John McCain and War

National Review Online ^ | February 04, 2008, 5:00 p.m. | Andrew C. McCarthy

[Yosemitest]

McCain Mirage
The senator is not ready-for-prime-time commander-in-chief.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Senator John McCain’s ascendancy in the Republican presidential race has been truly remarkable.
Yet, it’s no groundswell.

To this point, about two out of every three primary and caucus participants have voted against him.
If the Democrats and independents some states permit to crash the Grand Old Party were factored out, his standing in the Republican base would be even less impressive.
Still, you have to hand it to his admirers:

They have parlayed his thin support into an aura of inevitability.
The glow could intensify this week, when McCain is likely, finally, to rack up some more impressive numbers … in delegate-heavy blue states that rarely vote Republican when it counts, in November.
(Full disclosure: I support Governor Mitt Romney.)

As it happens, the received wisdom about McCain’s suddenly broad support mirrors the regnant narrative about his chief qualification for the job: It’s a mirage.

SINGING THE DEMOCRATS’ TUNE
The senator is portrayed as the GOP field’s only ready-for-prime-time commander-in-chief. Surely, we are told, this is what matters most in an era of national-security peril.
For McCain’s conservative supporters, it is the tirelessly restated rationale for overlooking that,

apart from a convenient flip on the Bush tax cuts,
the senator’s major contribution to debates on economic policy is class-warfare rhetoric
— liberally spiced with the same demagoguery (this time, against “the rich”)
by which his politics consistently turns issues from Iraq
to interrogation
to filibusters
to immigration
to campaign-finance
to global warming
into morality plays,
John the Virtuous pitted against hordes of unfeeling, self-indulgent, partisan rogues.

The sales job is a myth.
In reality, a McCain presidency would promise an entirely conventional, center-left, multilateralism.

If you liked the second Bush term,

if you liked Clintonian foreign policy,
you will find much to admire in a Commander-in-Chief McCain.
There would be the same agonizing over European and Islamic perceptions of America;
the same doctrinaire commitment to the alchemy of democracy promotion;
and the same fondness for heaping more unaccountable bureaucratic sprawl
atop the already counter-productive agencies and multinational institutions
that frustrate the United States at every turn.

Don’t take my word for it. Read McCain’s own Foreign Affairs essay, published late last year, in which the senator dilates on his philosophy. The leitmotif of “An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom” is that America’s tattered standing in the world must be restored. Typical is this:

"We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves.
We must be willing to listen to our democratic allies.
Being a great power does not mean that we can do whatever we want whenever we want,
nor should we assume that we have all the wisdom, knowledge, and resources necessary to succeed.
When we believe international action — whether military, economic, or diplomatic — is necessary, we must work to persuade our friends and allies that we are right.
And we must also be willing to be persuaded by them. To be a good leader, America must be a good ally."

Much scorn deservedly came Governor Mike Huckabee’s way when, in his own Foreign Affairs piece, he scalded the “Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality,” so “counterproductive at home and abroad.”
Yet McCain’s very similar (if less-bracing) riffs have drawn little attention. The Bush years, he says, have left us in desperate need “to restore and replenish the world’s faith in our nation and our principles.” “America” thus “needs a president who can revitalize the country’s purpose and standing in the world.” Even as such important European governments as France and Germany have become more conservative and drawn closer to American leadership, McCain laments that President Bush has “frayed” the “bonds we share with Europe” — thanks, no doubt, to “the kind of abusive tactics properly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions” that he intimates have been standard fare.

Close your eyes, and you can hear these same lines regurgitated by any conventional Democrat, whether it’s Sen. Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, or even Sen. John Kerry — the Democrats’ last standard-bearer who, you may recall, entreated McCain to be his running mate, the extent of their common ground being patent.
Contrary to the assurances of McCain’s admirers, his own essay tells us the senator is still the same guy who in 2000, upon being asked what he would do immediately upon being elected president, said he would turn, among others, to Sen. Kerry, Sen. Joe Biden, and Zbigniew Brzezinski (President Jimmy Carter’s national-security adviser) to “to get foreign policy, national security issues back on track.”

SUSTAINING THE DEMOCRACY PROJECT
We must, of course, give Sen. McCain the obligatory nod for supporting the “surge.”
Admittedly, it is disquieting to hear McCain on the campaign trail battering former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld (whom, as Salon reminds us, he was praising for having “done a fine job” more than a year after the Iraq invasion).
And his periodic reliance on General Eric Shinseki

— a Clinton favorite who famously urged that “several hundred thousand troops” would be needed for Iraq
— raises many questions that have gone unexplored, such as:
why McCain told the Hartford Courant right before the Iraq invasion
that he had “no qualms about our strategic plans,”
rationalizing that lean force levels “were very successful in Afghanistan”;
and whether McCain is now saying Shinseki was right
to call for two or three times the force level envisioned by General David Petraeus’s strategy,
which McCain has vigorously supported.

