McCain Appeal - A far superior choice to the Democratic alternatives.

National Review Online ^ | February 04, 2008 | Mackubin Thomas Owens

[neverdem]

February 04, 2008, 5:00 a.m.

McCain Appeal
A far superior choice to the Democratic alternatives.

By Mackubin Thomas Owens

Eight years ago, I was writing a regular monthly column for the Providence Journal. On the eve of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, I wrote a column entitled “John McCain, the Anti-Clinton.” Although I supported George Bush during the primaries, I thought it was important to lay out the reasons for McCain’s appeal. I concluded that the main thing McCain had going for him was character, and after eight years of Clinton, this was not unimportant.

Here’s how I concluded the column:

But in today's political environment, the real reason Americans stress his military service seems to be that it serves as a surrogate for character, a virtue notably absent during the Clinton years, and one for which Americans seem to long. That goes a long way toward explaining Sen. McCain’s appeal: more than any other candidate, he is the anti-Clinton.

The Clintons purport to represent the best of the Baby-Boomer generation. According to the dominant mythology of the 60s, the Baby-Boomers that mattered were the “best and the brightest,” those destined to make the world new by ending poverty, racism, and war. For the most part, the touchstone of Baby-Boomer existence itself was opposition to the Vietnam War.

But while such people endlessly employed the rhetoric of sacrifice, they actually sacrificed little or nothing. This has led skeptics to conclude that much of the "idealistic" opposition to the Vietnam War was a cynical ploy to cloak concern for their personal safety.

John McCain is the representative of the forgotten Baby-Boomers, who, unlike the Clintons, didn’t just talk about sacrifice, but actually placed themselves willingly on the altar of their country. While the Clintons were preparing the groundwork for their careers in the law and politics, John McCain was a naval aviator flying combat missions over North Vietnam. At a minimum, this meant that at least once a day, he sat in the cockpit of an airplane that was hurled violently from the flight deck of a pitching and rolling aircraft carrier. That was the easy part. Next, he had to dodge Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) as he carried out his mission. If he accomplished his mission, he then had to land on the same pitching and rolling carrier from which he had hurtled earlier. Again, if successful, his plane would be stopped violently when its “tailhook” engaged an arresting cable on the flight deck.

That was John McCain’s day-to-day existence. But he was also in his aircraft on the flight deck of the USS Forrestal when a freak accident triggered a catastrophic conflagration that cost the lives of hundreds of sailors and almost led to the loss of the ship. And of course, he was shot down on a mission over North Vietnam and spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war, during which time he was subjected to treatment that civilized people cannot even imagine.

Americans admire Sen. McCain because of the character he demonstrated in the crucible of war. They also admire him for a related quality, his sense of honor. Honor is an old-fashion virtue that is often the object of ridicule in a liberal society. But without honorable men, liberal society cannot survive. The American Founders understood this. The signers of the Declaration of Independence mutually pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their "sacred Honor."

The progression in this passage is important. Life is basic but needs other qualities to make it worth living. Fortune, an indication that Providence has smiled on one's endeavors, is one such quality. But for the Founders, Honor was the virtue that represented the pinnacle of human life. A dishonorable life was worse than poverty or death.

The quintessential nineteenth century liberal, John Stuart Mill, expressed this view well."War is an ugly thing," he wrote, "but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." Perhaps this passage explains why John McCain's military service looms so large in the diminished age of Clinton.

I believe that what I wrote then is still relevant today. Many conservatives — Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the editorial board of National Review to name a few — have made clear their principled opposition to McCain. I am not enamored of his policies either. I would prefer Ronald Reagan, but last I heard, he isn’t running.

