The Secret Anti-War McCain

Ramesh Ponnuru makes the case that the GOP would be in better shape had they gone with John McCain in 2000. That seems plausible to me. Then things get interesting when Andy McCarthy says:

Interesting question. McCain might have prosecuted the war in Iraq better, especially the aftermath of Saddam's ouster; but would he have invaded Iraq in the first place? I'd bet no. I realize he was very supportive of the Bush policy, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the policy he'd have made if he'd been president. He'd surely have ratcheted up the pressure on Saddam, but I think he'd have been more open to persuasion by the State Department, the Defense Department and the Europeans not to do pull the trigger. After all, the major personnel throughout a McCain administration would have been importantly different, and I doubt they would have been as inclined toward the view that Saddam had to be removed. I'm not trying to make a judgment about the comparative wisdom here — just hazarding a guess on what might have been.

That sounds totally wrong to me. My impression of McCain is that though he was a believer in restraint back in the 1980s, that by 2000 he was the neocon in the race. There was a reason, after all, why Bill Kristol and so forth were supporting him and it wasn't Kristol's commitment to campaign finance reform. Indeed, my recollection is that back during the period between 9/11 and when the Bush administration began its formal push for the Iraq AUMF that McCain was, along with Joe Lieberman one of the leading legislative proponents of regime change.

But McCarthy knows a lot more about the world of conservative national security thinkers than I do. If there's any evidence out there that McCain might not be the dyed-in-the-wool hawk he appears to be, I'd be interested to know it. It might make his seeming comeback in New Hampshire look less frightening.

Comments

McCain's a hawk's hawk, but he's not crazy.

I don't know what he'd have done in the wake of 9/11, but I think it's safe to say he wouldn't have made as much of a mess of things as Bush did.

I understand the rationale behind trying to shoot down the "incompetence dodge", but that shouldn't let you forget just how incompetent Bush has been in pursuing his FP goals.

Posted by Petey | January 2, 2008 12:30 PM

Does McCain tap Cheney for VP? If not, two things McCain would not have had in his administration were a need to get even for Poppy and and an oil hungry, warmongering, paranoid loner over-riding the president.

But revisionist history is always correct, regardless of your choice of outcome.

Posted by Mudge | January 2, 2008 12:31 PM

It's true that McCain had a lot of neocon/Israeli-lobby backers, which points towards his taking part in the Iraq disaster. But on the other hand, McCain is more of his own man, less of a teenager, than Bush. So who knows?

Posted by otto | January 2, 2008 12:32 PM

If you look at McCain's article in Foreign Affairs last month, he puts a much, much greater emphasis on the other foreign policy tools (diplomacy, economic sanctions, etc.) than do the neo-cons, and has been hit mercilessly on this over at NRO, especially by Mark Levin. If you had to pigeon-hole him, I would call him a hawk that has a much more balanced and realistic view of the usefullness of military force, having had first hand experience that other candidates do not.

Posted by Adam | January 2, 2008 12:35 PM

I think these things are hard to project. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the intelligence was cooked by the Bush admin's conviction that war with Iraq was what they were looking for. McCain could very well have been influenced by false information as anyone else. There were plenty of hawkish things we could have done post-9/11. Iraq was only one option and not necessarily the most obvious one.

Posted by mpowell | January 2, 2008 12:39 PM

I think an important question is how McCain treats intelligence. As Mudge said, without Cheney cooking the books would McCain have had the wisdom to hold back on full occupation? Certainly, given the history of military action from the Clinton Administration, there would be occasional fireworks in Iraq.

The other factor is post-911 Afganistan. If, as I assume he would have, President McCain had ordered the American participation in the overthrow of the Taleban regime, the urgency for a reasonably sane man to divert resources and bog down the REST of the army in Iraq would be greatly diminished.

Posted by Scott Ferguson | January 2, 2008 12:40 PM

Bush started the Iraq war due to unresolved Daddy issues. McCain didn't have that. I'd wager he probably would have done the more prudent thing and finished up in Afghanistan before even thinking about the Iraq quagmire.

Posted by Spike | January 2, 2008 12:44 PM

We invaded Iraq on a fraud. McCain's a hawk and a panderer, but I don't think he's as dishonest as Bush and Co.

Iraq wouldn't have been invaded. Bin Laden would have been captured.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 2, 2008 12:47 PM

McCain is a 'career military' hawk-- he has a clue about the costs and risks of military adventures. Unlike Bush & Co 'Saddam said bad things about my daddy' militarism.

