McCain: flip-flop vs. shooting from the hip and shooting himself in the foot

From Daniel Henninger's essay entitled "Is John McCain stupid?" in the WSJ...

This reminds me of the perennial question about flip-flopping vs. moving to the center for the general election...

Heninger opens with the question "Is John McCain losing it?" and then covers McCain's recent gymnastics about the possibility about raising payroll taxes to deal with Social Security. (Ouch!)

What I'm asking is, does John McCain have the mental focus, the intellectual discipline, to avoid being out-slicked by Barack Obama, if he isn't abandoned by his own voters?

Heninger's words are interesting here. It's as if he buys into the McCain = old = semi-senility argument/assertion. Then, Heninger turns to...

Al Gore's assertion that the U.S. could get its energy solely from renewables in 10 years". Sen. McCain said: "If the vice president says it's doable, I believe it's doable." What!!??

Then this week in San Francisco, in an interview with the Chronicle, Sen. McCain called Nancy Pelosi an "inspiration to millions of Americans." Notwithstanding his promises to "work with the other side," this is a politically obtuse thing to say in the middle of a campaign. Would Bill Clinton, running for president in 1996 after losing control of the House, have called Newt Gingrich an "inspiration"?...

The one thing -- arguably the only thing -- the McCain candidacy has going for it is a sense among voters that they don't know what Barack Obama stands for or believes. Why then would Mr. McCain give voters reason to wonder the same thing about himself? You're supposed to sow doubt about the other guy, not do it to yourself....

A degree of pandering to the center is inevitable. But this stuff isn't pandering; it's simply stupid....If Sen. Obama's "inexperience" is Mr. McCain's ace in the hole, why not trump that by asking, "Does Sen. McCain know his own mind?"