tdaxp

"More McCain Reality," by Scott Shields, MyDD, 4 December 2005, http://mydd.com/story/2005/12/4/123325/460.

Scott Shields, of the partian Democrat but genius blog MyDD, outlines reasons for me to love John McCain in 2008.

It's all right there. McCain is a Bush loyalist whose position on Iraq is 'stay the course.' Another issue York touches on in the article is one that I've heard Democrats give McCain credit for -- fiscal responsibility. To many, McCain's attacks on pork barrel spending are a nice change of pace from the profligate spending of the last few years of Republican leadership. But John McCain's definition of pork might be different from theirs. Sure, both sides may agree on the infamous Alaskan 'Bridge to Nowhere,' but I strongly doubt that many Democratic McCainiacs support the privatization of Social Security that McCain does.

Just two McCain quotes from the recent Ari Berman article in The Nation, "The Real McCain," says quite a bit about how far McCain is willing to go to solidify his support from the GOP extremes. He refers to campaigning for Bush in 2004 as "one of the proudest moments of my life." On Larry King's show on CNN, he said, "I admire the religious right for the dedication and zeal they put into the political process." That second quote might be defensible as relatively objective if it weren't coming from someone who is going to rely on "the dedication and zeal" of the extremists to win in 2008. Personally speaking, there's nothing I find admirable about the religious right's attacks on anyone who doesn't endorse their bigotry.

John McCain, Republican

Returning to the New Republic article, York quotes McCain saying some surprisingly incendiary things about Democrats that he's already backpedalling from. This morning on 'Meet the Press,' McCain seemed to imply that the quotes were taken out of context. If that's true, they were taken out of context by someone who seems to support him. But I don't buy the out of context idea anyway, as these are pretty simple statements without much room for misinterpretation. Much more likely is the explanation that notoriously loose-lipped McCain said some things he now regrets.

With his war hero credibility, McCain is able to dismiss the calls of some of his fellow lawmakers--and fellow veterans--who want to get out of Iraq. John Kerry, McCain says, doesn't have "the strength to see it through." And John Murtha is "a lovable guy," but "he's never been a big thinker; he's an appropriator." Using language that Bush never could, McCain tells me that Murtha has become too emotional about the human cost of the war. "As we get older, we get more sentimental," McCain says. "And [Murtha] has been very, very affected by the funerals and the families. But you cannot let that affect the way you decide policy."