Posted on 09/25/2009 7:33:20 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
When FOX News host Glenn Beck said during an interview with Katie Couric this week, “John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama,” his comments made headlines. Beck explained that “McCain is this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was.” Beck laid out this view in better detail on his television program earlier this month:
I am becoming more and more libertarian every day, I guess the scales are falling off of my eyes, as I’m doing more and more research into history and learning real history. Back at the turn of the century in 1900, with Teddy Roosevelt—a Republican—we started this, “we’re going to tell the rest of the world,” “we’re going to spread democracy,” and we really became, down in Latin America, we really became thuggish and brutish. It only got worse with the next progressive that came into office—Teddy Roosevelt, Republican progressive—the next one was a Democratic progressive, Woodrow Wilson, and we did … we empire built. The Democrats felt we needed to empire build with one giant global government ... The Republicans took it as, we’re going to lead the world and we’ll be the leader of it … I don’t think we should be either of those. I think we need to mind our own business and protect our own people. When somebody hits us, hit back hard, then come home.
Beck is trying to explain how Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican precursor to what historians call “liberal internationalism,” a foreign policy view that contends the role of the U.S. is to intervene around the globe to advance liberal objectives. This progressive doctrine, later called “Wilsonian” after Woodrow Wilson, was intended to “make the world safe for democracy,” to quote our 28th president. Wilsonian globalism was embraced fully by George W. Bush, and as Beck notes, was also a guiding philosophy for his could-have-been successor, John McCain. In their application, there is very little difference between “neoconservative” foreign policy and “liberal internationalism,” and both views are progressive in origin.
Preferring to keep his audience in the dark on such distinctions, neoconservative talk host Mark Levin was angry that Beck would dare shine a light on them. Said Levin this week:
McCain is no conservative… but to say that he would be worse than a president who’s a Marxist, who’s running around the world apologizing for our nation, who’s slashing our defense budget… to say he would be worse is mindless… incoherent, as a matter of fact. There’s our 5 PMer on FOX.
It should be noted that Beck’s FOX News program airs at 5 PM EST.
Who else does Levin consider mindless? He continues:
I don’t know who people are playing to; I don’t know why they’re playing to certain people. Ron Paul’s another one ... this fascination with Ron Paul. Ron Paul, who blames America! American “imperialism,” quote, unquote, for the attacks on 9/11. How can any conservative embrace that? And yet the 5 PMer does.
For eight years, hosts like Levin and even Glenn Beck promoted full-blown neoconservatism without ever calling it by that name. For these mainstream pundits, conservatism simply equaled neoconservatism, and during the Bush years there was no talk of limited government, no concern about “socialism” and no real worries about anything else, other than the War on Terror. The Republican Party was a single issue party; Ron Paul was considered crazy, Joe Lieberman was considered cool—and government exploded.
But much to Levin’s chagrin, that impenetrable neoconservative unity no longer exists. Unlike Levin, Beck now claims “the scales are falling off of my eyes,” and he now questions old assumptions about foreign policy, the value of the GOP, the worth of the two-party system, or even if McCain would have been any better than Obama. Conservative columnist George Will once cheered Bush’s foreign policy, but now thinks it’s time to bring the troops home from both Iraq and Afghanistan. When Sarah Palin spoke in Hong Kong this week, a Wall Street Journal headline read, “Palin, Sounding Like Ron Paul, Takes on the Fed.” Few conservatives get excited by Joe Lieberman anymore. But many are starting to talk like Ron Paul.
The attacks on Beck by Levin are a reflection of what’s happening on the American Right as a whole, where the old fools’ game of merely corralling grassroots conservatives into the Republican Party is suffering from a severe shortage of fools. I’m not saying that Beck is an all-around, reliable conservative figure, nor do I believe the Republican Party is going to start seriously listening to Paul in the future, but there are at least now, finally, tiny slivers of truth making their way into the mainstream, thanks in no small part to a handful of celebrity truth-seekers, no matter how eccentric or inconsistent they may be.
