McCain The Hawk

Great op-ed by Matt Welch on what John McCain actually thinks about the world -- roughly, that George W. Bush has been overly disinclined to threaten the use of military force or to actually use it; that in the wake of Iraq, the country needs to become more militaristic in its approach to the world. As Kevin Drum says on this issue, at least, McCain is neither a centrist nor a standard-issue Republican -- he's the single furthest-right figure on the American political scene.

And, yes, he'll combine his more-hawkish-than-Bush approach to the world with a greater level of frankness and intellectual engagement, but at the end of the day I'm not actually sure how that's supposed to help.

Comments

the single furthest-right figure on the American political scene.

I would make that statement about Cheney. McCain and Cheney, peas in a pod. McCain should pick Cheney as his VP, though that job is reserved for Lieberman.

Posted by miguel | November 26, 2006 5:49 PM

Sing it from the rooftops. Regular, non-blog-reading people need to understand this about McCain.

Posted by Nordy | November 26, 2006 7:54 PM

That, and he's about as authentic as the Cracker Barrel.

Posted by jalmari | November 26, 2006 8:10 PM

About time, we get it.

Posted by Ari | November 26, 2006 8:40 PM

I was thinking in 2000 that if McCain lost the primaries he should quit the senate and get his own television series called "Rogue State Rollback". It would be scripted by John Milius and directed by Quentin Tarantino (who would make numerous cameos as innocuous cousins of dangerous men and gay Arabs). It would have been a cross between the A-Team, the Dirty Dozen, and any number of those role reversal buddy flicks with wacky scenes of cross dressing to evade the bad guys. McCain and his rag tag band of Vietnam vets and malcontents would travel the world in an aging but secretly tricked out fleet of Hueys in search of dictators, drug lords, and chicas. They would be funded by an eccentric but wise (and surprisingly populist) Texas billionaire played by Larry Hagman (whose name would have to be Larry Hagman on the show), and Harlan Arliss from CHiPs would be Rediscovered for the role of Genius Jew who works on the copters.

Posted by Linus | November 26, 2006 10:24 PM

Lest I forget: music by Mike Post with additional licks by ZZ Top. (And that Arliss would have to have improbably hot girlfriends.)

Posted by Linus | November 27, 2006 12:01 AM

I read McCain's position as wanting to outline a position to the right of Bush, but expecting that position not to be adopted, and the alternate position to the left of Bush - if we aren't going to add troops, we should bring our boys home - also will not be taken.

So, McCain wins if the status quo is maintained, for having recommended something else. A fairly safe bet.

Posted by Cent21 | November 27, 2006 1:42 AM

So, McCain wins if the status quo is maintained, for having recommended something else. A fairly safe bet.

That's a good point, but I don't think it will do McCain much good. When the boat people started coming out of Vietnam, conservative pundits went into a caterwaul claiming it was proof that we shouldn't have bugged out of the war. The center didn't buy it.

In 2008, if U.S. forces are headed out of Iraq and the place is going to hell even faster than it is now, I don't think there will be much enthusiasm for going back in.

Posted by David Tomlin | November 27, 2006 2:22 AM