Posted on 04/13/2006 5:56:05 AM PDT by Graybeard58
John McCain, whom everyone expects to run for US president in 2008, is pandering to the Republican base in a way that is politically shrewd but disappointing to his non-conservative admirers. Among other lapses, he recently endorsed an extreme abortion ban passed in South Dakota and voted to extend the Bush tax cuts he opposed in 2001. A few years ago, Mr McCain called the evangelical conservative leader Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance". Now Mr McCain is on his way to give a speech at Mr Falwell's university.
Most liberal commentators take Mr McCain's lovefest with the neo-Calvinists at face value, arguing that he is finally revealing his true colours. "The bottom line is that Mr McCain isn't a moderate; he's a man of the hard right," Paul Krugman, the economist, wrote recently in The New York Times. But the literal-minded left has Mr McCain all wrong. He is, indeed, trying to accommodate his party's conservative core. But this is merely a stratagem for winning a Republican presidential primary. Discount his repositioning a bit and Mr McCain looks like the same unconventional character who emerged during the Clinton years: a social progressive, a fiscal conservative and a military hawk. Should he triumph in the primaries, we can expect this more appealing John McCain to come roaring back.
That's a mighty big "should". Unless the GOP stupidly lets Democrat and moderates vote (and maybe illegals too), I just don't see it happening.
McCain can't be trusted. He's a political Chameleon who, in the end, will have everyone hating him.
How in the world did Krugman ever get a job in journalism? Practically every article I have seen of his has not only been wrong, but 'how-in-creation-can-someone-be-this-clueless' wrong. McCain to the hard right is like silver to a werewolf (sorry, I saw Christina Ricci in Cursed last night). I dare say that Maureen Dowd has more credibility than this Krugman hack.
And the NY Times slides even further into the abyss. Anyone new from the paper resigning this week?
When I read that I knew it would get a rise out of conservatives. You are right about Krugman. He's in his own world.
If the far left things McCain's abandoned them, they're stupid (but we knew that). I saw McCain on The Daily Show last week, and when he was asked about speaking at Liberty University, he made a bit of fun of Falwell.
If it's shrewd on McCain's part, there's not much more going on beneath the surface. He'll pretend to be a right-winger now, all the while winking at the left -- hey, I'm still that maverick who can anger up the rednecks! Just wait!
I'll pass.
He is a panderer.
Discount his repositioning a bit and Mr McCain looks like the same unconventional character who emerged during the Clinton years: a social progressive, a fiscal conservative and a military hawk.
How does that square with the campaign finance law and the immigration bill he and Kennedy put together? Is that socially progressive? Fiscally conservative? Military hawk?
Oh well, we are talking about Krugman so looking for logic is futile.
Except that, in the case of McCain, it's not Bull Moose, it's Bull Shiite...
Because he's as hard left as the rest of them. And from their vantage point, Joe Lieberman is an arch-conservative.
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