McCain Doubles Down

With regard to the post below, Marc Ambinder's report on how John McCain hopes to revive his dying presidential campaign by giving a speech in which he "will steel his audience to prepare for a 'Long War'" is a reminder of why McCain and Rudy Giuliani are both so dangerous. They both rely on mindless warmongering as their only hope of securing the nomination. The contract they're making with the GOP base is "you may not like where I stand on X or Y, but at least I'll go to war with Iran." Romney's stated views on foreign policy are no less idiotic than his rivals' but one can at least imagine him flip-flopping away from them.

When McCain promises that his approach to resolving our failed policy in Iraq is to let that same failed policy continue for another 18 months, then take office as president, and keep continuing the same failed policy forever and ever, that's all he's got. That's his pitch. He won't -- and, indeed, can't -- back down from the view that "Defeatism will not buy peace in our time" and we just need to continue our futile effort to occupy Iraq contrary to the wishes of Iraq's population.

Photo by Flickr user Sooz used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

"...we just need to continue our futile effort to occupy Iraq contrary to the wishes of Iraq's population."

I love this sentence. Think of the possibilities if you replace the Iraq-specific words. Here, let me try:

"We just need to continue our futile effort to make Americans accept gay marriage contrary to the wishes of America's population".

or:

"We just need to continue our futile effort to educate poor blacks in public schools, contrary to the wishes of the black population."

Now you try!

Posted by Juan | July 13, 2007 12:01 PM

McCain's worse than Giuliani. He's been dealing with FP issues for a long, long time, and must have strong ties to a fairly well-defined set of policy advisors. Giuliani's advisors may be worse, but I suspect that they're less well-established with the candidate. There's no reason to believe that McCain will rethink his views on FP. That's less true for Romney or Giuliani or even Thompson.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | July 13, 2007 12:02 PM

Good book store.

Posted by otto | July 13, 2007 12:12 PM

McCain could announce tomorrow that he wants to pull all troops out of Iraq and drop a plane load of Hershey's kisses on Iran. Wouldn't make any difference. It's his support for the immigration bill that killed his candidacy. It's over, Johnny.

Posted by Fred | July 13, 2007 12:36 PM

Matt, I call this republican style of campaigning, "blood-gulping."

Imagine each candidate, sans Ron Paul, hoisting a pitcher of blood and gulping it down. The one to finish first, shirt stained with gore, get's the ravenous applause.

It's that sick!

Posted by DonkeyKong | July 13, 2007 12:38 PM

Now you try!

Okay:

We just need to continue our efforts to have a rational discussion, contrary to the wishes of a troll named Juan, who seems a little shakey on this concept of "right" and "wrong" . . .

Posted by rea | July 13, 2007 12:40 PM

I think people are making a mistake writing off McCain. He can still win. His opponents all have problems of their own.

Posted by DonB | July 13, 2007 1:12 PM

Re: It's his support for the immigration bill that killed his candidacy.

It's not just that, though that's a part of it. The GOP base does not trust McCain. Foreign policy isn't really where their meat is: it's the social issues that count most, and here they suspect McCain (despite his voting record in the Senate) is neither a pro-Life true believer nor sufficiently anti-gay. They fear (perhaps rightly) he would not give them the rightwing activist judges they crave. Plus, he insulted them by calling Falwell and Roberston exactly what they are back in 2000, and he crimped their style with Campaign Finance Reform just when they starting to figure out to practice legal bribery as the big boys do.

Posted by JonF | July 13, 2007 1:21 PM

McCain is going down with Bush’s ship, but he’s also too old and lacks the folksy warmth required by the dumbasses who cast their vote based on such Ronald Reagan feel-good shtick. Giuliani’s pile of dirty laundry is too mountainous, and his penchant for cronyism and executive authoritarianism will not be a turn-on after Bush and Cheney are done, except for those paranoid or fascist folk who would gladly exchange the constitution for a promise of endless military aggression against brown people everywhere. Romney may get the nod only because he’s not connected in any way with the GWOT or 9/11, and I agree with Matt that he’d probably end up being a lot more centrist and reasonable than he’s willing to admit in these heady “Let’s double GITMO!” days of hyperbole. Mitt is an exquisite example of an empty suit and shameless opportunist, but he’s less terrifying than Rudy and McCain because his political aspiration feels like boy-scoutish striving whereas the other two seem like just another couple of angry, paranoid megalomaniacs. And McCain may actually be more of a whore than any of them, what with his tolerance of torture and his nauseating habit of cozying up to the very people who derailed him in 2000. Romney is sickening, but not quite terrifying. There’s little about him that screams “carpet bombing.”

That being said, I don’t think any of these creeps stands a chance in the general election. They are Republicans, and America has simply had enough of their fruitless warmongering, bloated budgets, and moral and ethical bankruptcy . That was true in ’06 and it will remain true in ’08.

Posted by tinisoli | July 13, 2007 1:36 PM

McCain's real problem is that he has exposed himself as a doddering old fool. Nobody wants to elect President Grumpy Old Man.

Posted by blah | July 13, 2007 1:39 PM

You can't have peace without fighting for it every chance you get.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 13, 2007 1:49 PM

As Cunning Realist has noted, someone needs to ask McCain about this quote:

[i]"It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn’t support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay. No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone."[/i]

John McCain - from the forward he wrote for Best and Brightest.

Posted by hankest | July 13, 2007 3:55 PM

I suspect McCain’s answer would be something along the lines of the standard Bushite response: 'On September the 11th, 2001, everything changed. We face a new enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy us and our way of life.'
Blah blah blah.

Posted by tinisoli | July 13, 2007 4:01 PM