Posted on 05/18/2006 9:59:12 PM PDT by RWR8189
The reviews are almost all in from Senator John McCain's commencement address at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Virginia last weekend. The consensus seems to be that the Arizona senator successfully walked the fine line of electoral exigency that divides craven submission to powerful constituents from bold but suicidal affirmations of political independence.
Symbolically burying the hatchet with the man he once dubbed an "agent of intolerance" without stooping to endorse the five-and-dime prelate's philosophy is quite a feat and suggests a subtlety about Mr McCain that had not hitherto been a notable feature of his career.
But as he moves steadily and firmly to the front of the pack of Republican contenders for 2008, it is the substance rather than the symbolism of what Mr McCain is saying that is piquing the interest of an anxious world waiting for the next signs of global leadership from America.
From that point of view another speech he delivered a few weeks ago was much more striking and instructive about the direction of the US debate about its role in the world.
At a conference of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels late last month, Mr McCain took us on a tour d'horizon of the world's trouble spots.
This was pure McCain, minus the Lynchburg feint.
In the space of barely 20 minutes, he gave a rousing condemnation of governments on at least three continents, lambasting Iran, China, Russia, Belarus, Sudan, and by implication, others. It was the sort of declaration that would have brought a smile to the face of Andrew Jackson.
It was a moral declaration of war on the world's bad guys, a good one too . But it was above all, an eloquent and forceful endorsement of the Bush doctrine - the strategic stance, backed by force if necessary, of confronting tyrannical forces in the world.
The reaction of Europeans was polite. Though what the senator was saying amounted to: "You didn't like Bush - wait till you see me" , there is always something disarming about the humorous, engaging man with the heroic life story.
But there was no mistaking the substance - Mr McCain once again established himself as more royalist than the
king when it comes to Bush foreign policy.
Which on the face of it is odd, since it is his foreign policy that has principally got this president into so much trouble.
Though immigration reform and gasoline prices have clearly dominated Mr Bush's recent political agenda, no-one seriously doubts that the root cause of his woes is the Iraq War.
This week's Washington Post/ABC poll earlier indicated a sizeable majority now think invading Iraq was a mistake. Americans might agree in principle that the US should promote democracy but, unlike Mr McCain, they seem to believe if Iraq is an example of how it is going to be done, they'd sooner stay home and cultivate their garden, thank you very much.
And yet even more remarkable is that this support for the principle at least of the Bush strategic approach is largely endorsed by most serious foreign policy thinkers on the Democratic side.
At that same German Marshall Fund conference last month Richard Holbrooke, a man who seems to have been permanently accorded the status of the next Secretary of State, succinctly complimented Mr McCain on his speech "I agreed with everything he said," he told a slightly startled audience.
Now Mr Holbrooke is famously among the most hawkish of Democrats. It was once said of him during one of his many rambunctious performances in the Balkans negotiations in the 1990s that he was going to make up for the fact that America had arrived late for each of the first two world wars by being really early for the third.
But Mr Holbrooke is not alone in the Democratic party. Listen to the official pronouncements of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton or Joseph Biden : while critical of the execution of the Iraq war, they still conspicuously avoid denouncing in principle either its conception or the principle of democracy-promotion on which it was at least partially fought.
Though they are under intense pressure from the MoveOn left to denounce the war and the broader evils and hypocrisy of US foreign policy, the Democrats' leadership has no intention of running far off the tracks the Republicans have laid down.
Speak to the foreign policy people floating around the campaigns of Mark Warner or John Edwards and you will find similarly no plans to repudiate the basics of Bush foreign policy. As for Al Gore, for all his recent criticism of the war, it was, remember, the former vice-president whose embrace of an assertive foreign policy was derided by Governor George W Bush, in their 2000 presidential debate, as lacking sufficient humility.
So you have an unpopular war dragging a president down to new lows in public esteem and two parties who for different reasons , and to varying degrees of enthusiasm, insist that US interest in the world are best served by a continuation of an assertive policy that challenges despots and insists on the spread of democracy.
This could change, of course, in the next two years. The Democratic base could round on their leaders and force them to revert to McGovernite foreign policy tendencies. The Jacksonian McCain could be unhorsed by more pragmatic, more cautious Republicans But for the moment, curiously, the Bush legacy looks more secure than the Bush presidency.
I'll dispute this assertion. In regards to Iraq, conservatives still back the President, although only about 90%, with 10% bailing for reasons of their own, mostly independent of the issue of the War on Terror.
Yes, I pulled those numbers out of my ***. But dissatisfaction with the President is not predicated on Iraq, but on his handling of domestic issues like immigration and spending, and on those issues even a moderate Republican like Bush is preferable to a Democrat.
Mr Baker presents the British Establishment voice. Of course it explains his glasses' colour.
I'm going to step out on a limb here. It's VERY early, but I'm going to make a prediction. OK, here it is...McPain is the RNC's annointed one for the 2008 election. I've been watching his recent performances in the Senate, and I'm convinced he's the heir apparent. The RNC will not back a conservative...that's obvious.
