McCain Promises No Compromise on Supreme Court, Will Visit ANWR [interview]

Human Events ^ | 2008-10-17 | John Gizzi

[rabscuttle385]

ABOARD “Straight Talk Air” (between New York and Miami)—Sen. John McCain would “absolutely” not compromise on Supreme Court nominations if elected and would continue to nominate strict constructionist judges if any of his Supreme Court nominations were defeated by a hostile Senate.

McCain said that and much more to HUMAN EVENTS chief political correspondent John Gizzi in an exclusive interview Friday morning.

The Republican presidential nominee also said, if elected, he would gladly join running mate Sarah Palin on a trip to Alaska to view the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but has not yet changed his mind on oil drilling in ANWR.

McCain said he would consider former rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney for his Cabinet and backed away from earlier talk of Democrats Al Gore and Andrew Cuomo in his prospective Administration.

[rabscuttle385]

You’re major issues should be dealt with after the election. That’s the time to try to hold McCain accountable.

Try? After I have surrendered my only leverage?

Is it so hard to understand that there is a time and place for everything?

The time for McCain to realize the error of his treachery has passed. Now, it's time to hold him accountable.

[CitizenUSA]

I understand your desire to put leverage on McCain, but I don’t understand what you hope to obtain by using that leverage right now. McCain isn’t president. He’s already nominated what appears to be a good conservative VP. What more do you expect from him at this point?

Once he’s elected, I fully agree we need to use everything in the book to try and get him to do the right thing. That includes such things as working with conservative senators and congressmen to hold McCain’s feet to the fire (as much as that’s possible). He’s promised to secure the border first, allow drilling off the coasts, and appoint strict constructionist judges. Honestly, we can fix just about anything “bipartisan” later on so long as we can get the right kind of justices.

Speaking of justices, I don’t think it’s entirely hopeless, but we have to be prepared for the double cross. He might try to nominate a strict conservative at first, then when that never makes it out of committee, he’ll switch to a moderate (saying that he tried to keep his promise). This election is just one battle in a long war.

As I wrote before, we lost this particular battle in the primaries. Now we need to determine how to make the best of it and live to fight another day. That’s why I have no problem voting for McCain.

[perfect_rovian_storm]

If he wants to do something useful, he should move to NV and run against Harry Reid.

[rabscuttle385]

What more do you expect from him at this point?

It would be nice if he could shut the hell up about amnesty and climate change for once. Maybe he could stop openly lavishing praise upon Socialists like Gore, Cuomo, and Obama. Most important, he might...oh, I dunno, at least act like he's representing the conservative constituency of the Republican Party and stop giving folks heartburn.

To think, I would have voted for him if he had stood up against the bailout and kept his promise (as published in The Wall Street Journal last month) to protect taxpayers from bailouts.