McCain's Maverick Years Are History

The New Republic: How Should Liberals Who Admire The Senator Wrestle With His Positions?

(The New Republic)  This column was written by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

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Liberals who have sung the praises of John McCain in the past confront a fascinating test of consistency, integrity and political commitment now that McCain is the virtually certain Republican nominee.

It could be an amusing moment. I should know, since I'm one of them.

Over the years, I've said a lot of nice things about McCain. In 1996, I suggested that Bob Dole pick him as his running mate. (Dole didn't listen.) I praised McCain's work on campaign finance reform, admired him for opposing President Bush's tax cuts and was upset when he was being cut down by the Bush machine in 2000. I wrote a friendly review of one of McCain's books, and even once asked, in print, that God bless him (for his refusal to bash immigrants).

Even my punditry has been sympathetic to McCain. In July of 1999, I said he'd emerge as the main challenger to George W. Bush, and I pointed to the beginnings of a 2008 McCain comeback in early November of last year.

Please forgive those self-referential paragraphs. I offer them to underscore that the problem I'm writing about is not somebody else's. It's mine.

Liberals can't ignore their past praise of McCain and trash him now just because he's the Republican nominee. After all, isn't he the guy many liberals once wanted the GOP to nominate?

Yet neither does it make sense for liberals to ignore all the issues on which they disagree with McCain - for starters, his commitment to continuing the occupation of Iraq indefinitely, his flip-flopping on those tax cuts, his opposition to government-sponsored universal health coverage - even if aspects of his persona are appealing.

McCain made the liberals' work easier by renouncing parts of his past so he could win this year's Republican nomination. His reversal on taxes is breathtaking, and he doesn't even own up to why he opposed Bush's tax cuts in the first place.

His new position is that he's for making the Bush tax cuts permanent simply because he never wants to vote for a tax increase. But if these tax cuts were a bad idea, why should they be continued?

And McCain now claims he opposed the Bush tax cuts because they were not accompanied by spending cuts. But that wasn't his thrust at the time. "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief," he said in 2001. Too bad that John McCain isn't running this year.

His efforts to pander to the religious right that he so bravely opposed in 2000 (he called Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance") aren't very attractive, either.

And it's mystifying that while Barack Obama has been willing - in the phrase he made fashionable - to "reject and denounce" Louis Farrakhan because of Farrakhan's anti-Semitism, McCain hasn't gone nearly as far in dealing with Pastor John Hagee. The evangelical leader, who called the Roman Catholic Church "the great whore," has endorsed McCain. McCain distanced himself from Hagee's anti-Catholicism - there are, after all, a lot of Catholic swing voters - but why is McCain so reluctant to use much stronger language about Hagee himself?

All this points to what is maddening about McCain. At times, he has acted with courage and honor. At other times, he behaves like a crafty politician. There is an independent side to McCain that has made him an authentic maverick. But on so many issues, he is nothing more (or less) than a thoroughly conventional conservative politician.

Perhaps the issue that matters most, especially to liberals, is his turnabout on Bush himself. Face it: Many liberals found McCain most attractive when he was being smeared and assaulted by Bush's lieutenants in the 2000 campaign. The more the Republican establishment attacked him, the more anti-establishment McCain became. Liberals loved that.

But McCain got to where he is now by making his peace with Bush.

Notably on Iraq but also on economics, he seems to be running for George W.'s third term. That's not what the country needs.

So what's the path of integrity for one-time McCain fans on the center and left? It would be to base our judgments on the extent to which the rebellious McCain we admired has given way to the McCain who is as conservative as he always said he was - even if many liberals (and, for different reasons, many conservatives) didn't want to believe him.

[knyghtwolf]

In a subsequient unrelated story, Ala. Building Can''t Shake Swastika Shape, problem solved, here is the PERFECT bush memorial library!!!! build the retirees a new place to live build them and touch up this building in Alabama and presto!!!! A LIVE MEMORIAL to shrubbie the first!!!

[sanfelz]

Lobbyists do not have to search for McCain, they work for him; advising him what to support,what letters to write, what policies he espouses for political gain. He has fallen in line, right behind Bush; sort of a Bush olde and lite. He has no vision.Even as an elder and with his party in control of all branches of the legislature and judiciary, he has made no difference at all.He has backpedalled on any issue where he used to differ with the Bush Administration.
Now, why don''t this supposed straight talker tekk all his conservative friends about his marital affairs.