Still, the senator must be given his due.
To have appeared to be driven from Iraq by al-Qaeda would have been a disaster of incalculable proportions for the United States.
When many around him, Left and Right, seemed ready to abandon ship,

the sheer force of McCain’s will
and the immensity of his stature
staved off defeat. With the increased troop levels he fought for, we have routed al-Qaeda in Baghdad. Of the four credible candidates of both parties remaining in the race, none has an accomplishment such as this to tout.
The senator’s advocates argue that he deserves enormous credit, and they’re right.

But does that translate into deserving the presidency?
In terms of the greater war on terror, which is the central foreign-policy challenge for the next administration,

the surge is vastly overrated,
and the rationale for it is confused at best.
We are not just at war in Iraq; we are at war with radical Islam.
We don’t need a Baghdad strategy; we need a global war strategy — or, at the very least, a regional one.
Victory is not an Iraqi “democracy”; it is an America safe from Islamic terror.

Sen. McCain tells us he is the best fit for taking this war to our enemies,

but what’s the evidence of that?
The point of the surge, as the soporific story goes, is to give Iraqis the space needed to make hard political choices. Here’s the problem:
Few people outside the Beltway care much about the politics of Iraq.
And for those who do, democracy is a bottom-up phenomenon that is the work of generations;
no central government — much less one run by Shiite fundamentalists — is going to impose democracy top-down.
Meanwhile, much of al-Qaeda’s leadership remains safely harbored in Iran,
and thanks to over two dozen paramilitary training camps,
al-Qaeda and the Taliban now mount about a quarter-million trained warriors in Pakistan and Afghanistan
(versus approximately 50,000 NATO troops — about half of which are in non-combat roles).

Sen. McCain admirably talks about “winning” in Iraq.
But the war isn’t limited to, or even principally about, Iraq.
The surge has pacified Baghdad, but we’re in serious danger of losing the wider war.
And, in fact, the jury is still out on whether the government Americans have been asked to sacrifice so much for in Iraq will actually be an American ally when it comes to Iran, the central problem in the region.

Sen. McCain suggests no strategy for winning the wider war.
He talks about fighting radical Islam, but he doesn’t evince much understanding of radical Islam — he seems to think, like the Bush administration, that it can be democratized into submission.

Fundamentalist Islam, which commands the loyalty of tens of millions of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, is anti-democratic:

It rejects the authority of people to govern themselves,
denies freedom of conscience,
demands imposition of sharia law,
places men above women and Muslims above non-Muslims,
and adopts jihad as the violent method of imposing its hegemonic ideology.
We must suppress its capacity to project power wherever that capacity is found — not just in Iraq.

There is no proof that democracy would cure what ails the Muslim world,

it is not our responsibility to take on such a dubious burden,
and it is preposterous to think we can win this war simply by urging Western democracy,
which many Muslim countries don’t want.
If you actually buy the “democracy will save us” theory,
it is equally foolish to believe democracy’s cause
is promoted by current State Department practices,
such as the installation of constitutions (in Iraq and Afghanistan)
that establish Islam as the state religion
and elevate sharia as a principal source of law.
And it is as counterfactual as it is counterintuitive to claim our interests are advanced by popular elections,
which have elevated Hezbollah into key government posts in Lebanon,
Hamas into control of much of the Palestinian territories,
and fundamentalist Shiites into control of Iraq.

This is the strategy of the Clinton years and the second Bush term:

Islam is the religion of peace, and democracy conquers all.
It is not a strategy for victory, but McCain appears fully bought-in.
His record conveys little indication that he grasps the inevitable connection between the dominance of Islam in a region and the sustenance of radical Islamic action in that region.
Indeed, in 1999, against the tide of conservative (and much other sensible) opposition,
he tried to push the Clinton administration into a ground war in Kosovo,
despite the absence of any vital American interests.
He thought it would enhance our image in the world to show solidarity with Muslims
— never mind that these Muslims included anti-Western fundamentalists.