And if there’s one thing we can be sure of—there would be no tea parties, no town hall protests, no marches on Washington, no questioning foreign policy, no attacking the Federal Reserve, no new-and-improved Glenn Beck and no new respect for Ron Paul—if John McCain had won the election. The neoconservative agenda would have continued, undisturbed, and according to plan. And something tells me Mark Levin would have preferred to keep it that way.
We do...he’s a longtime Freeper.
Good post. I completely agree. Was McCain for Cap and trade...yes! Was he against the tax cuts? Yes.
Was he anti-gun? Yes! If I heard gun-show loop hole out of his pie hole one more time I think I would have spewed!
Glen was spot-on on this one.
You said, “Reagan called himself a libertarian”. I’m still waiting for your proof. And the bet is open.
I didn’t contradict myself and have no idea what your talking about. In the interview, Reagan never called himself a libertarian and for good reason. Beyond that interview Reagan never discussed libertarianism again.
If you want some insight into the mind of a libertarian nutzie, read what the founder of liberatarianism, Murry Rothbard, had to say about Reagan after he left office.
Right now we need to prevent a 1 party system. The BHO party has the White House, the House and Philabuster proof senate, SCOTUS depending on Anthony Kennedy’s desire for awards and good publicity.
Mark Levin is great, he correctly proclaimed Benjamin Netanyahu the leader of the Free World. But I disagree with his take on Ron Paul and Beck. They are standing up for the Constitution which is what all elected offials in the country.
The GOP is a dead rotten corpse.
The GOP, as illustrated by your post, has been using fear tactics and coercion to keep people in line for years.
Vote GOP or the country will die under Clinton...and what did the GOP do? They nominate Dole. And lose.
Vote GOP or else algore will ruin the country! and what did the GOP do? They nominate GHW Bush who had many terrible policies and did very little to advance COnservative thought in the country...people on all sides were so tired of Bush that the ‘anyone but Bush’ philosophy permeated the voting population.
The GOP was so indescribably stupid that they nominated McCain who was more singly responsible for undermining the GOP majorities than any other person.
McCain was such a weak candidate that an nobody with nothing but a slogan to offer beat him despite the GOP’s scare tactics.
The GOP has too many Rockefeller hold overs, too many democratic non conservative converts, and too many moderately leaning liberals to be anything other than Democratic-lite.
IMO the GOP is a dead carcass that needs to be burned and buried. It cannot be rejuvenated. It cannot be revived. It is dead.
Bury the GOP and have a funeral and mourning.
Then establish something new and move on.
Uhhhh. Forgive me but seriously. Anyone that thinks this Kenyan born, Indonesian citizen is anything less than a "lifer" when it comes to occupying the office of President of the United States then said person/people are smoking way too much peyote.
JMHO
I have to disagree. I think he believes hes a one term president and is jamming all he can into it. I think hes too lazy to do it for four years.
Barring a change in the constitution or martial law, he wont make it to two terms.
Well said, and I totally agree.
I have not respected John McCain since the 1992 POW/
MIA hearings that he shut down.
As more time passes, it becomes clearer to me that John McCain threw the election last year. The 2008 election was the most important fight of his life, and in typical McCain fashion, he threw it away.
He was given Sarah Palin, and Joe the Plumber, a neophyte Presidential opponent who was plainly a Marxist and an opposing Vice Presidential who is a first class idiot.
Even a financial crisis where he could have exerted leadership he completely blew.
McCain has been riding the wave of a reputation of mythic proportions. I have no illusions that he got as far as he did because of Dad and Granddad. A person who graduates second from last from Annapolis doesn’t get a stint as a pilot on a carrier, unless someone is pulling some serious strings.
Even his lukewarm and delayed defense of Sarah Palin when she was savaged after the election showed his lack of loyalty and class.
McCain needs to retire, and stop damaging the country he “loves” so much.
