Posted on 05/06/2008 1:11:25 AM PDT by Yosemitest
Senator John McCains ascendancy in the Republican presidential race has been truly remarkable.
Yet, its no groundswell.
To this point, about two out of every three primary and caucus participants have voted against him.
If the Democrats and independents some states permit to crash the Grand Old Party were factored out, his standing in the Republican base would be even less impressive.
Still, you have to hand it to his admirers:
As it happens, the received wisdom about McCains suddenly broad support mirrors the regnant narrative about his chief qualification for the job: Its a mirage.
SINGING THE DEMOCRATS TUNE
The senator is portrayed as the GOP fields only ready-for-prime-time commander-in-chief. Surely, we are told, this is what matters most in an era of national-security peril.
For McCains conservative supporters, it is the tirelessly restated rationale for overlooking that,
The sales job is a myth.
In reality, a McCain presidency would promise an entirely conventional, center-left, multilateralism.
If you liked the second Bush term,
Dont take my word for it. Read McCains own Foreign Affairs essay, published late last year, in which the senator dilates on his philosophy. The leitmotif of An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom is that Americas tattered standing in the world must be restored. Typical is this:
Much scorn deservedly came Governor Mike Huckabees way when, in his own Foreign Affairs piece, he scalded the Bush administrations arrogant bunker mentality, so counterproductive at home and abroad.
Yet McCains very similar (if less-bracing) riffs have drawn little attention. The Bush years, he says, have left us in desperate need to restore and replenish the worlds faith in our nation and our principles. America thus needs a president who can revitalize the countrys purpose and standing in the world. Even as such important European governments as France and Germany have become more conservative and drawn closer to American leadership, McCain laments that President Bush has frayed the bonds we share with Europe thanks, no doubt, to the kind of abusive tactics properly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions that he intimates have been standard fare.
Close your eyes, and you can hear these same lines regurgitated by any conventional Democrat, whether its Sen. Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, or even Sen. John Kerry the Democrats last standard-bearer who, you may recall, entreated McCain to be his running mate, the extent of their common ground being patent.
Contrary to the assurances of McCains admirers, his own essay tells us the senator is still the same guy who in 2000, upon being asked what he would do immediately upon being elected president, said he would turn, among others, to Sen. Kerry, Sen. Joe Biden, and Zbigniew Brzezinski (President Jimmy Carters national-security adviser) to to get foreign policy, national security issues back on track.
SUSTAINING THE DEMOCRACY PROJECT
We must, of course, give Sen. McCain the obligatory nod for supporting the surge.
Admittedly, it is disquieting to hear McCain on the campaign trail battering former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld (whom, as Salon reminds us, he was praising for having done a fine job more than a year after the Iraq invasion).
And his periodic reliance on General Eric Shinseki
Still, the senator must be given his due.
To have appeared to be driven from Iraq by al-Qaeda would have been a disaster of incalculable proportions for the United States.
When many around him, Left and Right, seemed ready to abandon ship,
But does that translate into deserving the presidency?
In terms of the greater war on terror, which is the central foreign-policy challenge for the next administration,
Sen. McCain tells us he is the best fit for taking this war to our enemies,
Sen. McCain admirably talks about winning in Iraq.
But the war isnt limited to, or even principally about, Iraq.
The surge has pacified Baghdad, but were in serious danger of losing the wider war.
And, in fact, the jury is still out on whether the government Americans have been asked to sacrifice so much for in Iraq will actually be an American ally when it comes to Iran, the central problem in the region.
Sen. McCain suggests no strategy for winning the wider war.
He talks about fighting radical Islam, but he doesnt evince much understanding of radical Islam he seems to think, like the Bush administration, that it can be democratized into submission.
Fundamentalist Islam, which commands the loyalty of tens of millions of the worlds 1.4 billion Muslims, is anti-democratic:
There is no proof that democracy would cure what ails the Muslim world,
This is the strategy of the Clinton years and the second Bush term:
McCain, moreover, continues to believe, as he wrote in Foreign Affairs, that the long-elusive quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians must remain a priority.
Why this is so is not explained.
McCain adopts the rose-tinted Clinton/Bush glasses through which Hamas appears as the sole cause of the quests elusiveness. This wishes away the stubborn fact that
Translation: Maintain the same failed status quo.
And therein lies the folly of McCains experience argument:
His democracy infatuation is such that McCain also plans to create a League of Democracies.
THE DOMESTIC AGENDA
Sen. McCains initiatives on the international stage would be shored up by similarly dubious domestic policies.
On the intelligence front, that means yet another new bureaucracy.
This is rich.