Posted by MattF | January 2, 2008 12:50 PM

My first distinct McCain memory was watching a Senate armed forces hearing where he was grilling Clinton administration Defense Secretary Cohen about Iraq policy. I thought he was crazy. It was maybe 1998.

This was during the time when Iraqi anti-aircraft guns would occasionally take shots at our planes patrolling the no-fly zone. We would then respond by destroying their anti-aircraft guns and issuing stern warnings. A few weeks later, another incident would occur. I think this eventually led to launching tomahawks, but I'm unsure.

To my recollection, these incidents involved relatively low levels of risk for our pilots. Iraqi anti-aircraft weaponry was pretty antiquated. Cohen said something to that effect, and that the situation was under control. But McCain was livid that we hadn't done more, including putting troops back in Iraq to stop this. He was basically advocating reinvading Iraq to prevent a minor threat from harming one of our pilots. He kept hammering away. I remember thinking he was nuts.

Of course that was before I knew that he himself had been a POW or anything else about him.

Posted by tomboy | January 2, 2008 12:53 PM

Other folks have got it right. It's not that McCain is or is not a hawk. It's that he's not as stupid or irrational as Bush, Cheney and company. President McCain might have thought about invading Iraq, but he would have recognized what massive and dangerous undertaking it would be and likely would've passed on it.

Mike

Posted by MBunge | January 2, 2008 12:58 PM

McCain may have been more diligent than ("cover your ass") Bush, in following up on 9-11 warnings - so he may have acted in manner similar to Clinton/Gore re Millenium and that may have prevented 9-11 before it happened.
That's just speculation - but I agree with McCarthy that McCain would have ended up balking at invading Iraq - Recall there were dozens of pivit points on the way to war when Bush could have gone one way, rather than the other - Indeed, there were many times when it was hard to imagine anyone but Bush pursuing the war the way he did - Bush was indispensible. McCain would have had great difficulty lying so grandly about WMD and aluminum tubes - It's one thing to go along or nod along with propaganda - It's quite another to initiate propaganda.
Also McCain is opposed to torture and much of the GOP base likes torture - Just read the blog comments on right wing sites to get a small idea of what lurks in the GOP Id. Add on the resentment/jealousy many feel for McCain for serving during Vietnam - he would not have been able to rally the "base" to enough of moronic frenzy that Bush found necessary to get the unrelated to 9-11 Iraq war the needed popular support.

Posted by Comment | January 2, 2008 12:58 PM

likely would've passed on it.

I don't know where this stuff comes from. Hey, I find him charismatic, too, but we're talking about Neocon John here. If he had passed on Iraq, it would have been to jump directly to Iran.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | January 2, 2008 1:08 PM

let me get this straight (i refuse to click on the link for anything related to nro): mccarthy thinks it's a criticism of mccain that he wouldn't have invaded iraq? in 2008, he still thinks that's a criticism?

Posted by howard | January 2, 2008 1:12 PM

It is highly unlikely that any administration except one with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and ranking PNACers would have invaded Iraq.

McCain is a true-blue hawk and like all good hawks went along with the war, and in that there is its own special craziness.

But the invasion itself, and the campaign before it filled with lies and distortions, and the tragic aftermath that continues to this day, would not have happened except for the unique circumstance that the White House of the time was filled with the most corrupt, dishonest, incompetent group of thugs in our history.

Posted by JJF | January 2, 2008 1:20 PM

Well, it's hard to imagine anyone following a more disastrous Mid East policy post-9/11 than Bush...but I'd bet that McCain would have given it the old college try!

Remember, McCain was THE neocon candidate in 2000, while Bush's few foreign policy statements were to denounce Clinton for "nation-building" and to advocate a "humbler" foreign policy. Virtually all the neocons were in the McCain camp, hence so were pretty much all the key organizers of PNAC.

Basically, McCain was widely perceived as the "Giuliani" of 2000, namely the Republican who would finally dump the Christian Right in favor of consolidating the party around the National Greatness neocons like Bill Kristol.

Posted by RKU | January 2, 2008 1:28 PM

My gut feeling is that McCain is just too smart to blunder into a war in Iraq (especially based on torturing an alcoholic informant named Curveball), but have to admit that the evidence for such a hunch is thin to nonexistent.

In fact, tomboy's post reminds that when the Clinton/Gore administration defended Kosovo with what turned out to be a successful air campaign backed by international support, McCain called for ground-troops...30,000, if memory serves.

