Posted on 11/01/2008 4:34:54 PM PDT by neverdem
Last week I made the open-and-shut case for John McCain: In a dangerous world entering an era of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation, the choice between the most prepared foreign policy candidate in memory vs. a novice with zero experience and the wobbliest one-world instincts is not a close call.
But it's all about economics and kitchen-table issues, we are told.
OK. Start with economics.
Neither candidate has particularly deep economic knowledge or finely honed economic instincts. Neither has any clear idea exactly what to do in the current financial meltdown. Hell, neither does anyone else, including the best economic minds in the world, from Henry Paulson to the head of the European Central Bank. Yet they have muddled through with some success.
Both Mr. McCain and Barack Obama have assembled fine economic teams that may differ on the details of their plans but have reasonable approaches to managing the crisis. So forget the hype. Neither candidate has an advantage on this issue.
On other domestic issues, Mr. McCain is just the kind of moderate conservative that the Washington/media establishment once loved -- the champion of myriad conservative heresies that made him a burr in the side of congressional Republicans and George W. Bush. But now that he is standing in the way of an audacity-of-hope Democratic restoration, erstwhile friends recoil from Mr. McCain on the pretense that he has suddenly become right wing.
Self-serving rubbish. Mr. McCain is who he always was. Generally speaking, he sees government as a Rooseveltian counterweight (Teddy with a touch of Franklin) to the various malefactors of wealth and power. He wants government to tackle large looming liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare. He wants to free up health insurance by beginning to sever its debilitating connection to employment -- a ruinous accident of history...
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
You can use that link to work the online phonebank for McCain/Palin if you have unlimited long distance or a very generous plan. They'll give you numbers in battleground states.
Stay home or vote third party. Don't be surprised with what you get.
http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/ObamaLetterNRAAd.pdf
ping
Pretty good column, fair assessment of the situation.
Great thread. Thanks for posting. We always enjoy Krauthammer’s on-target columns!
— Jane
In an Obama administration, Krauthammer would pay DEARLY for writing this.
“This is not socialism. This is not the end of the world. It would, however, be a decidedly leftward move on the order of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The alternative is a McCain administration with a moderate conservative presiding over a divided government and generally inclined to resist a European social-democratic model of economic and social regulation featuring, for example, wealth-distributing growth-killing marginal tax rates.”
Not socialism? Too close for comfort, Charles. I want my world back.
One thing is clear. John McCain better not assume he has a mandate to do as he wishes once he’s in the white house. He’ll find out in a big hurry that conservatives are still angry and have long memories.
Personally I think the GOP is just as responsible for the rise of the far left as the democrats are. The GOP has provided no anchor in conservative thought in recent years.
Agreed. Obama's disgusting associates make it clear that he is not committed to the sort of constitutional democracy we cherish in this country. He will abuse every power to the breaking point.
This may soon be a very dangerous country in which to speak your mind....
It took Joe the Plummer to get campaign dialogue about the differences between the idealogical beliefs of the left and the right. With the leftists dissasembling with warm and fuzzy euphemisms such as “progressive,”
“social and economic justice,” fairness and equality, the public fails to see the donkey for what it is. Too often, Conservatives tend to get high centered on guns and God and forget Reagan small government.
Final paragraph:
“Mr. McCain is the quintessential center-right candidate. Yet the quintessential center-right country is poised to reject him. The hunger for anti-Republican catharsis and the blinding promise of Obamian hope are simply too strong. The reckoning comes in the morning.”
Too strong? I love CK, but he has been a defeatist for weeks now. Despite some glowing pro-McCain columns in the past week or two, he has seemed curiously resigned to M/P going down to defeat.
Conservatives respect his opinion, but he has been demoralizing and he should know better. Write honestly, but some opinions should be witheld, because they only help the enemy and become self-fulfilling.
“This may soon be a very dangerous country in which to speak your mind....”
When Obama’s personal “Civilian Security Forces” get a hold of you, you may not have a mind to speak. - By the way, isn’t the “National Guard” already a civilian security force, or does he REALLY need a personal “enforcemant squad” loyal to him which he can insist are really a “well-armed militia” Constitutionally when he seizes weapons from the “stupid” peasants? Our military may not do his bidding if it comes to abusing our own citizens for displeasing the “Master in his own mind”?
Hey Charles, you went ‘wobbly’ on this election a couple months ago, at a time we really didn’t need that. Good to see you’re back in the fold, but your ‘wobble’ was really bad timing.
Aren’t we thankful he won’t have to.
Over their dead body, not mine.
Yes, the new "Civilian Security Force" would be pounding on his door as we speak.
Conservatives are us. We have the government we want. Government reflects the people. Don't like it? Then we have to create more true conservtives. The problem is the MSM, schools and liberal churches. We're all conditioned to expect government to take care of us.
I voted for Duncan Hunter in the primary.
OK. I was a Thompson supporter. What does this have to do with anything now?
We've had a bunch of so called conservative pundits that turned me off with dumb comments about Palin when she has more executive experience than Obama, Biden or McCain. I've been sour on Krauthammer and George Will since I learned they don't like the Second Amendment. Now David Brooks, Kathleen Parker & Peggy Noonan can join them.
They better have pretty good titles now to catch my attention. I no longer bother to look for their columns. Dumb comments are uncalled for in opinion pieces. I felt betrayed.
Nothing apparently.
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