even allow himself to be goaded into making a really bad sucker bet, like placing $2,000 on the hard eight or invading Iraq, would be even better.