McCain, moreover, continues to believe, as he wrote in Foreign Affairs, that the “long-elusive quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians must remain a priority.”
Why this is so is not explained.
McCain adopts the rose-tinted Clinton/Bush glasses through which Hamas appears as the sole cause of the quest’s elusiveness. This wishes away the stubborn fact that

the Palestinians as a society reject Israel’s right to exist
and accept terror attacks as the legitimate means to that end.
So while “Hamas must be isolated,” McCain intends to “intensif[y]” our “commitment to finding an enduring solution”
— meaning more negotiations with Fatah,
the Arafat legacy organization that maintains its own terror wing,
seeks rapprochement with Hamas,
and is committed by its charter to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Translation: Maintain the same failed status quo.
And therein lies the folly of McCain’s experience argument:

being involved in many past policy arguments
does not mean being on the right side of them.
What Americans want is a strategy to suppress jihadist power wherever it rears its head
and to prevent radical Islam from spreading its tentacles in our homeland
— which has a lot more to do with immigration enforcement
than peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
And we want such a strategy implemented
without a lot of temporizing over the likely reaction of the “Muslim Street,”
even if that upsets Europeans.

His democracy infatuation is such that McCain also plans to create a “League of Democracies.”

Evidently, this new multi-lateral behemoth would do what the United Nations is supposed to do, but doesn’t.
We are not told what criteria would break a country into the league (Russia and Iran, for example, insist they are democracies),
much less how those criteria would be enforced.
McCain does take pains, though, to assure us that the league “would not supplant the UN or other international organizations but complement them[.]”
Great.
This initiative, meanwhile, will merely redouble his promised effort to “institutionaliz[e] our cooperation [with the European Union] on such issues as climate change, foreign assistance, and democracy promotion.”
What’s not to love for a conservative?

THE DOMESTIC AGENDA
Sen. McCain’s initiatives on the international stage would be shored up by similarly dubious domestic policies.
On the intelligence front, that means yet another new bureaucracy.

This is rich.
Only four years ago, Sen. McCain insisted that the gross misfeasance of our $40 billion, 17-agency intelligence community could be cured by adopting the 9/11 Commission’s typical Washington fix:

the addition of another agency, which, it risibly explained, would streamline inter-agency intelligence flow.
Since then, the Office of the National Intelligence Director
— dominated by career foreign-service bureaucrats rather than operational intelligence types
— has predictably bloated into an empire that duplicates much of the CIA’s work (as well as its problems).
The result has been what you’d expect:
in nothing flat the directorate generated one estimate telling us that Iran was busy as a beaver building nukes,
then another telling us that Iran hasn’t been in the nuke business for years.

Now McCain wants to build on this, er, success with a “modern-day OSS” (the original OSS having been the WWII-era Office of Strategic Services).

Basically, this new agency would do what the CIA is supposed to do now, but doesn’t.
McCain, of course, promises that it would be the first “small, nimble, can-do organization” in the history of governmental bureaucracies.
He conveniently omits, however, that the original OSS ultimately became the enormous, sclerotic, no-can-do CIA …
i.e., the very entity that purportedly makes McCain’s new OSS necessary.
You’ll be shocked to learn the senator does not propose to eliminate the CIA.
Yet again, the notion is that we will get better intelligence by continuing to add new agencies
… even as Sen. McCain burnishes his image as the scourge of wasteful government spending.

It’s a foolish idea, but it’s the sort of thing one expects from an irascible senate maverick

— an old Washington hand who is quick to exploit the trendy concern-of-the-moment, demagoguing anyone who dares worry about the bigger picture.
Take the senator’s “McCain amendment,” the 2005 legislation that extended Fifth Amendment rights to terrorists overseas.
In its 2000 Dickerson decision, the Supreme Court held that if a person has a Fifth Amendment privilege, he is entitled to Miranda rights —
i.e., the right to an attorney, at the expense of the American taxpayer, during all questioning.
That means any terrorist we capture overseas could plausibly claim Miranda protection under the McCain amendment.
In short, leaving aside that the chief effect of McCain’s grandstanding was to intimidate our interrogation officers
(stoking a fear of investigations that prompted purchases of litigation insurance and a drastic reduction in intelligence-collection),
his legislation could eventually shut down interrogations.
A future court, or even Justice Department, could very well read the McCain amendment in conjunction with Dickerson to require that defense attorneys be inserted into the interrogation mix shortly after capture
— long before the “advanced psychological techniques,”
with which the high-minded senator plans to replace those “abusive” Bush tactics, have any chance to work.