By all means, do your best to get Romney — with all his shortcomings — the nomination. But if McCain is the nominee, he will still be a better president than the Democratic hopefuls. If he were the Republican nominee, I would support him on the basis of his likely policy prescriptions alone; as problematic as they may be, they can’t be any worse than that which will be pushed by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

But McCain is far superior to the Democratic contenders on the basis of character and virtue. For instance, once the North Vietnamese found out that McCain was the son of the U.S. military commander in the Pacific theater, which included Vietnam, they offered him the chance to go home before his POW comrades. Had he accepted, it would have been a great propaganda coup for the Vietnamese communists. But he refused. That’s character and it ought to mean something even to those who are not convinced of his conservative bona fides.

— Mackubin Thomas Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations.

[Brilliant]

i’m not convinced. mccain will have to make his case.

about the only thing that might convince me at this point would be if mccain picks romney for vp.

[TBall]

“John McCain, the Anti-Clinton.” To be Anti-Clinton, McCain would have to be a seemingly supernatural good conservative. I just don’t see McCain that way and will not vote for him.

[NavVet]

If you think McCain is so great, then vote for him. If you see Hell freezing over, you’ll know I did the same.

[neverdem]

How much did the Democrats accomplish between 1992 and 1994 when the controlled the WH-the Senate and the House?

Off the top of my head, at least the Brady Bill and the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban." We're still stuck with the former. I wouldn't discount the value of more Ruth Bader Ginsburg clones on the Supreme Court and the rest of the judiciary. That's where the left has succeeded with some of the most damaging decisions.

Go read McCain-Leiberman. A Republican President purposing a $.50 a gallon Fed Gas tax hike?

If that was an excise tax on foreign fuel, I have no problem. I want energy independence.

[EGPWS]

Go read McCain-Leiberman. A Republican President purposing a $.50 a gallon Fed Gas tax hike?

If that was an excise tax on foreign fuel, I have no problem. I want energy independence.

A $.50 hike in gas tax?

Foreign or domestic, what good is energy independence without financial independence?

[PA-RIVER]

This is Johnny McCains swan song.

(Pissing on the GOP, and ushering in the third term of Bill Clinton.)

Thanks Johnny McCain. You can make the reservations for the nursing home in January. Hillary appreciates your efforts, but shes laughing at you.

[MNJohnnie]

You honestly think John “Gang of 14” McCain who organized a surrender to the Democrats on Judges once is going to fight his good buddies Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Russ Feingold to get you a Conservative SC Justice?

[Toaster tank]

“I wouldn’t discount the value of more Ruth Bader Ginsburg clones on the Supreme Court and the rest of the judiciary”

The judiciary argument is a red herring. McCain has Warren Rudman (David Souter’s chief advocate) as his judiciary adviser.

[MNJohnnie]

Party’s are not indestructible. Since the two party’s seem bent on fusion, there is coming a time when a new political party will rise.

Hegel Dialectic in action. 1st you have a thesis, in reaction to which forms an antithesis which over time combines to become the synthesis which then becomes the thesis developing a new antithesis.

In these terms the thesis was the Democrat party, which developed over time the anti thesis Republican party. With McCain we seen the Republican Establishment accelerating it fusion with the Democrat Party leadership. They are being a synthesis.

SO it appears the Republican-Democrats will form a globalist, interventionist European Socialist style party. That will be the new thesis.

In reaction to that something new will arise. An new Anti-thesis. It may be that Ron Paul is an out rider of that new trend. An Isolationist, limited Govt Nationalist party of Libertarian-Conservatives.

A lot rides on this election for setting the course of politics for the coming generation. If it ends up being Hillary-vrs McCain it will be a matter of the party’s differing on the speed to which the US should develop a European style authoritarian bureaucratic socialist style Govt.

[JohnD9207]

I will do what I can to stop the Democrats from getting full control of the government.
________________________________________________________

Voting for McKerry is giving full control of the government to the Democrats. No sarcasm intended. Other than the WOT, he is in agreement with both Klinton, and Obama.

[kc8ukw]

I don’t think McCain is so great, and I didn’t vote for him. But the nice thing about the Republican field is that every candidate has a least a few things he does well.