Hmmm. Maybe he's crazier than he looks.

Posted by Kit Stolz | January 2, 2008 1:28 PM

It's hard to see Iraq happening without the confluence of Bush and Cheney, I think, however hawkish McCain may be. There is a difference between supporting a war being proposed by the President, and being president and proposing a war. The people who supported the war are stupid and deserve our contempt, but that's not the same thing as thinking that they'd have necessarily started the war themselves.

I'm not completely sure about McCain, and obviously the question is in some sense unanswerable, but I don't think it's at all foolish to think that he might not have started this war. Among other things, I think he'd have balked at the level of dishonesty that was involved in selling the war.

But who knows? He certainly is really really hawkish, and was tight with the neocons. So maybe he would have.

Posted by John | January 2, 2008 1:29 PM

My little sister wouldn't have made the mess in Iraq that Bush did. The guys in the bar I drank with last night wouldn't have made the mess in Iraq that Bush did. The cashier at the grocery store up the street who got fired for lighting up a doobie in the meat freezer wouldn't have made the mess in Iraq that Bush did. If this is the criteria, let's open up the presidential race to a number of other contenders! Minus the warbloggers and the crazy hawks, that leaves us with a good 280 million person pool.

Posted by roger | January 2, 2008 1:32 PM

"Ramesh Ponnuru makes the case that the GOP would be in better shape had they gone with John McCain in 2000. That seems plausible to me."

That's like saying Squeaky Fromme and Tex Watson should have found a better guru than Charlie Manson. Plausible? It's undeniable. If the GOP had nominated a pile of Saint Reagan's soiled undergarments in 2000 instead of the amoral cretin they chose we'd all be better off.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 2, 2008 1:40 PM

also, i like this:

"I think he'd have been more open to persuasion by the State Department, the Defense Department and the Europeans not to do pull the trigger."

mccarthy seems to think that if the state dept, the defense dept, and most of the other western democracies in the world are against something, it's still not even worth reconsidering. kind of amazing.

Posted by Max B. | January 2, 2008 2:01 PM

You lost me right after "Ramesh Ponuru makes the case..."

Posted by ed | January 2, 2008 2:01 PM

Well, if a McCain administration was in power after 9/11, would Iraq even be the first target after Afghanistan? Why Iraq?

Posted by Quietus | January 2, 2008 2:21 PM

Since the premise is if the GOP had gone with McCain in 2000, lets at least get the speculative answer correct: Gore would have been president. What that would mean to the GOP today, I have no idea, but the democrats would have been fucked with Lieberman as their candidate.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | January 2, 2008 2:39 PM

My impression of McCain is that though he was a believer in restraint back in the 1980s, that by 2000 he was the neocon in the race.

McCain's a Hawk, and a rather radical one at that, but Neoconservatism's a very specific philosophy and not one that describes him well.

Posted by Shinyk | January 2, 2008 2:42 PM

If you had to pigeon-hole him, I would call him a hawk that has a much more balanced and realistic view of the usefullness of military force, having had first hand experience that other candidates do not.

"Realist Hawk" sounds about right.

Posted by Shinyk | January 2, 2008 2:45 PM

I agree with most everyone here, McCain probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq (he'd have Wolfowitz types at DoD, but I'm not so sure he'd give free rein to Doug Feith's fucking idiocy.) It should be noted, Andy McCarthy/Mark Levin all hate McCain, since he doesn't want to torture a bunch of Muslims.

Posted by Sam | January 2, 2008 3:19 PM

My gut feeling is that McCain is just too smart to blunder into a war in Iraq.

I think that reflects more on the traditional Lefty trait of attributing supreme intelligence to anyone who opposes "The Bad Republican in Charge." We subsequently find out Adlai Stevenson was a low-IQ society guy who had gone 10 years without reading a book. The Genius Algore actually had lower grades than Bush and had failed at law school and divinity school. That while Bush was an academic lazy dolt, John Kerry was an overachiever with IQ and SAT scores lower than Bush's.
Now we find "the smartest woman in America" wasn't in the Top 10 in her HS, failed her DC Bar exam, never did court litigation. Never had a security clearance or attended any classified briefings.
And John McCain finished 895 in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy, never went on to a grad degree (30% of his classmates did, even including the POW, badly wounded contingent). He wasn't "too smart" to get passed over for selection to Admiral, and his fellow Senators have noted that McCain is a champ, along with Barbara Boxer and Mel Martinez of "bone-headed Amendments" the author didn't fully understand.