When confronted with this possibility, Sen. McCain and his backers snicker that such suggestions are absurd.
Critics are duly expected to melt, and many of them do.
Some of us, however, have actually had to fight the jihad in the courtroom.
That the senator clearly had no intention whatsoever to lay the groundwork for Mirandizing the battlefield will, you can bet, have little impact on a judge

asked down the road to rule on the admissibility of a terrorist’s confession or on a jihadist’s claim that his McCain Amendment rights have been violated.
If you think otherwise, you haven’t been following the federal courts for the past half-century.

Senate Democrats serially insist that the McCain Amendment prohibits waterboarding.
Sorry to break the news, but the legal argument that it requires Miranda is no less viable. That’s why the legislation’s ambiguity was so irresponsible.
McCain’s campaign against coercive interrogation methods

— tactics that saved American lives after 9/11;
tactics, such as waterboarding, that were rarely ever used
and that had been stopped two years before the McCain amendment;
and tactics that Sen. McCain himself has conceded are excusable in a truly dire national emergency — was reckless.
Sure, the media ate it up, just like they’ll eat up the League of Democracies, the new OSS, and the new wave of overtures to transnational progressives in Europe.
But it’s reflective of an unattractive heedlessness.

Similarly, Sen. McCain wants to close the terrorist holding facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Interrogations there have produced intelligence that has saved American lives.
Bringing the terrorists detained there into the United States would risk vesting them with the same due process rights as the American citizens they are pledged to kill

— including generous discovery of our intelligence,
and our methods and sources for obtaining it.

What is the upside to giving them this precious information?
For Sen. McCain it is — again — what he sees as America’s reputation in the world.
But look: America has selflessly freed millions of Muslims from tyrannical regimes.
Most of us are a lot more concerned about protecting Americans

than about America’s reputation in Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Europe, and the rest of the vaunted “international community.”
The world doesn’t hold a candle to our record of promoting human freedom (to say nothing of our relieving Europe of its duty to fight in, and pay for, its own defense).
And the world’s elites will continue giving us no credit regardless of McCain’s exertions.
If Gitmo upsets other countries, the problem lies with them, not with Gitmo.

The mystery is

why anyone would think the foreign-affairs part of Sen. McCain’s brain is not in sync with the part that produced:
McCain/Feingold legislation that eviscerates core free-speech rights
on which a functioning democratic republic depends;
or proposals for massive, unregulated immigration (from someone claiming the mantle of national security paragon, no less);
or global-warming legislation, the latest iteration of the senator’s Big Government regulatory penchant (we are talking, after all, about someone who has suggested federal government intervention in everything from professional boxing to major league baseball);
or opposition to the Bush tax cuts in class-warfare rhetoric so strident it would make Hillary Clinton blush (including a swipe just last week against “greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished”);
or the Gang of 14 deal, which undermined a conservative effort to end Democrat filibusters against the Bush judicial nominees.

The surge can only camouflage so much.

Sen. McCain’s readiness to be the commander-in-chief fit for today’s perils is the grand hope his supporters offer to overcome substantial conservative doubts.
It’s a mirage.

— Andrew C. McCarthy is an NRO contributing editor. The views expressed above are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any candidate or organization.

[Yosemitest]

And y'all still don't understand why conservatives won't support McCain???

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

To this point, about two out of every three primary and caucus participants have voted against him<. If the Democrats and independents some states permit to crash the Grand Old Party were factored out, his standing in the Republican base would be even less impressive

Yup. Complete and absolute electoral annihilation, dead ahead.

Thanks, "moderates."

Thanks heaps and heaps and heaps.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Ping.

[DanielRedfoot]

Flame away!!

John McCain is an idiot with a resume.

The founders would cringe at the state of this mess.

Every time I calm down and think I will actually Cast my Vote for McCain, he opens his mouth and I recoil again.
And he is not even running at this point....

[Yosemitest]

I'm flaming my best.

[Stepan12]

And y'all still don't understand why conservatives won't support McCain???

Brit Hume did a report on how McCain trashed Conservatives again to get the Spanish vote.

He won't stop in that.

[TigersEye]

McCain is a conniving little weasel.

[lentulusgracchus]

What's interesting, indeed grimly fascinating, is, how did this guy climb to the nomination? Last August he had nothing, literally nothing. He was dead even with Fred Thompson, who hadn't even declared yet, in campaign cash (zero); he was taking taxicabs to "campaign events".

So who made McCain the king?

The answer has to be in that comment about "independents" and Democrats crossing over to push him forward in the early northern-state primaries. Those states usually vote Democratic, but here they are picking a Republican nominee.

Anyone else see a problem with that?

Like the author, I foresee a Democrat landslide (unless Obama's the nominee), carefully engineered over the last six or seven years by Dems in media and in Congress -- primarily the Clintons and their congressional Mephistophilis, Rahm Emanuel.

