The Arik Scenario

Noah Millman sketches out a scenario in which John McCain, like Ariel Sharon, upon being confronted with the burdens of office tempers his views in a more pragmatic direction and surprises people. It definitely could happen. Heck, maybe McCain could be the Nixon who goes to Teheran. But as Millman says it's "a fairly audacious hope, given how McCain has positioned himself over the past decade."

And, indeed, while there's a general unpredictability about these things the safest assumption seems to me to be that McCain roughly believes what he's been saying all this time. It's not as if he's a guy with a lifelong passion for economic policy who started imitating Bush's lines when he decided to run for President. He's in the military, then he's dispatched by the military to represent their interests in congress, then he's a member of congress and senator himself who's always been interested in military issues who was "talking like Bush" before Bush was talking like Bush. In other words, he's probably thought this all through and if he wins intends to govern accordingly. Maybe not. We can have hope. But I wouldn't count on him reversing course.

Comments

So the Straight Talker is really the Flip Flopper? Or he's just been spewing hyperbole this whole time and is really just a moderate?

You can only take a man on his word, and McCain's is that he is an unreformed hawk who supports almost all of Bush's failed policies in one way or another.

That's what this election will be about.

And that's why McCain can't win.

Posted by Bubblegoose | April 11, 2008 11:18 AM

Comparing John McCain to war criminal Ariel Sharon?

Not a flattering comparison for McCain.

And more reason not to elect him.

Posted by Jimmy James | April 11, 2008 11:35 AM

There are of course Molly Ivins' three ways to predict how a politician will act in higher office: look at the record, look at the record, and look at the record. It's not an infallible approach, but it's so much better than anything else that you have to think anyone in favor of something else has an axe to grind. Or a candidate to sell.

Posted by Doug | April 11, 2008 11:44 AM

Sorry, our big hope is that McCain blossoms into Ariel Sharon? And what miracle of peace and moderation did Sharon produce, exactly? Israel is still building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and is still building an apartheid wall - sorry, "security barrier"! - as a massive land grab. If the supposed evidence of Sharon's "moderation" is the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza, then my response is simply to laugh: Israel still asserts military control over the whole of Gaza, which it invades at will and treats as an open-air prison camp; it merely removed a series of failed investments from a piece of land it was never very interested in. The Palestinians have not seen their lives improve in the least since Sharon came to power eight years ago; quite the opposite, in fact.

Posted by strasmangelo jones | April 11, 2008 11:47 AM

Of course, that same logic raises the Jeremiah A. Wright question for Obama.

Posted by Steve Sailer | April 11, 2008 11:49 AM

Instead of guessing whether McCain will govern with a pragmatic foreign policy hand, you could just...vote for Obama. Regardless of whether McCain ends up governing less hawkishly than he campaigned (and I actually believe that argument), we can be damn near certain Obama won't be governing as hawkishly as McCain, whether we get The Good McCain or The Bad McCain.

Am I missing the point somehow?

Posted by P | April 11, 2008 11:55 AM

Pardon the double post, but how does this "raise the Jeremiah A. Wright Question" with Obama? What do you mean? (Seriously; I'm not trying to bait an argument.)

Posted by P | April 11, 2008 12:01 PM

Can we call a moratorium on the use of "audacity of hope" in all its forms? Every second article seems to have some cleaver allusion...

Posted by Enough | April 11, 2008 12:02 PM

If you haven't seen my diary about John McCain and John Ashcroft from yesterday, check it out.

Posted by Swan | April 11, 2008 12:06 PM

Doug:
Considering that McCain's record is of a hard right nutter, it isn't good. Also, Bill "William the Bloody" Kristol originally endorsed him back in 2000. What does that tell you? And Kristol had been wanting to bomb the Middle East or China long before 9/11.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | April 11, 2008 12:11 PM

Pardon the double post, but how does this "raise the Jeremiah A. Wright Question" with Obama?

I believe Steve means to delicately allude to the grave and gathering menace represented by Obama's Angry Black Man-ness, and his secret, deep-seated desire to use the presidency to enslave the White Man.

Posted by strasmangelo jones | April 11, 2008 12:22 PM

Every second article seems to have some cleaver allusion...

The Audacity of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 11, 2008 12:29 PM

Sailer's right. While McCain may, true to form, start or prolong disastrous wars, Obama might go to church! A church where the pastor gives sermons Obama doesn't agree with!

I hope that won't happen, but can we afford to take that chance?

Posted by M. Peachbush | April 11, 2008 12:35 PM

Well, that's certainly *possible* about McCain...

Lots of things are "possible". Maybe your 1989 Yugo still runs better than your 2008 BMW. Maybe the whole NASA program was just a big hoax and all the money was embezzled. Maybe---as gcochran has speculated---our crazy Iraq War was just intended as cover to locate some DNA of Alexander the Great in Iraq and clone a race of super-leaders for our country's future benefit...

Maybe President McCain won't be a dangerously crazy warmonger....

Posted by RKU | April 11, 2008 12:41 PM

our crazy Iraq War was just intended as cover to locate some DNA of Alexander the Great in Iraq and clone a race of super-leaders for our country's future benefit...

Didn't Cobra grab the DNA of multiple past military rulers when they did their cloning project?

Posted by daveNYC | April 11, 2008 1:15 PM

The difference between them is the difference between a general who must make decisions and gets feed-back, in the form of dead soldiers, as to whether he was right or wrong, and a prisoner of war who has no control over the external world and fights the enemy within himself.

Sharon spent his whole life trying to control external reality. He "mellowed," if you can call it that, because his understanding of reality changed. McCain lives entirely inside his own head. He doesn't accept the primacy of facts. He will never change.

Posted by Bloix | April 11, 2008 2:01 PM

"Didn't Cobra grab the DNA of multiple past military rulers when they did their cloning project?"

Yup - they produced Serpentor, who formed "The Coil" - and then GI Joe, Cobra, and Destro joined forces to kick his ass.

And we need the same three to join forces to kick Bush, Cheney and McCain's ass.

'Cause it's not clear the Dems can do it.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 11, 2008 11:58 PM