I second that dispute. This is the second time this has been said tonight. The ENEMEDIA is working overtime telling us all the President's problems are the Iraq War. That tells me everything I need to know...it is anything BUT the Iraq War.
A major diversion tactic is at play as the Iraqis prepare to announce their government Saturday.
Bump.
His conclusion, however, is interesting and makes one wonder whether the McGovernites have finally broken their pick with thinking people by siding, however incredibly, with the scum of the earth in their drive to bring down Republicans, conservatism, and America?
Well, that explains the urgent push to legalize 20 million new voters. Sorry, I will never vote for McInsane.
suggests a subtlety about Mr McCain that had not hitherto been a notable feature of his career.
Must have changed his meds.
Pathetic, ephemeral conventional wisdom. Mundane.
Iraq was a risk heard round the world. The after shocks will be heard for decades IMHO....for the betterment of the region.
I'll have to think about that for a bit.
McCain is clearly the 'Rats' favorite Republican. His ADA rating has been rising steadily for years, ever since the early 90's -- both he and Orren Hatch have shown the same tendency to vote with the 'Rats and, in Hatch's case, to pal around with them, most notoriously with the U-Boat Captain. Hatch has also taken to dressing like a Manhattan fop instead of a Western senator.
Your reading of the tea leaves depends in part on press coverage, which of course is in the hands of the enemies of the GOP. But the tendency of the GOP Establishment, whom I call the Yacht Club, to select "their" candidate early and to move early to lock up the nomination by starving everyone else for money is documented in the past. Journalist Theodore White (who wrote the Making of the President series -- I have a copy of his volume on the 1964 campaign, which is excellent since White, complacently rambling about this doubtelessly very satisfying -- for him -- election, lets his guard down and lets all his prejudices show clearly) once devoted chapters to the subject of how the inner wheels of the GOP go about selecting their presidential towel-boys, and I can't say that anything you've observed is inconsistent with what White described.
I'm not voting for any Senator who hasn't been a co-President.
Texasforever wrote: "No one has been "anointed" yet. McCain just has the name recognition that Hillary has. "
Oh, I said I was going out on a limb, but McPain definitely is acting "presidential" in the elitist RNC sense.
lentulusgracchus wrote: "But the tendency of the GOP Establishment, whom I call the Yacht Club, to select "their" candidate early and to move early to lock up the nomination by starving everyone else for money is documented in the past."
President Bush was definitely the annointed one, and McPain is far more acceptable to the RNC than any of the conservatives. Plus, McPain and Bush sound like they are reading off the same script on the immigration debate (we all know where the RNC elites stand on immigration--legalization, legalization, legalization).
I really hate to see supposed conservatives toss around the word "elitist". I guess you have your reasons but I can't figure that out. My point was that we are going to have a pretty big slate to choose from in the primaries and I am sure that each candidate will have his/her opportunity to make their case.
Texasforever wrote: "I really hate to see supposed conservatives toss around the word "elitist"."
OK, what do you mean by "supposed" conservatives? Don't tell me you are another one of those "if you don't agree with me 100% I'm gonna call you an idiot, call your conservatism into question, or declare you a troll" guys, are you? THAT, my fellow FReeper, in uncalled for!
What I meant by elitist is exactly that. I have seen the elitists on the RNC support one RINO after another, including in my home state. I call them elitists because they have the inside track in the Republican Party. They are the power brokers who typically support moderates over conservatives, in spite of the conservative base--the non-elite rank and file. Does that clarify my position?
Hey if you want to talk like a Marxist that's your business. Have a good day.
Texasforever wrote: "Hey if you want to talk like a Marxist that's your business."
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Now I'm a Marxist.
Whether you agree or disagree with my position, calling me a Marxist is extremely unkind and totally out of line. You could have simply said you didn't agree with my characterization of the RNC.
No doubt the doom-crazed gang at Liberty U slobbered all over such ravings. More temperate minds could inquire how a nation that can't defend its own borders from unarmed invaders plans on reshaping the planet.
Regarding the cherished, sacred Bush Foreign Policy Legacy...Please. As if it's anything other than reheated vomitus from Woodrow Wilson:
"It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free." 4-2-1917
Delusional Utopian dingbat--I mean, quite the optimist! What an ambitious plan! Freedom for the whole flippin' world, as specified in our Constitution (somewhere, I'm sure). How did Wilson's plan turn out, BTW?
I concur. And people who've read the history of the Titanic know that J. Pierpont Morgan and his British partners didn't build her for the first-class passengers, but to haul masses of steerage passengers to the New World to populate the hinterland next to Morgan's huge railroad land grants, so they could pay "all the traffic can bear" to Morgan's railroads to have their produce brought to market in the cities.
The superrich have always tried to keep plenty of replacement workers on hand, so they can break unions and underpay and maltreat their workers.
And I didn't say that -- Milton Friedman did.
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