With everything that is going on, from the economy to Afghanistan to Iraq to health care reform, and with plenty of progressives understandably frustrated with some of the actions (and inactions) we have seen taken by the Obama administration in its first six months, it’s easy to forget how much worse things could have been. I was reminded of this when I saw a piece on Think Progress noting G.Gordon Liddy’s unhinged appearance on Hardball today. Liddy tried to lend credence to the idiotic birther nonsense, asserting that President Obama is an "illegal alien".

During the presidential campaign last year, as media elites breathlessly, and relentlessly, discussed Obama’s supposed connections with William Ayers, I noted that McCain had his own connection with a convicted felon–Liddy. Liddy, who was one of the Watergate burglars, and at one time plotted to murder a journalist, has called McCain a "close personal friend". McCain has appeared on Liddy’s radio show and his campaign web site provided call-in info for that show, urging McCain supporters to contact the ex-con, a man who in the mid-1990s instructed his listeners about the best way to kill federal agents.

It’s hard to know how Obama’s presidency will turn out, and he certainly seems to be approaching a crossroads with regard to health care reform. But it’s worth taking at least a brief moment to be grateful that we never had to see McCain, a man who the absolutely nutty G. Gordon Liddy has claimed as a personal friend, grapple with the economy, health care, or the other serious issues we are dealing with as a nation. I, for one, am glad I never had to see a President McCain welcoming his friend G. Gordon Liddy to the White House.