Which is what Rush and friends are trying to engineer with crossover voting in Democratic primaries (with credit to Markos Moulitsas of The Daily Kos, for popularizing the crossover-to-screw-with-them idea back during the Michigan primary).

[lentulusgracchus]

McCain is a conniving little weasel.

Gay conservative Democrat Camille Paglia (who despite being "all that" manages to hold a civil conversation once a month over lunch with Rush Limbaugh) once described McCain as "positively bulging with protofascist impulses". With all his interventive, big-government enthusiasms, it seems she was certainly right.

I fault Arizona voters for returning him to office his last two terms, after they had plenty of chances to see how far to the left he'd swung. Twenty years ago, his ACU/ADA ratings were similar to those of his conservative junior colleague, John Kyl. Since about 1994 they have migrated steadily to the left, from the 80's on the ACU scale down to about 60.

I don't fault McCain for disagreeing with the Administration occasionally; I do myself. But I do fault him for abandoning his conservative base to play presidential patty-fingers with the Left, who are abusing him as a "useful idiot".

I think McCain's problem is basically that he's an impetuous airdale type who doesn't worry too much about things like thinking, and may not even have all the political candlepower that the job he's asking for requires. Remind you of anyone?

[lexusppd]

The part McCarthy leaves out is the damage done to America if either of the other 2 win. This idea of my way or the highway that many Conservatives have is both wrong headed and dangerous. Helping McCain to win and then trying to push him right or even trying to replace him in 2012 is far far more sensible then caving in and heading for the caves for the next 4-8 years.

[stockpirate]

This is soooooo true.

We really are screwed, unless of course God should see fit to replace McCain....

[TADSLOS]

Go here and understand why McCain is a huge proponent of the League of Democracies:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

once described McCain as "positively bulging with protofascist impulses".

[MBB1984]

We will end up with two leftists running for President. I believe given that choice, the American people will eventually choose the democrat. The silver lining is that we should be able to save the Republican party and lead the fight against a leftist administration. If McCain were to win the GOP would be complicit in promoting a leftist agenda.

[bert]

John McCain is not, that is, is not, a leftist.

Lies will not advance youe cause

[wolfcreek]

Carnegie is in lock-step with the Council on Foreign Relations. (all Presidential candidates are members at CFR)

[indylindy]

This McCarthy piece says it all. McCain needs to go at the convention.

I know too many people not interested in voting for him.

McCain is detestable and a fool like no other.

[TADSLOS]

Carnegie is in lock-step with the Council on Foreign Relations. (all Presidential candidates are members at CFR)

Yes, and by a strange coincidence, none of them are in lockstep with the U.S. Constitution.

[indylindy]

Welcome to FR. What flavor Kool Aid do you drink?

Your post is typical of a McCainiac and has no merit to a conservative.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

This idea of my way or the highway that many Conservatives have is both wrong headed and dangerous.

Thank you, Oh 4-Day Wonder.

[wolfcreek]

The Constitution and sovereignty are pass`e in their view.

http://www.cephasministry.com/nwo_CFR_apostles.html

[LadyNavyVet]

“We don’t need a Baghdad strategy; we need a global war strategy — or, at the very least, a regional one. Victory is not an Iraqi “democracy”; it is an America safe from Islamic terror.”

Preach it, Brother Andrew, Amen!

[MBB1984]

The truth will set you free. John McCain is most certainly a leftist. Anyone who who led the fight for McCain Feigngold, led McCain Kennedy and abandonment of American sovereignty, led the fight on the Senate floor against the Marriage Amendment, Supports Embryonic Stem cell research, called leaders of the religious right “agents of intolerance”, Orchestrated the Gang of Fourteen, said that America practiced “torture” in Iraq, wants to close down GITMO and give terrorists ACLU trials, supports the myth of global warming, rallies against “greedy Wall Street”, votes against tax cuts, said John Kerry was not weak on defense, said Hillary Clinton would make a “fine President” said Obama was “absolutely qualified” to be President, said Alito “wore conservatism on his sleeve” and who is scheduled to speak to leftist bigots at the La Raza conference, is a leftist.

Either you have not studied McCain or your beliefs are so far left you are unable to recognize the leftist nature of McCain.

[Just A Nobody]

He doesnt' need Carnegie's gang.

He has his own International Republican Institute.

Combined with the Republican Mainstreet Partnership
and his Soros funded Reform Institute
and the working group in the senate to undermine anything they don't like, the Senate Centrist Coalition,
McCain has the ability to destroy all his opponents. Just look what he has managed to accomplish against President Bush.

