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 The Two McCainsPosted on Mar 10, 2008By E.J. Dionne WASHINGTON—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 in early November of last year I pointed to the beginnings of a 2008 McCain comeback. 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. Advertisement  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 President 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. E.J. Dionne’s e-mail address is postchat(at)aol.com. © 2008, Washington Post Writers Group Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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Delay Tactics Worked For Kennedy
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By DennisD, March 13, 2008 at 5:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
E.J. - I’m still trying to figure out just where one McCain stands on anything other than the war which won’t win him many votes.
At times I admire his refusal to tow the party line on some issues but his stance on the war is a deal breaker for me.
Report thisBy jackpine savage, March 12, 2008 at 10:00 pm #
I won’t be voting for John McCain, come hell or high water…
But i’ve found myself wondering if he might be one of those surprise presidents. I’m sure he’ll think about a second term, but i’m not sure he’ll care that much…i.e. enough to do anything to get it. If he becomes President, he’ll have done it all. He’ll owe people, but will he care? What will they be able to do about him not repaying his debts?
I wouldn’t bet a wooden nickel on the proposition; however, i also wouldn’t be surprised if the Oval Office McCain turned out to be an even bigger maverick than the they guy that liberals used to like. He’s got a “F you. I’ll do what i want,” attitude to begin with. Add to that the untouchability of the White House and it could be an interesting four years.
As time goes by, i find myself more and more comfortable with the idea of McCain in the white house…especially as opposed to Clinton.
Report thisBy wagonjak, March 12, 2008 at 4:27 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I’ve always admired most of your writing E.J. but if you think McCain has even a shred of integrity left after he’s waffled and changed positions on almost everything he’s spoken out about…you’re badly mistaken and confused…
Most of us HAVE NO PROBLEM attacking and rejecting old Leatherneck and his total absence of honesty and integrity!
You best stop going to those BBQ’s Dionne, and face reality…McCain is just four more years of theBush fiasco!!!
Report thisBy Magginkat, March 12, 2008 at 11:59 am #
What in the Sam Hill are you ranting about?
Report thisBy Magginkat, March 12, 2008 at 11:55 am #
Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger Mr. Dionne.
Once upon a time I had a great deal of respect for McCain. That was before he bent over for Bush and started patronizing the fraud who squats in the Oval Office.
But then when I read about his “youthful indescretions” they follow the same path as Bush…. son of famous man, cruised past genuinely qualified men to acquire higher positions in the Navy, a gentlmen’s “C” student, playboy, womanizer, adulterer. Crashed three planes before going to Vietnam.
To his credit I have not seen anything where he claims to have “been saved” & is now one of God’s foremost Christians. Of course he has done that in a round-about way by embracing the fundamentalists nut cases.
McCain is just as disgusting as Bush & pRes Cheney! What a sad joke on the citizens of this country.
Report thisBy Expat, March 12, 2008 at 8:17 am #
^ remember the “old” McCain. Like E.J., I would have voted for him in the recent past (2000). Never again, however! He is guilty of the same sins as Colin Powell: Unbridled loyalty to a despotic leader and the subsequent policies. This inability to break free and respond for the greater good of the people they represented has for me condemned them to a room in hell. May they both burn forever.
Report thisBy Hammo, March 11, 2008 at 7:32 pm #
News of Adm. Fallon’s (forced) retirement is an ominous sign that the Bush-Cheney-neocon bunch will attack Iran.
Will McCain go along with this? Probably.
Fallon is an honorable officer who stood up to these warmongers and war profiteers.
See the articles:
“Will Bush, Cheney Attack Iran? When and Why?”
Truthout.org
02 February 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020207A.shtml
——-
“Military Draft Needed for War With Iran and Syria?”
Truthout.org
20 September 2006
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/64/22754
Report thisBy ocjim, March 11, 2008 at 3:35 pm #
I used to like the maverick face of McCain. The other face grovels before a mediocre, failed, ruthless, in name-only pres, he plays to neocons who want eternal war, he plays to the conservative rich who want to pay little in taxes and what compassion he ever had he lost in his Machiavellian quest to be president.
