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Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Thursday the survival of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime could spell the end of NATO. “Logically you can exact that if he [Gadhafi] outlasts NATO, the Arab spring is over,” said Graham. "…He will take it out on his people, I think it will affect the price of oil and would be the end of NATO because NATO taking on Gadhafi and losing -- its going to be very hard for that organization to go off to another war and be taken seriously.” Speaking on the Senate floor, Graham and...

Elevating the fallacy of the false alternative to a foreign policy, John McCain and a few others believe Republicans who oppose U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war — and who think a decade of warfare in Afghanistan is enough — are isolationists. This is less a thought than a flight from thinking, which involves making sensible distinctions. Last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain warned that the GOP has always had “an isolation strain.” He calls it “the Pat Buchanan wing,” which he contrasts with “the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people all...

Via Playbook, John McCain raps the Republican presidential field for what he sees as an isolationist strain that's emerging as the candidates shift away from strict hawkishness on foreign policy, and which cropped up at the New Hampshire debate last Monday. From the pre-taped interview with "This Week:" McCAIN: “Well, I was more concerned about what the candidates in New Hampshire the other night said. This is isolationism. There's always been an … isolation strain on the Republican Party — that Pat Buchanan wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak....

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday that a resolution he’s spent months crafting on Libya will likely call on the White House to increase its communication with Congress, an addition that could help pick up support for the stalled measure. Last week the Foreign Relations Committee postponed a mark up of McCain’s resolution, written in partnership with Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), fearing the measure would not get enough votes. “I think as the situation has evolved in Libya, and frankly the lack of consultation and reporting to Congress has gone on, then we will be working on more...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that it’s time to consider international intervention in Syria to avoid the further “slaughter” of people there by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. “If it made sense to protect the Libyan people against Gadhafi, and it did because they were going to get slaughtered if we hadn’t sent NATO in when he was on the outskirts of Benghazi, the question for the world [is], have we gotten to that point in Syria,” Graham said on the CBS' "Face the Nation."

WASHINGTON, June 7 (UPI) -- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has postponed debate on a resolution on U.S. involvement in the military mission in Libya, led by NATO, a spokesman said. The resolution, sponsored by committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on the committee, would generally express Senate approval of the U.S. role in Libya, Politico reported, citing senators familiar with the proposal. (sni;) McCain said he spoke with Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Monday about a vote on his resolution, adding that he believes the resolution will pass handily and should satisfy...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said he met in recent weeks with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as Giuliani mulls a second run for president. Giuliani said on conservative talker Sean Hannity's radio show that he'd met recently with McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee, and come away with the conclusion that it'd be better to focus on primary states if he were to run again.Giuliani's campaign is widely seen to have stumbled because of his focus on the Republican primary in Florida, at the expense of earlier, traditional contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. By the...

(snip) During the comments, talk turned briefly to whether McCain would support former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin - his running mate during the 2008 presidential election - in a bid for the White House in 2012. McCain said it is all hypothetical at this point, as Palin has not officially announced her intention to seek the Republican nomination. "I'm proud of Sarah Palin. I'm proud of the campaign that she ran and she invigorated our campaign," McCain said. "I think she will be a very formidable candidate if she decides to seek the nomination of the Republican Party." The New...

WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) -- President Obama is repeating a mistake he made at the beginning of his administration with his call for a Palestinian state, U.S. Sen. John McCain said Friday. McCain, R-Arizona, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, was interviewed by Sean Hannity, the ultra-conservative Fox News commentator. McCain said the president was wrong in his speech on Middle East policy to say that Israel should agree to a Palestinian state based on its borders in 1967. "I think they're making the same mistake that they made at the beginning of the administration," McCain said. "As you may...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday he does not believe Congress will act before the May 20 deadline to authorize military engagement in Libya and he does not “recognize” the constitutionality of the War Powers Act that sets the timeline, in any case. “No president has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act and neither do I,” McCain said. “So I don’t feel bound by any deadline. It’s pretty obvious there’s no consensus in the Senate or in the Congress now to move forward with a resolution. I respect that.”McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee,...