[lexusppd]

"Thank you, Oh 4-Day Wonder."

Let's see if I have this right. On the FR forum the time you have been registered to post adds to the weight of your opinion? So, according to you if a person of many years experience within the Party and a of Conservative credentials that you would approve of, if you were aware of them, joins the forum under the name Joe Blow, what he has to say is not credible or worthy of discussion by virtue of the fact he only joined a few days ago?

Excuse me, but are you aware of how totally incomprehensible and mind bogglingly (if there is such a word)clueless this makes you look?

As I mentioned in another post, I have been a visitor to FR for many years and as is my habit I prefer to observe before I make the decision to join. I have noticed this forum has markedly changed over the past 18 months or so and the change is not for the good, IMO. The level of discussion has gone from informed give and take (with a few but not many exceptions) to a close minded sort in which the people who consider themselves "real conservatives" have basically shut the door on anyone who doesn't support their positions 100%.

I have seen members booted because they supported John McCain rather then allow either of the 2 liberals to win in Nov. This attempt to stifle opinion does the forum no good whatsoever and actually makes it look like some of the far left forums which similarly prohibit truly free expression. Allowing someone to voice their support for a candidate not your own choice does not in any way hurt your candidates chances of winning nor does the forum booting the individual increase the chances of what you consider the "real" Conservative of winning.

The Democrats are famous for allowing no dissent within the Party and they do this because they KNOW how weak their positions are and how easily they can be shot down when exposed to probing questions. It appears this is what has happened on this forum. If that is the way Robinson wants it then that's fine since it is his forum and he can make his own rules. However I think it not unreasonable to have a message on the home page stating what will be tolerated and what will not. There is a message of this kind presently on the registration page but it does not mention anything about speaking out for a candidate who is a Republican but just not Republican enough for many here.

This forum has gone and will continue to go from what I consider to be the best Conservative forum on the web to merely one of many who demand strict adherence to an unmentioned set of rules, the enforcement of which are left up to a few mods whose decision to boot a member may be determined by the morning mood they are in.

I liken the election to a war. I would love to have Patton as my commanding general but if I simply could not I would take someone of somewhat lesser caliber rather then toss in the towel and concede defeat to an enemy. In this case an enemy who could very well damage the Nation beyond repair, at least for the next many years.

[lexusppd]

I like Apple Juice. Why do you ask?

[Just A Nobody]

Indeed, in 1999, against the tide of conservative (and much other sensible) opposition, he tried to push the Clinton administration into a ground war in Kosovo, despite the absence of any vital American interests. He thought it would enhance our image in the world to show solidarity with Muslims — never mind that these Muslims included anti-Western fundamentalists.

John McCain armed Kosovo Islamic terrorists
"Even in 1998 when we had problems with Milosevic, McCain did everything that we asked of him to the benefit of the Albanian people, including arming the KLA"

The Albanians collected one million dollars for the presidential campaign of this senator.

...the first thing McCain said to him when he entered the hotel in Manhatten on January 22: "Joe, I saw your people in Michigan, and in South Carolina and in New Hampshire", from which this lobbyist deduced that all Americans of Albanian background will be voting for the senator from Arizona.

...the Albanian American Civic League awarded him the "Balkan Award for Peace" a year and a half ago, and the initiative was the proposed Senate resolution - which McCain wrote - in which thanks is extended to the Albanians for "saving all the Jews who lived in Albania or who sought shelter there during the Nazi Holocaust".

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Let's see if I have this right. On the FR forum the time you have been registered to post adds to the weight of your opinion? yak yak yak *snip*

Briefer, better response: yes, when the poster in question hasn't even blessed us all with his peerless wisdom for one entire week yet, and still (still!) feels perfectly comfortable lecturing older, smarter and (bet on it, muffin) almost assuredly wiser conservatives as to what's what, and who's who.

You're welcome.

[lexusppd]

"Your post is typical of a McCainiac and has no merit to a conservative."

And your closed minded attitude is what will ultimately make the Conservative movement no different from the far left moon bats we all laugh at on a daily basis. rather then impugn my credibilty why not just state your opposition to McCain and the reason why you feel either of the Democrats would be BETTER in the WH and we can discuss it? The attitude of you and your ilk is both childish and non productive.

[lexusppd]

Like I said. Yours is a totally incomprehensible statement and cannot be supported by any clear thinking individual.