[knyghtwolf]

"Iraq oil revenue soars, creating huge surplus
But U.S. still investing billions in rebuilding, facing squeeze at home." This was the headline on a Worldnews page. Here is ANOTHER reason we should NOT elect another republican to office. ANY revenue coming from this should go RIGHT BACK TO THE TAX PAYERS WHO WERE FORCED TO FUND THIS IDIOTIC WAR. We are still forced to spend the middle class and lower middle class monies at a rate of $12 BILLION a month, while the rich get the cream of crop profits, OUR money is being USED to fund CHIMPCO profits, with Haliburton in the forefront retaking their cut again and again whenever lil'' d*i*c*k says to do it under whatever guise works or whatever dung is hitting the fan. When your kids don''t eat for a week or two, and really start crying for food, then decide action, you need to take. We need our country back and we needed it back 8 years ago.

[quatrops]

So the once-tortured McCain now believes the way the North Vietnamese captors treated him was just fine, thank you very much! At least, they didn''t waterboard him.

McCain once fought hard against torture, arguing with the Bush neocons that torture didn''t accomplish anything and that it endangered our soldiers in future wars if we ignored the Geneva Convention. And it was morally wrong. Forget the animal Islamo-fascists for the moment. In all likelyhood, we will have future wars with more "civilized" opponents.

FLIP-FLOP FLIP-FLOP Johnny. Now that he has to suck up to the neocons to try to hold the Republicannots together, he votes to keep torture in our "arsenal" and approves Bush''s veto. Wow! And he accused Kerry of flip-flopping.

John McCain is a flip-flopping old geezer hawk who, while posing as a "leader" on campaign finance reform, was "in bed" with any lobbyist with big bucks.

How can any of you consider voting for this Washington insider machine politician (acronym WIMP). And if Clinton ends up being his opponent, it''s a tossup, because voters who recognize we need something other than another WIMP will stay away from the polls in droves.

[dmgenet]

Even though McCain is considered a ''maverick''; I believe it is because he is/was a moderate in a neocon world. Neocons are radicals, not fiscally responsible nor critical thinkers but non compromising power brokers who wanted to win at any cost. They thought power and money equaled democracy and screw everyone else, including moderate republicans and democrats. Dangerous people in a democratic state.

McCain was a moderate within a radical environ. He was a rebel. Now he is pulling the moderate Repubs back and hopefully he will sideline or minimize the neocon view of the world and of this country.

[mcvet]

WITHOUT McCain in office we are all SCREWED!! He may not be the best candidate possible in our country, but he''''s one helluva lot better than Bama or taco lickin'''' Hitlery! If McCain doesn''''t win we will all have to become muslims or die. He is the only 1 of the 3 candidates that has any balls (other than Bill''''s in Hitlery''''s purse). Neither of the democraps should be allowed to be commander in chief of the armed forces just as Billy C. should never have been. If either democrap candidate came to my house to campaign I wouldn''''t answer the door. I like being an American and I don''''t worship this so called "allah".


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Posted by shafteriffic at 05:57 PM : Mar 11, 2008
+ report abuse

Man you are the biggest COWARD I''ve ever seen!! ROFLMAO You think McSame is going to stop the Fascist from losing in the Middle East? Sparky we''d better pick someone else because the freaks we have aren''t doing anything but taking a good old fashioned Country Butt Whoopin!! Now stop you sniveling and crawl back under your rock. The REAL American''s will call you, as always, when it''s over! Sieg Heil Bush!

[shafteriffic]

WITHOUT McCain in office we are all SCREWED!! He may not be the best candidate possible in our country, but he''s one helluva lot better than Bama or taco lickin'' Hitlery! If McCain doesn''t win we will all have to become muslims or die. He is the only 1 of the 3 candidates that has any balls (other than Bill''s in Hitlery''s purse). Neither of the democraps should be allowed to be commander in chief of the armed forces just as Billy C. should never have been. If either democrap candidate came to my house to campaign I wouldn''t answer the door. I like being an American and I don''t worship this so called "allah".

[denn034]

Somehow, I doubt McCain''s maverickness is over.

[janiet3]

Geez, people. He''s an old geezer, way past his prime, and war/torture jaded. His attempts to hide his violent temper (as many have witnessed) and likely PTSD, is something he ultimately cannot do. Everything points to his having had many medical concerns before now, and I don''t think they are being truthful or forthcoming about them.

Besides all this, he is just an older (but none the wiser) Bush. Ugh! We (and the military) can''t afford him today, tomorrow or anywhere in the future.

Go home, John. Get behind the big screen t.v., read Time/Newsweek, get a tall one, and relax. Unfortunately, the USA just doesn''t need your services, at least not as CIC we don''t.

[noloyalisti]

I cannot believe that someone like those could be allowed to work in our government, let along run for it''s head post.

This is someone who embraces Bush and the failed foreign and domestic policies of the conservatives. He might break a little from the extremist GOP policies (like on the immigration and campaign reform) but this is only when he is forced to out of common sense or political force.

God help us all if he is selected. We could not even survive the bush administration, just look at our future now. How can we afford more of the same?