Only four years ago, Sen. McCain insisted that the gross misfeasance of our $40 billion, 17-agency intelligence community could be cured by adopting the 9/11 Commissions typical Washington fix:
Now McCain wants to build on this, er, success with a modern-day OSS (the original OSS having been the WWII-era Office of Strategic Services).
Its a foolish idea, but its the sort of thing one expects from an irascible senate maverick
When confronted with this possibility, Sen. McCain and his backers snicker that such suggestions are absurd.
Critics are duly expected to melt, and many of them do.
Some of us, however, have actually had to fight the jihad in the courtroom.
That the senator clearly had no intention whatsoever to lay the groundwork for Mirandizing the battlefield will, you can bet, have little impact on a judge
Senate Democrats serially insist that the McCain Amendment prohibits waterboarding.
Sorry to break the news, but the legal argument that it requires Miranda is no less viable. Thats why the legislations ambiguity was so irresponsible.
McCains campaign against coercive interrogation methods
Similarly, Sen. McCain wants to close the terrorist holding facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Interrogations there have produced intelligence that has saved American lives.
Bringing the terrorists detained there into the United States would risk vesting them with the same due process rights as the American citizens they are pledged to kill
What is the upside to giving them this precious information?
For Sen. McCain it is again what he sees as Americas reputation in the world.
But look: America has selflessly freed millions of Muslims from tyrannical regimes.
Most of us are a lot more concerned about protecting Americans
The mystery is
The surge can only camouflage so much.
Sen. McCains readiness to be the commander-in-chief fit for todays perils is the grand hope his supporters offer to overcome substantial conservative doubts.
Its a mirage.
I'll give an answer: No.
Bush nominated them both but I'll never vote for another Bush again as long as I live. If GWB were running again I wouldn't vote for him anymore either.
For some reason you seem to believe a Republican in CA is no different then a Rep in Fla or Tenn. They are not. He was elected because the former Gov was recalled and the (liberal) population believed he was one of them even though he had an R after his name and they wanted a change.
I used illegal immigration only to make a point. In case you missed it the point was that no other issue comes close to that of national defense and fighting and winning the WOT. Despite your beliefs, which you are entitled to, it is the number one job of the president and McCain is better suited to carry this out. I never put a time table on when we would "all be dead" Electing a liberal starts the clock running for the time we will see large radioactive clouds over one or more of our cities.
Alarmist enough for you? Alarmist or not it's true.
Again--you completely ignore the point.
In case you missed it the point was that no other issue comes close to that of national defense and fighting and winning the WOT.
If we hand over our own country through McCain backed programs like Amnesty and Global Warming, winning the WOT won't make much difference. If we have no country...
Despite your beliefs, which you are entitled to, it is the number one job of the president and McCain is better suited to carry this out.
None of them are suited to carry it out. But thanks for allowing me to be "entitled" to my own beliefs. That's big of you.
I never put a time table on when we would "all be dead" Electing a liberal starts the clock running for the time we will see large radioactive clouds over one or more of our cities. Alarmist enough for you? Alarmist or not it's true.
So now, we are back to square one. Do you really believe that Democrats, the American people, and the entire DOD, DHS, CIA, NSA, and all the other agencies, will stand down and allow themselves, their families, and their communities to be destroyed? Yeah... I call you alarmist.
ALLOW us to be destroyed? How will they prevent it if the CIC is busy placating the enemy and running around apologizing for the past 8 years of our protecting ourselves by going on the offensive against those who have publicly sworn to kill us all?
LOL, you actually seem to believe that the animals will back off if we leave them alone and leave Iraq before the job is done. You further seem to believe that we can negotiate with Iran to get therm to quit their nuke development. Oh yeah, let's all join hands and sing 2 choruses of KUM BI YA and all will be fine. Yeah, I'm an alarmist alright and you had better pray to whichever God you worship that I am wrong because if I'm not none of us will have to worry about illegal aliens or any of the other things you believe are more important then keeping us alive.
You have no clue as to what I believe and please don't put words in my mouth.
Your liberal tactics stink.
"A man of the caliber of a Ronald Reagan's character" would NEVER support that Democrat McCain!!!
A man of the caliber of a Ronald Reagan would NEVER accept the V.P. slot with a Democrat like McCain.
You say no and then qualify it by claiming it could NEVER happen.
But suppose it DID happen? The reason behind the move if it happened would be to get a REP (McCain) in the WH and then have the Reagan like (Conservative) VP be in a position to win in either 2012 or 2016.
What about it?
If McCain is anywhere near the ticket,
I find your posts abusive and appalling.
Of course you will. Any good liberal would.
NO LONGER will I support the lesser of two evils.
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