Back in 2002, John McCain, even back in 1998 when "regime change" in Iraq was decided on by Clinton and the neocon cabal - McCain was with them. Nor does McCain being ex-military signify he knows, by his biography, the best ground infantry strategy and occupation strategy any more than his ex-military co-pilot George Bush does.
They were well-trained for a very specific mission as mid-level officers. NOT in war-fighting strategy against nations. Its a leap as much as Rudy, being a prosecutor of mafia and Wall Street types, claiming he knows how to prosecute a war against unlawful military combatants. Perhaps true that their training and general military or lawyer for the State backgrounds makes such new stuff easier to pick up than it would be for a gay vegan fashionista, but biography does not mean automatic knowledge and comprehension of strategy for a new threat.

I served. I nevertheless know nothing of sub tactics other than what I've read in fiction novels, don't understand Marine tactics or their battlespace strategy, and am clueless about logistics strategy other than it works magically well. I never read a SIOP. Never went to War College.

IMO, McCain would have gone into Iraq. He would have demanded a post-war plan. But he would have endorsed the complete breakup of the Iraqi Army and the criminally stupid Bremer desicion because McCain likes doing sweeping things with little thought so he can get camera time. He would have fired Rumsfeld and his chain for botching the postwar, the Jessica Lynch fiasco, and mishandling Abu Ghraib. He also would have swiftly aligned with his neocon mentors into pronouncing Iran as the real threat to his beloved Israe...err..America, and been poring over how to best bomb them. He would have rejected the Lefty drivel that the war with radical Islam will magically end as soon as bin Laden was caught and brought before the "majesty of America's great lawyers and infidel rule of law" - determining that Binnie was marginalized and out of our reach and it was more important to whack other Jihadis elsewhere.
One good thing about a President McCain, though, would be he would remember very well the Jewish-Left media's impact on the Vietnam War and fought it better than Bush did in the Iraq situation, used more non-military tools. And he would have dismissed 30 million dollar rewards in Binnie and his co-Evildoers as a joke, coming from an honor culture himself, he knows that the more money is offered to betray honor, the more honor culture people will resist.

I also have no doubt that McCain would have waterboarded and advocated other rough treatment of unlawful enemy combatants to save thousands of US lives. His "anti-torture" stance is his way of sticking it to Bush for costing McCain the Presidency that should have been his by right of being a POW - and his laments after the big plots of KSM and our having better intel on then by 2004 - simply pure posture to the cameras and media pundits. (McCains fundamental Senate smarminess and media manipulation).

Posted by Chris Ford | January 2, 2008 3:26 PM

Well, I certainly agree with Chris Ford about McCain's presumed dimness. And I also agree that partly for this reason, Kristol and his full coven of other neocon advisors would have persuaded McCain to attack Iraq after 9/11, and probably Iran as well.

One pretty funny incident from the 2000 race sticks in my mind. At that time, McCain had been in the Senate for a couple of decades and had a near-perfect "Pro-Life" record, and he was running very hard for the Republican Presidential nomination. Yet when he met with one of the Editorial Boards and was questioned about Roe v. Wade, it turned out he didn't have a clue about that decision.

Prominent Republican Presidential candidates who don't have clue about Roe v. Wade can't be the sharpest chisel in the toolbox. It makes Huckabee's likely ignorance of whether Brazil in in Europe or in Asia pretty minor by comparison.

Posted by RKU | January 2, 2008 3:53 PM

Chris Ford writes: "I also have no doubt that McCain would have waterboarded and advocated other rough treatment of unlawful enemy combatants to save thousands of US lives. His "anti-torture" stance is his way of sticking it to Bush for costing McCain the Presidency that should have been his by right of being a POW - and his laments after the big plots of KSM and our having better intel on then by 2004 - simply pure posture to the cameras and media pundits."

Torture-loving fascists like Chris Ford can't believe anyone really opposes torture on moral grounds. I have no doubt that Chris Ford would cheerfully order the nuclear obliteration of Iran tomorrow if he could... and his only qualm would be regret that he wasn't able to torture a few thousand Iranians first.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 2, 2008 4:12 PM

I think a juicier question is, would a President Gore have invaded Iraq? I know it might seem unlikely given Gore's current politics, but people should consider just how hawkish Gore was when he served in the Clinton administration. The US almost invaded Iraq in 1998; we got Operation Desert Fox isntead, but it could have gone the other way.