You have again used as the crux of your inane argument, the fact that no matter my experience or back round my time registered makes my thoughts and opinions unworthy of consideration and in fact makes them a prime target for an attack. You also seem to be the sort who, when an all to obvious flaw is pointed out in their argument or reasoning, will stick to it because to admit a mistake is just not something you can live with.

Short enough?

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

Yours is a totally incomprehensible statement and cannot be supported by any clear thinking individual.

Overruled, as prosecution has not yet demonstrated either competency or (in their own case) relevance.

Feh. You bore me, moppet. Dismissed.

[lexusppd]

Very well, you win. I must say, digesting your responses to my contention of your complete and total illogical positions has left me to believe I could engage a door knob and it would return responses more indicative of a higher thought process then what we have seen from you.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

digesting your responses to my contention of your complete and total illogical positions

Such ruinously awful sentence structure and grammar... from one so supremely self-adoring as all of that!

*snort*

Kid: you're fluffing it up too damned much. Yank out whatever it is you've got lodged in your southernmost portion, and try again.

[Yosemitest]

McCain will NOT change!!!
Any thought you have about pushing McCain to the right is childish at best.

You can take that Sorry Old Bonehead ... McCain and stuff him up your .... well.

[TigersEye]

Gay conservative Democrat Camille Paglia ... once described McCain as "positively bulging with protofascist impulses".

LOL She has a way with words. Very accurate too which is not so funny.

Remind you of anyone?

A less criminal less honest Hillary Clinton. Yes, I said less honest than H. Clinton.
By a large margin IMO.

It is not saying much to say that someone is less of a criminal than Bill and Hill though.

[TigersEye]

Perhaps you haven't really researched McCain and don't know what we're in for if he becomes the President. I know you won't find much, if any, of this in the MSM.

McCain is this.

[lexusppd]

My thoughts on the election are as follows.

Today, in this time and place in our Nations trek through history we are faced with, I believe, the greatest threat we have ever faced in this struggle against the savages, who have freely admitted they want us all dead and will kill us if they get the chance. During the cold war we faced annihilation from the Soviet Union as they did from us. But the enemy then did not want to commit suicide to beat us so we had what we referred to as MAD or mutually assured destruction. Neither was likely to pull the trigger since it all but insured they would die also.

The Muzzies fanatics and the likes of Ahmadinajad would consider it an honor to die if they could take us and Israel with them. They believe heaven awaits them if they carry out the Korans edict to “kill the Infidels”

We know from past experience the savages cannot be negotiated with nor can they be trusted as far as they can be thrown. They understand one thing and one thing alone and that is crushing force. I believe that John McCain will, if it becomes necessary apply this force and I further believe neither of the other 2 will do so in as timely a manner as would be required. I also believe that simply having a man like McCain in the WH would serve as a deterrent to the crazies.

All the things we find to be shortcomings in McCain are of no consequence if we are dead. Survival is the thing most important at this time and the most important job of the president is the security of the Nation and safety of her citizens. John McCain is better equipped to carry this mission out then either of the other two.

I am a rabid right to life individual and am totally against creating a life simply to kill it for the stem cells. I am also against subsidizing in anyway illegal immigrants but all of these issues pale before the national security one and it is this issue , IMO that is the most important one today. Were this another time and the threat of the fanatics mitigated I would be inclined to agree that a strong message be sent to the leadership to get back to where they belong ideologically speaking.

Now is not that time.

[calcowgirl]

...no matter my experience or back round ...

Since you seem to think it deserves consideration, please enlighten us and share your résumé.

[lexusppd]

To lay out my resume here would be to identify me and frankly my identity is none of your business, Further I really don't care whether you choose to consider my input as valuable or not. I am merely trying to add to the discourse and yours or anyone else's refusal to accept for discussion my thoughts reflects back on you (and them) and not at all in a favorable way.

[TigersEye]

I believe that John McCain will, if it becomes necessary apply this force ...

And I believe in the Tooth Fairy. Unfortunately there is more objective evidence for my belief than yours.

[calcowgirl]

You imply that posters should consider your “experience or back round” and your “many years experience within the Party and a of Conservative credentials”. Now you choose not to share it but to throw insults around.

Whatever.

[TigersEye]

I am merely trying to add to the discourse and yours or anyone else's refusal to accept for discussion my thoughts reflects back on you (and them) and not at all in a favorable way.

That is illogical nonsense. You claim to have great credentials but must keep them a secret. Your credentials aren't open to scrutiny but it's a reflection on us that we don't accept your otherwise unsupported opinions? The fact that they don't make sense in light of what we do know about McCain ought to make it a requirement that you give us some other reason to consider your thoughts. The "I know things you don't" claim is rather empty.