[TBall]

Other than the WOT, he is in agreement with both Klinton, and Obama. Yeah, I’m really trusting this Reagan foot solider on the WOT.

[fetal heart beats by 21st day]

Rome is burning.

[PA-RIVER]

Cheer up. 2012 we have another shot.

McNasty should be a “has been” Viagra salesman by then.

Hillary care should be in full swing with mandatory annual rectal exams on the menu.

[Jaguarmike]

Maybe instead of blaming McCain, we should all take a good look in the mirror.

Conservatives (of which I am one) had their chance to support two of their own in Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter. Ron Friggin’ Paul got more financial support than those two did. Who’s fault is that? Where were the conservatives in South Carolina, a state that Thompson was counting on to create momentum?

I couldn’t tell you why folks on the Right are turning out for McCain. But if he’s the nominee, I’m voting for him. You guys may be right when you say McCain is a liberal on most issues. But not on the two I care most about - abortion and Iraq.

[Eva]

Have you been wondering where McCain and Huckabee have been getting their money?

It's interesting that a man who has close ties to John McCain is funding a PAC, called, Trust Huckabee, which ran the push polls for Huckabee in Florida and Michigan.

In case you don't know who Charles Lindner is, maybe this will remind you (I hear that he is also heavily involved in the carbon credit scheme and stands to benefit greatly from the McCain Lieberman legislation):

The Keating One,' and Carl Lindner From 1981—the year before John McCain ran for U.S. Congress—until the early 1990s, the former Navy pilot was totally beholden to junk bond swindler Charles Keating for his political fortunes. When the S&L scandal exploded and Federal prosecutors were breathing down Keating's neck, it was McCain who tried to bully Federal regulators into backing off. While the affair became known as the "Keating Five" scandal, none of the other members of the Senate and House implicated in the ethics violations, were as closely tied to Keating as John McCain.

And Charles Keating was no "loan assassin." He was but one player in a larger organized crime apparatus that ran the $200 billion-plus rip-off, in what may have been the biggest actual RICO (racketeering) scheme ever.

Between 1959 and the late 1980s, Charles Keating was the business partner of Carl Lindner, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based financier who would be one of the central figures in the $200 billion S&L rip-off. In 1959, Lindner and Keating co-founded American Financial Corporation (AFC). Keating served as the mortgage and insurance company's general counsel, and later as vice president.

Between 1974 and 1976, Lindner and Keating engineered a series of stock purchases and mergers with some of the leading figures in the Lansky crime syndicate—who had followed the Bronfman family recipe, and gone from "rags, to rackets, to riches, to respectability.

[E. Cartman]

Nope. If the GOP gives McCain the nod I’m looking elsewhere.

Agreed. I will NOT vote for a man who's spent the over two decades pimping for Teddy Kennedy. There are certain lines a person with principles cannot cross and voting for McCain is something I will NOT do.

Moreover, an old, visibly-diseased, psychotic RINO can do just too much damage to the country. What we are witnessing now is the death throes of the GOP, and it ain't pretty. There is no other way to plausibly explain a mediocrity like McCain getting the party nomination.

[Tarpon]

When you have two equally bad choices... I would rather the Democrats get credit for the disaster than to try and defend the Republican disaster.

Fascism is fascism, doesn’t matter whether it is done by a Democrat or a Republican administration.

[Recovering_Democrat]

I think I'm gonna spew!

[Recovering_Democrat]

What we are witnessing now is the death throes of the GOP, and it ain't pretty. There is no other way to plausibly explain a mediocrity like McCain getting the party nomination.

Nope. I look at it as growing pains. If the party was going to die, it would've done so when it passed over Reagan for Ford. It didn't. It could've died when the Clintons took over. Instead, it came back with a surge!

Do not despair. A morning will come...if we do not get a conservative in the White House this time--that is, if McLame, Hussein or Hitlery take the reins--our day of victory will be delayed. But it will NOT be denied.