Posted by Julian | January 2, 2008 4:27 PM

Torture-loving fascists like Chris Ford can't believe anyone really opposes torture on moral grounds.

And yet, there's a grain of truth somewhere in there. McCain sure postured impressively about Abu Ghraib... then did nothing of substance, preferring to continue sucking George W. Bush's dick. McCain sure postured impressively about torture in 2006, then capitulated completely to the Bush administration and the farcial MCA, which scrapped habeas in "exchange" for the executive branch retaining the right to torture all it wants ("Torture is illegal, but we're abolishing any oversight or any legal redress.") Yet we all still love a low-IQ, hair-trigger, warmongering, dishonest shit because he wouldn't have been a tool of all the neocons that were championing him back in 2000. Never mind how far up his ass Bill Kristol's arm was.

Posted by mds | January 2, 2008 4:27 PM

the neocons that were championing him back in 2000

It's interesting that the neocons would champion McCain in 2000 and so badly hate his guts now (leaving Kristol aside).

Over at the Corner, the Neocons (VDH, Levin, Ledeen) positively despise McCain as a dove(!?) and non-conservative (as if Johnny-come-lately ex-Marxists can define a coalition that formed in opposition to their intellectual forebearers).

The more "traditional" conservatives (Ponnuru, Lowry, Goldberg) and libertarian-types (Stuttaford, Derbyshire, maybe Freddoso) may not like McCain, per se, but they certainly don't hate him or denounce him as a coward and traitor.

Posted by Shinyk | January 2, 2008 4:52 PM

Re: McCain sure postured impressively about Abu Ghraib... then did nothing of substance, preferring to continue sucking George W. Bush's dick.

He attempted to do something substantial but could not (surprise!) get it past the Bush White House. So he scaled back his objcetivew and still managed to get a bill passed. Yes, that bill does not do much, but it's due to Bush not honoring the spirit of the law, not to McCain's failure.
A President McCain would not have allowed torture nor would Gitmo exist. Would we be in Iraq? Yes, I believe we would. Would Iraq be a success under McCain? No probably not. But it would be a good deal less of a FUBAR than it is and our international reputation would be a bit frayed but not torn to shreds.

Posted by JonF | January 2, 2008 5:26 PM

Shinyk - Anyone that has watched McCain in action over the years knows he is treacherous and untrustworthy. It's just a matter of when, not IF, McCain the maverick will cook up a cabal of RINOs or go solo in sabotaging other Senators then go out smiling with Teddy, Chuck Schumer, and Arlen for the media cameras. The neocons are his latest victims.

Back when KSM was captured, John McCain hailed the capture and said it was imperative that he be promptly questioned to save American lives from other 9/11 scale plots he was involved in. McCain hailed GITMO and commented on how many lives in 3 major plots uncovered (from KSM's squealing) had been saved. It was only after Abu Ghraib that McCain realized where his "good friends" in the media were coming down that he started changing his tune on the Patriot Act and how we should show how nice we are by giving terrorists "full Geneva Protections, though they reject Geneva and all laws of war but Koranic guidance on Jihad.

Also, importantly, McCain saw his "anti-torture" shift as a way of sticking it to Bush, John Ashcroft, and especially Rumsfeld - all who McCain hates. And the upside was more media glorification of McCain, who loves the love the media gives him as "A POW 40 years ago who one absolute wisdom and moral authority from his suffering."

*****************************
have no doubt that Chris Ford would cheerfully order the nuclear obliteration of Iran tomorrow if he could... and his only qualm would be regret that he wasn't able to torture a few thousand Iranians first.
Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus

Amazing how traitors like this guy project their hysteria onto others.

Iranians are pretty cool. The ones I've met, even enemy Iran Navy and Air elements we waged an undeclared low-intensity war on we had a couple of "working group" meetings with before the Gulf War started.

They are not Arabs, but for the most part non-warlike people from an ancient, distinguished civilization. Right now, out of 70 million, they have a half million radical Islamists that need to be killed or marginalized to make Iran realtivel open, prosperous and free again. But thats Iran's internal mess do have Iran's people deal with if they want to fix a situation worse than the Shah and Savak. Unless, of course the radical Quds Force fanatics draw us in - which they almost did until last spring by providing the sophisticated weapons used to kill or maim hundreds of Americans.

(That was when Bush had more restraint than McCain, who was in full "Bomb Iran" mode to take out nuclear facilities and the EFP and high explosives factories...)