Exactly. He is a Communist that has publicly said the constitution is irrelevant. He is a dictator of the first order and will have no problems declaring martial law the minute H1N1 is seriously suspected of becoming a pandemic or another Katrina/Ike type national disaster strikes.
ANYONE that does not for a second understand just how set this man is on ruling the world is high on peyote or some other mind altering drug.
One term? Yes. Either he will serve as der furer of the United States of America for the rest of his life or he will destroy the United States of America as a free and independent sovereign nation by bringing it into the "NEW WORLD ORDER" of which he will be the supreme commander for the rest of his life.
His aspirations are quite lofty.
Remember! He is Baraq O Bamah.
Many of us cringed, and here on FR were immediately met with indignation that anything about Bush’s policies would be questioned: since 9/11 he had kept our country straight and how dare anyone judge him on anything else.
This article isn’t really too far off. To be fair, saying Palin sounded like RP isn’t quite fair. Many, many nonPaulian economists have made exactly the point about the Fed’s easy credit creating and furthering the bubbles from the ‘90s.
Beck explained the comment on on O’Reilly the other day. The reason McCain would have been such a poor choice is that he would have dropped us further into the whole we found ourselves in after the Bush era. If you look at McCain’s policies, (i.e. his utmost respect for Ted Kennedy) you will discover that the man is the incarnate compromise of conservatism. I tend to agree with Beck.
OK then go out and form a new party. Waste your time and energy. Divide that anti-Democrat vote. History proves over and over that your party will only siphon off votes from the larger party. This is why Rush warned against this. He knows what he’s talking about. Also, read the Republican Party platform. It is quite conservative. We as conservative activists just need to retake our party just like we did in 1964, 1980, and 1994. As a practicing Catholic, I did not abandon my Church when the horrific pedophile priest scandal was made public. No. I did just the opposite. I joined the Knights of Columbus—(I am now a fourth degree knight), I got have active in my Church- I am now a Eucharstic Minister at my church. Instead of abandoning my Church, I decided to get active and take it back. That is how I view the Party. You abandon ship if you like, but I will follow Rush’s wise advice. Have fun forming your new party.
Hi rabscuttle385,
I find ACORN very disturbing. I called McCain’s office to demand why he had not voted on defunding them recently; the roll call reports he was absent. A person on his staff told me he was doing townhalls, and had learned that there were enough votes against that ammendment, or else he would have come back to Washington to vote against it.
Don’t worry, I plan to keep pressure on him on amnesty and other illegal immigration nonsense.
When my other senator, Kyl, opposed Obama on something about the stimulus bill, Obama threatened to take away stimulus funds from Arizona. I looked it up and it was to build low income housing and bring in first time buyers. I want to find out more, because it looked like it is ACORN associated, or at the least HUD related, which just burns me.
His office is near my home in Oro Vallley, so I will drop by soon and see what the details are.
I am planning to go down to the Tucson ACORN office and confront them on what they are spending our tax money on, and why they believe they deserve it. I have to make use of my lividness and get some answers and denounce them in person.
This may be kind of dangerous, so I might just wait until I get a long range pepper spray or take an open carry gun accreditation class.
And, if my beloved 1992 clunker gets out of the auto shop in time, I will go downtown and protest against the brown berets, La Raza from California, who will be demonstrating against border reinforcement and “racial profiling”. I am not quite sure when they will appear, and as far as I know, there is not an organized push back, but, if I get my wheels back, I’ll be there to tell them to get lost.
Rabscuttle385,I have good news for you. The local radio station did a poll asking if McCain is part of the problem, and 95% agreed. So it looks like you might get your wish, that he won’t be re-elected, as your wish when you worked against him(I’m assuming) that he not get the presidency.
Feel free to ping me the threads and comments on this site, when you have written your senators and representatives, the gist of your phone calls,letters, protest signs and meetings, about the same issues and policies that bug you about McCain. Your ferver is amazing. I am sure you are very effective on the march against all your local politician whose beliefs and voting records you do not find agreement.
Politics is messy business. I just try to make the best choice amongst imperfect public servants.
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