The Maverick and the Republican "conservatives"

The Maverick embraces his Dear Leader, 2004

That bold Maverick McCain addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference this afternoon. That's the gathering where last year Mad Annie Coulter fired up the faithful by calling John Edwards a "faggot". A number of prominent conservatives have complained that the Maverick isn't sufficiently loyal to the Party line, which incidentally (or maybe not so incidentally) plays right into the endless depiction of McCain as some kind of moderate by his adoring fans in the press corps.

Before I get into the rightwing grumbling over the Maverick, has anyone else noticed that Joe Lieberman has been showing up standing loyally beside McCain lately when he gives victory speeches? The Senate Democrats probably think they have little choice but to accept Lieberman as part of their voting majority in organizing the Senate. But, good grief, if the man is campaigning for a Republican Presidential candidate even during the primaries, it's silly to regard him as any kind of Democrat any more. Given their difficulty in getting any innovative, non-Cheney-approved legislation through the Senate anyway, I have to wonder whether accepting him as part of the majority even now makes sense. If the Dems pick up a couple more Senate seats in the fall - or even one more in the Mississippi special election to fill Trent Lott's vacated seat - there will be even less reason to allow Lieberman to pose as a Democrat. Because he obviously isn't. The Dems are at least not allowing HoJo to be a "super-delegate" at the party convention (Lieberman No Longer a Super Delegate Capitol Watch 02/06/08).

This suspicion of the right wing against their presumptive Presidential nominee Maverick McCain is very strange. I hate when Pat Buchanan agrees with me, but he's right in saying that the Maverick as President "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

A couple of useful looks at this dustup within the Christian Republican Party are McCain seeks to assuage wary conservatives by Joe Garofoli San Francisco Chronicle 02/07/08, and Hating on McCain by Joe Conason Salon 02/07/08.

Garofoli hits what I think is the bottom line on this faction fight among the Reps:

Talk show host and conservative commentator Mike Gallagher wrote Wednesday in the TownHall.com blog that "a lot of my friends and colleagues are in a foul mood over John McCain's Super Tuesday success."

"But what should really fire them up is the possibility of a Democrat in the White House in 2009," he wrote. "And I would respectfully suggest to the 'I'll-never-vote-for-McCain' crowd that you are threatening to hand the November election over to the Democrats on a big, fat silver platter."

Why should prominent conservatives be harshing on McCain? In some cases, looking for reasons is probably useless. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, was off the wall even before he pickled his brain in OxyContin. Conason also predicts with good reason that most Republicans won't experience much trauma in getting behind the Maverick as their nominee:

Certainly there will be many elected officials, bureaucrats, officeholders and assorted pork-choppers who will fall into the McCain ranks without much protest, out of personal interest or partisan loyalty. If conservatives could persuade themselves to accept Romney's professions of the true faith despite his record of support for abortion rights and gay rights, then why not believe McCain when he promises supply-side tax cuts?

And, as Conason also explains, plain old fanaticism and wingnut paranoia are also likely at work to some extent.

I realize that the image of Maverick McCain is one that has been repeated for years by our sad excuse for a press corps. Most of whom luuu-uuv that living saint, Staight-Talking McCain. Listen to the reporters on TV, blathering about St. McCain's "straight talk" and his "Maverick" nature.

The bold Maverick has one of the most conservative, pro-Bush voting records in the Senate. He panders to the Christianist right, including embracing their anti-science, anti-evolution pitch. He supports continuing the Cheney-Bush tax cuts (aka, tax subsidies) for the wealthiest citizens, because the heart and soul of the Republican Party is to make sure that the wealthiest people who materially benefit the most from what the United States has to offer should be free of the terrible burden of paying taxes to support their country.

McCain gave his adoring fans among the TV talking heads a chance to pimp his Maverick image by his anti-torture bill. But that was a joke from the start, though our pathetic press corps wouldn't think of reporting that. Torture was illegal when Cheney and Bush and Rummy started it in 2001. Why would anyone think that outlawing it again would make any difference to these scoundrels? Then when Bush signed the bill with a signing statement saying he had no dadgum intention of obeying it, the bold Maverick said he was just fine with that. And, of course, the Straight Talker happily voted to approve to retroactively indemnify many of the torturers. Although they can still be prosecuted under international law, if necessary. No McCain Presidency will prosecute those or any other torture cases unless their hand is forced somehow. And if the Congress can't force Bush's Attorney General to even investigate instances of torture in which the administration openly admits to using the drowning torture (waterboarding) that has been generally recognized as torture since at least the days of the Spanish Inquisition, it's unlikely they would be able to force McCain either.

The Maverick supports Cheney and Bush on telecomm amnesty for illegal spying, supports the illegal spying program generally, is fine with Cheney's Unilateral Executive theory of (Republican) Presidential power, will do nothing to stop Republican voter-suppression maneuvers (a direct continuity between today's Republicans and "Old South" segregationists), is totally on board with Supreme Court Justices like Roberts and Alito (one McCain Supreme Court appointment and you can kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye), supports Republican administrations defying Congressional subpoenas and exercising a blatantly partisan and often plain dishonest political prosecution policy, and thinks preventive wars are just dandy.

McCain was the chief Congressional advocate of The Surge, aka, the McCain escalation, whose main function has been to strengthen the Sunni militias that are fighting against our allied Shi'a-dominated, pro-Iranian government in Baghdad's Green Zone. Just within the last few weeks, fighting between government (aka Shi'a partisan) forces and the supporters of some whacko apocalyptic cult produced fighting in 75% of Basra, in the south where the British have, uh, successfully pacified everything. That's a key port facility for oil exports and a key location on the exit route for American troops leaving Iraq.

And, of course, the point of The Surge - to produce political reconciliation - has gone nowhere, to put it mildly. Oh, yeah, now the Turks are regularly bombing northern Iraq and conducting cross-border raids. And the air war in Iraq and Afghanistan escalated dramatically in 2007. The Iraq War is almost exclusively urban combat. Gee, when you drop a 2,000-lb bomb on a building in the middle of a crowded city, think there might be some civilian causalities? Have you ever heard the bold Maverick McCain express the slightest reservations about fighting a guerrilla war this way?

And what's the Maverick's solution to this? Keep fighting forever. He said he was fine if the US stayed in Iraq for 100 years. When a reporter later challenged him on it, he said 1000 years or even a million years (!!!) would be fine with him.

Speaking of which, you wouldn't know it listening to the Chris Matthewses expounding their man-crushes for the Maverick. But listen to one of his speeches at some length sometimes. I heard a long excerpt of him campaigning in Florida, I think it was, and he sounded downright dingy. And that dull roar you hear in the background when he speaks? That's the sound of bombs falling on Teheran. And Damascus. And Lord only knows where else.

Tags: iraq war, joe lieberman, mccain, mccain escalation, surge