Sullivan: "here's what I fear: that [McCain] will not be honest and candid about the true implications on his strategy" on Iraq.
???
One of the major threats to McCain's general election campaign is that he's been remarkably candid about what he thinks we should do in Iraq. Love his proposals or hate them, whatever you do, don't pretend he's not likely to be honest.
4 comments:
LOLZ!
Okay, I have to respond to this one.
While he may be honest about the true implications that he knows of on his strategy on Iraq, I suspect that he may, in fact, not be honest about his agreement with the policy he is advertising in the 2008 elections. (I'm relieved that he's the Republican presidential candidate and not Huckabee, though. McCain sucks, but we could do worse. Shall we hope he doesn't pick Huckabee for a vice president ?)
I mean, months ago, he called various members of the religious right dangerous. Which they are. However, now he is persistently pandering toward them - he spoke at Liberty University, which is Jerry Falwell's little hotbed of stupidity, and said nothing but praise for them.
Seriously? You think McCain is honest?
From the department of "duh"...
Kl, McCain is a politician. One ought not to expect him to be perfectly consistent, especially when one is not talking about actual issues, but rather who a politician is willing to court during campaign season.
McCain is aware, as is everyone else in politics, that a Republican's chances at the presidency drop significantly if the religious right turns on him.
The examples of pandering you offer are fair enough, but (I believe) it was Sam Brownback who said that "no one in Congress has done more" than McCain to keep the issues that matter to moral conservatives from getting a hearing on the senate floor.
So, you got him: McCain trying to have it both ways with a pernicious political force that he strongly opposes, but that could potentially prevent him from being elected to office. If this is worthy of ridicule and scorn, you're setting the bar too high for any politician I know of.
I would expect individuals like yourself who oppose the religious right to appreciate the fact that the Republican nominee is moderate and sensible, and yet has a shrewd enough sense of reality to get himself elected.
Here's an idea:
How about both parties cut all ties with the Religious Right?
They're too small a force to have any major impact on the United States unless anybody gives them more power.
Things such as size of government and government spending would be much better debated if we shut the fundies out of the picture.
McCain is hardly moderate.
One it would be nice to see politicians say more often is "in politics, to get something done on one issue you sometimes have to work with people you sharply disagree with on other things." It's a fairly obvious point, but many politicians instead try to be all things to all people (bonus points if you can identify the religious leader who first made that strategy explicit!)
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