U.S. Sen. John McCain said Wednesday that he’s “seen this movie before” when it comes to federal claims of a secure border between the U.S. and Mexico. In a Senate hearing, McCain criticized the Department of Homeland Security for not keeping up with escalating drug and smuggling cartel violence that has resulted in mass graves and executions of Mexican officials. McCain, R-AZ, told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano he remembered the U.S. giving amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in 1986, “when we said we’d secure the borders.” Today, millions of illegal immigrants enter the U.S. at Tucson. McCain said:...

(snip) "I reminded them that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia reimbursed us after Operation Desert Storm," McCain says. "They said they'd be glad to discuss that.(snip) "They're very good people," he says. "Mainly well-educated, a number of women in the [Transitional National Council] -- very normal, dedicated people." (snip) McCain dismissed concerns that rebel forces include some veterans of al Qaeda. "I'm sure that there may be some element there, but I guarantee you that they didn't rise up because they wanted to be al Qaeda fighters," McCain says. "They rose up because they wanted to throw off the yoke of...

(AP) BENGHAZI, Libya - U.S. Sen. John McCain, one of the strongest proponents in Congress of the American military intervention in Libya, said Friday that Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi’s troops are his heroes. (snip) When Obama acted with limited congressional consultation, McCain - who was the 2008 Republican presidential contender running against Obama - defended the president, saying he couldn’t wait for Congress to take even a few days to debate the use of force. If he had, "there would have been nothing left to save in Benghazi," the rebels’ de-facto capital.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Two Senate Republicans joined an effort to rapidly wind down government controlled mortgage titans Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC), hoping to put pressure on Democrats to take action soon. Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) introduced a bill Thursday to wind down or privatize Fannie and Freddie over the next five years. Their bill mirrors one introduced earlier this month by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas). "The events of the past three years have made it clear that never again can we allow the taxpayer to be responsible for poorly managed financial...

Arizona's stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border is still not secure despite improvements, and ending the National Guard mission there is ill-advised, Sen. John McCain said Thursday. (snip) McCain spoke to reporters after a border tour he took alongside four fellow Republican lawmakers from Arizona: Rep. Jeff Flake, Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Ben Quayle and Rep. David Schweikert. The group toured the border near Nogales and Douglas and met in Tucson with officials from the Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA. While in Douglas, they met with the widow of rancher Robert Krentz who was killed a year ago...

With a non-fly effectively put into place over Libya, Sen. John McCain says momentum in the fighting between the Muammar Qaddafi regime and rebel fighters can now swing back to anti-Qaddafi forces, but acknowledges they will need more weapons and better training. McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS' "The Early Show" that he hopes the United States, or others in the international community, supplies rebels with arms, as it once did insurgents fighting the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. (snip) "If the goal then is to get him out, does that ultimately mean that the U.S. could end up arming the rebels...

A friend of mine recently wrote to the senior senator from Arizona regarding his anticipated "reaching out" to the other side on gun control. The senator's response is clearly a form letter, so I am not revealing privileged information by reproducing it here. My response follows. Thank you for contacting me regarding the Tucson shooting tragedy and its impact on federal gun control legislation. I appreciate hearing from you on this vital issue. On January 8, 2011, a gunman committed a senseless atrocity by murdering six people and wounding many others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, outside of a grocery store...

(snip) "We are spending over $500 billion dollars, not counting Iraq and Afghanistan, on our nation's defense. Don't tell me we can't do a no fly zone over Tripoli," the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services said at the Atlantic Council Tuesday evening. "I love the military, I love it, it's been my life, but they always seem to find reasons why you can't do something rather than why you can," Sen. McCain said. (snip) On Libyan leader Qaddafi, McCain said, "This guy's days are numbered. The question is -- is can we shorten those number of days to...

The politician who once best exemplified the idea of a "maverick" independent has shifted so far to the right that he is now tied for the title of the Senate's most conservative member, according to National Journal's 2010 vote ratings. According to a comprehensive examination of 96 Senate votes taken in 2010, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., along with seven of his colleagues, voted most often on the conservative side. His 89.7 composite conservative score ties him with stalwarts like Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and gives him a more conservative score than Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. (snip)...

Meghan McCain, daughter of U.S. Senator John McCain spoke at Indiana State University tonight. McCain shared her experience on the campaign trail with her father as well as where she sees the country going politically. One big goal of hers is to redefine republicanism."I have two theories. The first is in the next election Republicans will nominate a very extreme conservative. If that happens I think that the idea of a third party rising up could happen for the first time in history," McCain said.