[Shryke]

Would you like to know something funny, Lexus? All these Mccain haters talk about John Mccain more than Mccain HIMSELF! Even more irony: no one cares! They’re all just saying the same crap, every thread, convincing nobody but themselves of anything. I’ve never seen such negative energy put to such....zero use.

[TigersEye]

Like all McCain supporters you can’t name one rational reason to support him but, like McCain, you are free and easy with the put downs. LOL

[calcowgirl]

All these Mccain haters talk about John Mccain more than Mccain HIMSELF!

Do you consider Andrew McCarthy a "McCain hater"? What do you think of the issues he raises?

They’re all just saying the same crap, every thread, convincing nobody but themselves of anything.

All that crap? Like global warming regulation, amnesty, big-government, Law of the Sea, class warfare, clueless foreign policy.... etc.
You think those qualify as "crap"?

FYI, Conservatives oppose these things. (FR sure ain't what it used to be.)

[Shryke]

Like all McCain supporters you can’t name one rational reason to support him but, like McCain, you are free and easy with the put downs. LOL

Entirely false. Both statements. I am impressed. Let's parse:

1. I can name one rational reason to support Mccain: our War with Islam. The other candidates would happily lose it and doom our country to a quick end.

2. Put downs? The absolute BLACK WHOLE of negative crap-slinging on Free Republic are these Mccain threads, almost entirely written by Mccain "critics". The very idea that you can't count up the insults on this thread alone boggles the mind.

Keep laughing. You're the one disenfranchised, not me. LOL indeed.

[lexusppd]

What on earth is WRONG with you?

THIS is what I posted:

"I am merely trying to add to the discourse and yours or anyone else's refusal to accept for discussion my thoughts reflects back on you (and them) and not at all in a favorable way."

From that, how on earth to you come to a conclusion that encourages you to write this:

"... but it's a reflection on us that we don't accept your otherwise unsupported opinions?"

Where did I ask you or anyone to accept my opinion? I clearly said I was offering up my opinion for consideration and discourse.

Clearly you need to take a course in understanding the English language.

[calcowgirl]

The other candidates would happily lose it and doom our country to a quick end.

Just for discussion purposes, can you tell me how they will do this?

Are you saying neither one will engage the DoD, no matter what our enemies may do? That the DoD and the American people will just sit back and not do anything?

What form will "doom" take on--and what do you mean by "quick end"? Will the American people no longer exist, the Constitution replaced by another document, the country nuked or? Will the other candidates also be victim to this "quick end" or will they and their family somehow avoid the destruction?

Please be specific.

[Shryke]

Do you consider Andrew McCarthy a "McCain hater"? What do you think of the issues he raises?

I would guess "yes". I was referencing FR's "True/Strong Conservative Brigade", however.

All that crap? Like global warming regulation, amnesty, big-government, Law of the Sea, class warfare, clueless foreign policy.... etc. You think those qualify as "crap"?

"Crap" meaning the clearly ridiculous assertions concerning Mccain. Such as "clueless foreign policy". There are definitely viable points to criticize Mccain on. I don't find many of them in these threads.

FYI, Conservatives oppose these things. (FR sure ain't what it used to be.)

Ah. Sorry, but I come from the camp where I don't look to other "conservatives" to tell me how to think conservatively. See, that's my philosophy: liberals think they know what's best for everyone else. Conservatives think they know what's good for themselves. I think I far prefer my definition.

[Shryke]

Just for discussion purposes, can you tell me how they will do this? Are you saying neither one will engage the DoD, no matter what our enemies may do? That the DoD and the American people will just sit back and not do anything? What form will "doom" take on--and what do you mean by "quick end"? Will the American people no longer exist, the Constitution replaced by another document, the country nuked or? Will the other candidates also be victim to this "quick end" or will they and their family somehow avoid the destruction? Please be specific.

Excellent questions. My thoughts are this: first, appeasement of terrorist regimes. Cessation of hostilities against AQ. AQ rebuilds. Attacks are planned. Attacks are carried out. Small at first. Nothing is done. More attacks. Nothing is done (does this sound familiar?). The terrorist as a whole are further emboldened. Siginificant funds and resources are now going to AQ towards a super 9/11. Militant Islam begins showing it's head in the US (like Britain), and the powers that be urge patience.

And then, disaster. Like, a whole damn city. Recovering from 9/11 was quite difficult, remember? Just think about that times a few thousand, and replace GWB with Barack Obama, and perhaps you now see where I see "doom".