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Maybe McCain is both stupid and cynical. He’s clearly cynical.

McCain has been reversing positions across the board. He’s promised to extend the Bush tax cuts (i.e., prevent a tax hike) and to appoint strict constructionists to the judiciary.

Don’t buy it.

People don’t change. Mr. Voodoo Economics himself (GHW Bush) once promised, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” It got him into office, then he raised taxes. McCain would be no different. He would jack up taxes. Bank on it.

Mr. Gang of 14 will not suddenly change from his past preference of liberal-legislate-from-the-bench jurists if elected. We’ll get David Souters to replace every vacancy.

McCain is a cynic. Is he stupid?

For him to come out with the global warming speech, he’s got to be stupid. He’s been pandering to the GOP base, trying hard to get conservatives to line up and hold their noses while voting. Talk radio’s been rallying around him, no matter what their personal misgivings.

Now, with this cap and trade speech he’s jumped the shark. Conservatives are undergoing mass depression and falling by the wayside. This is a stupid move politically.

Thomas Sowell recently wrote, “Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.”

McCain’s cap and trade speech sounds like an impassioned attempt to talk Sowell out of his vote.

If McCain buys into the anthropogenic global warming theory...

AND thinks that a couple of degrees increase in temperature would be a bad thing (before politics enveloped climate science, warmer periods used to be called “climate optimums”)...

AND that man couldn’t adapt (if living in Phoenix can’t convince one that man can adapt to higher temperatures, what can?)...

AND needed the support of the conservative base to win office...

THEN he should have kept mum until after the election.

He’s already shown he’s willing to (temporarily) change long held beliefs in the pursuit of presidential power. Why come out sounding like Al Gore? It’s nearly the equivalent of proclaiming the need for a top marginal rate of 98%. Politically, it’s suicidal...

UNLESS McCain is so confident that he doesn’t think he needs the GOP base to win. If he calculates that Obama is such a weak candidate with so much garbage that he can win even if conservatives sit this one out, then McCain can say almost anything he wants.

For many conservatives, McCain revealed too much of himself making it apparent that a McCain choice is no choice. We get the same taxes, the same judges, the same regulations, and the same submission to the U.N. as the Democrats. He truly is a Democrat at a 10% discount.

You can point to the war as a point of genuine difference. McCain won’t cut and run. Maybe. Who knows what he would do? He’s promised to shut down Gitmo, which is unwise tactically and strategically. Who knows what he would do?

This much is certain. With a McCain presidency, we can’t even attempt to rally rank and file Republicans in Congress to oppose him. Soon, they would be irrelevant because the president and his party would get blamed for the McCain malaise catastrophy. Mid-terms will bring even more Democrats.

This is a disaster for the Republican Party and the party may well fracture during a McCain presidency when conservatives find themselves unable to support liberal GOP policy.

Maybe McCain is the Manchurian Candidate after all.