Report thisBy i,Q, March 11, 2008 at 11:58 am #
... so what’s the dilemma? You run like hell. To quote a great contemporary political thinkerator: “Won’t be fooled again.”
Report thisBy Stephen Smoliar, March 11, 2008 at 11:47 am #
The dilemma is over which McCain would actually sit at the desk in the Oval Office, should he succeed in winning the election (which translates into whether liberals should vote for him for those once-admirable traits or run like hell in the other direction from the current traits). The resolution is obvious: WE HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING WHAT SORT OF A PRESIDENT MCCAIN WOULD ACTUALLY BE! If he is “doing anything to get elected,” he is hardly the first of that kind; but “doing anything” usually involves building up a lot of “social debts,” most of which are unlikely to involve liberal interests. On the other hand, given his age, he really does not have to worry about his future very much; so there would not be much personal penalty to reverting to those “once-admirable traits” and telling are the conservative asses he kissed to go to hell. In other words what a “President McCain” would actually do is an enormous question mark; but is it any larger than the one for “President Obama” or “Madame President Clinton” (phrasing not out of sexism but just to distinguish her from the other one)?
Report thisBy bozhidar bob balkas, March 11, 2008 at 10:00 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
no sane person can be antisemitic.a person can be antijudaists or, to be more descriptive, 1 can be against numerous misteachings in the torah. 1 can also be antizionist; it being an ideology. if 1 is anticatholic, it doesnt’t necessarily make 1 antiirish or antipolish. what most of us r against, r serious, oft unprecedented, crimes by US/IDF/IOF against pals. who’s gonna hate an excellent jewish doctor, judge, worker who’s not harming any1? if a canadian jew is first of all a judaist, and after that zionist, israeli, canadian; a jew will be hated as well what a jew is doing. let’s drop this term.
Report thisBy i,Q, March 11, 2008 at 8:22 am #
i don’t see any debate remaining about McCain. he once was perceived as having integrity and as a maverick, but now he is anything but.
So E.J. here is what you do. Read your article again, you’ve decisively shown how painfully obvious it is that McCain no longer possesses the traits you once found admirable in a republican . His message is status quo and ultimately he lacks the courage of conviction to get behind the statements which you lauded in the past.
So what’s the dilemma?
Report thisBy Purple Girl, March 11, 2008 at 6:11 am #
Mac is not the only Political figure to be Re tooled, or is that ‘Updated’ . Hillary was once an admirable person too. Both now appear to be the same Make & Model but with optional Exterior Features.
Report thisI can’t tell them apart! And since they’ve been Re- Tooled, neither are Desireable to meet Todays’ needs.
Seems to me some one has already Crowned Hillary (or Mac - interchangeable). they have become more Corp Raiders than their History may imply. they probably hav ealways been- but over shaded esp by the over zealousness to appease by Dick (did you get your gold star for your efforts to bring US to our knees in all areas of corp concern?)
Both Mac & Hill are TELLING US the last 35 yrs ‘have been great ’ because of what They have Done for US!
I adamently DISAGREE With the Premise. The last 35 yrs has Sucked- Except for the Corps of course. Profit margins, predatory lending practice, War Profiteering, Bailouts…..
as for US.. still fighting for equal Rights, womans Rights, children’s Health and education, the environment…..I dar esay all those Great Organizations of th e’70’s ahve proven themselves Ineffectual .Of course if you resolve you ‘cause’ you’ll have nothing to remain ‘organized for- more smoke up our asses, false facades- jus tlook who NOW is supporting..Hillary just because she has a vagina?? Obviously NOW is not focused on the issues nor Hillary’s record during her Legitimate Political Expereince- only 6 yrs (2 more than Obama- and far more Wrong decision).
Being a Michigander I see the stickers on the Windows- may look ‘different’ on the outside but these Two models are the same Gas guzzling,Over priced, unreliable,poor safety rated Lead Sleds they’ve been Selling US for at least the last 40 yrs.