Opening Rounds

Red State Blue ^ | 4th of June 2008 | David Aronin

[DIM1]

From the beginning I've been afraid that Sen McCain is also too much of a gentleman to adopt and sustain an approach [direct, critical, unapologetic] of that kind. But, this speech seems to indicated that...he has started in that direction.

[txrangerette]

The blogger thought McCain’s speech was a good one.

Perhaps he meant SOME of the substantive points McCain was trying to make were good points.

I’m sure some of them were (although others even of substance were awful - the wrong substance - ).

However the speech itself as a speech unrelated to its substantive content was pretty much universally recognized as bad.

The blogger is hoping against hope as to where McCain might be willing to go in his criticisms of Obama...

Which MIGHT’ve clouded his view...

[txrangerette]

My new tagline eliminates Hillary’s “Clinton Machine” because it seems said contraption was too dated and creaky and patently obvious to work anymore.

[DIM1]

Thank you for your reply.
You had written:
“The blogger thought McCain’s speech was a good one.
Perhaps he meant SOME of the substantive points McCain was trying to make were good points.”

Not quite, I - the said blogger - think that Sen McCain made points that he needed to make - some of which I agree with and some of which I, most assuredly, do not. Amongst the latter were most of those required in order to clearly distinguish his positions from those of President Bush. And, it was concerning the necessity for him to make those protestations that I was moved to comment that: -
“The current unpopularity of Pres. Bush is, I believe, stark testimony to both the bias of the main-stream media and its continued ability to shape public perceptions, and to do so in spite of the much vaunted expansion of the “new media” into its traditional domains. I also believe that history will - if not then yet entirely subordinate to ideology - rank Pres Bush far above most of his critics.”

Sadly though, the necessity of making said distinctions is real enough. And, the objections expressed by Sen McCain in that regards are genuine to his thinking rather than gratuitous or opportunistic.

You had also written:
“The blogger is hoping against hope as to where McCain might be willing to go in his criticisms of Obama...
Which MIGHT’ve clouded his view...”

I don’t believe so.
In most cases the differences between the views of Sen McCain and those of Sen Obama go back at least as far as their areas of agreement. And, in my view, those areas of distinction are at least as substantial in their import and extensive in their number.
See:
http://red-state-blue.blogs.com/my_weblog/2008/05/different-americas.html

Given that, it seem odd to believe him in regards to the issues where one disagrees with him but fail to do so with respect to everything else.

In any case, those conservatives who still refuse to actively support Sen McCain at this point - given the views and connections of his opponent - bring to my mind the image of a
alternate world in which some significant group of conservatives decided - at the hight of the Cold War - to try and sever our ties to NATO because of pique with Western Europe over its continuing drift towards the social welfare state.
I would - did - share their pique.
A”remedy” though of that kind would have been disastrous.

All the best!
DIM1