Posted by Chris Ford | January 2, 2008 6:25 PM

Re: Back when KSM was captured, John McCain hailed the capture and said it was imperative that he be promptly questioned to save American lives

Nobody is complaining about questioning KSM or anyone else. Please don't set up strawmen.

Re: Also, importantly, McCain saw his "anti-torture" shift as a way of sticking it to Bush, John Ashcroft, and especially Rumsfeld

News flash: John Ashcroft quietly but honorably chose to leave Justice because he disagreed with much of the policy he was being forced to implemnent. That's why we ended up with the dreadful hack Gonzales. Oh well, better a disgraced Attorney General than a Supreme Court justice.

Posted by JonF | January 2, 2008 8:56 PM

Re: Back when KSM was captured, John McCain hailed the capture and said it was imperative that he be promptly questioned to save American lives

Nobody is complaining about questioning KSM or anyone else. Please don't set up strawmen.

Re: Also, importantly, McCain saw his "anti-torture" shift as a way of sticking it to Bush, John Ashcroft, and especially Rumsfeld

News flash: John Ashcroft quietly but honorably chose to leave Justice because he disagreed with much of the policy he was being forced to implemnent. That's why we ended up with the dreadful hack Gonzales. Oh well, better a disgraced Attorney General than a Supreme Court justice.

Posted by JonF | January 2, 2008 8:57 PM

I don't know if McCain is nuts or not, but remember that in the first year or so after 9/11, despite the very real fear and anguish, the idea of invading Iraq was widely seen as weird. It took a concerted PR effort by the Bush admin to make it inevitable. It's gonna take another decade to fully wake up to what a bizarrely awful presidency this has been.

Posted by c | January 2, 2008 11:23 PM

mds quotes and writes: "Torture-loving fascists like Chris Ford can't believe anyone really opposes torture on moral grounds.

And yet, there's a grain of truth somewhere in there. McCain sure postured impressively about Abu Ghraib... then did nothing of substance, preferring to continue sucking George W. Bush's dick. McCain sure postured impressively about torture in 2006, then capitulated completely to the Bush administration and the farcial MCA, which scrapped habeas in "exchange" for the executive branch retaining the right to torture all it wants ("Torture is illegal, but we're abolishing any oversight or any legal redress.")"

Oh, I agree, and I in no way want McCain to be president. He sold out his principles because he wanted to become the GOP establishment candidate in 2008. I do believe that if he had been the guy in 2000 that - even if he did invade Iraq - the worst excesses of Abu Ghraib and the torture policy would have been avoided. It's just a question of whether he would have been better than Dumbya/Cheney, not that he would have been a cure-all.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 2, 2008 11:33 PM

"McCain's a hawk's hawk, but he's not crazy."

Uhm, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"...

So he's not a neocon. The same neocon freaks would have been around, and drumming up the war. As would the same oil companies, and the same war profiteer companies - even if Cheney wasn't VP.

And who says he wouldn't have succumbed to the same 9/11 hysteria and after invading Afghanistan, go on to Iraq AND Iran and the "clash of civilizations" crap that Bush lives by?

People are really splitting hairs here. It's a symptom of just how ridiculous the US has become in the last six years that somehow people think a nitwit hawk like McCain is "better than Bush."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 12:39 AM

I don't get the McCain worship either.

He's a damn fool, and it wasn't just Kristol who liked him in 2000. It was the whole frontpagemag.com crew and the entire neocon establishment. That they don't like him now over him making some noises that torture is bad, is incredibly beside the point. They liked him just fine when they were scared that GWB who hung out with the Saudis and could hold hands with them without being embarassed and had a Palestinian roommate in college was going to grab the ring.

GWB was probably the best you were going to get out of the Republican party for lacking "ZOMG, kill the Muslims!!!!" in 2000.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 3, 2008 12:48 AM

In the interest of fairness, GWB probably beat the Democratic candidates in 2000 for lack of "ZOMG, kill the Muslims!!!" to.

Sorry as that is.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 3, 2008 12:54 AM

Anyone that has watched McCain in action over the years knows he is treacherous and untrustworthy.

Matt Welch's book on that general topic is a fantastic read. But Fred isn't likely to win the nomination and I can at least take solace in the fact that McCain isn't Huckabee (religious progressive and populist) or Rudy (central planner), so I'm going to be cutting him more slack than he probably deserves.

Hopefully having actually campaigned in a post CFR system makes McCain to want to use the bully pulpit to repeal it.

Posted by Shinyk | January 3, 2008 4:11 AM