The Case Against John McCain, Exposed

Most of the arguments against McCain these days are coming from those deluded few who are convinced that George W Bush hasn't been right-wing enough, and if only he were..

First, foreign policy. His crimes against Conservatism seem to be only that he has spoken against Guantanamo. Mitt Romney, showing himself to be eloquent, less experienced on foreign policy matters than Obama, and profound, has said he wants more Guantanamos.

In World War II the US and all of the allies considered water boarding torture and prosecuted Axis soldiers who did it. That is a historical fact. McCain was a POW in the Hanoi Hilton from 1967-1973 and knows a thing or two about the whole treatment of prisoners debate. A US President with an approval rating between 3 and 7 % in Western European nations seems to not be low enough for Romney.

McCain was absolutely right and Rumsfeld was absolutely wrong on the surge. Worse, Rumsfeld seemed to think the world was his lab for his small footprint experiment (small footprint in an occupation of the Middle East, how freaking stupid can you be?) and revealed typical conservative head-in-the-sand-ishness by refusing to acknowledge the facts. Footage of Rumsfeld's press conferences in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 is quite worth watching (http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/). Everything in Iraq between May 1, 2003 and the day after the November 2006 midterms was an absolute disaster. Putting Paul Bremer in there as King of Iraq was ridiculous, especially since "random guy off the street" seemed to be Bremer's prime qualification. The military at 500,000 troops cannot put bases all over the world and occupy everything and fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, a draft is out of the question, and people aren't signing up. The Marines making documentaries like No End in Sight in which a group of marines on the curb in Iraq jokes about "That's the last contract I ever sign with the government" is quite revealing.

Petreaus and Gates have been great, but we don't have the will nor the soldiers to permanently put 200,000 American soldiers over there and let the glue dry, even if there were somehow any kind of glue over there. Further, Iran can only just smile and a weak and divided Iraq next door.

Mitt Romney has 0, zero, none, nill, nothing on foreign policy. Guiliani would probably be good, but not as good as McCain, and his campaign is dead anyway.

2. McCain on immigration is a gigantic who cares. The preposterous ideas of others- Mitt's fly 12 million of them back and make them apply like everyone else- just make Ron Paul start to sound like the reasonable one on stage. McCain has been in Arizona dealing with the issue for decades and decades, the New Englanders who use cheap talk to pander incredibly stupid ideas to the gun nuts aren't even worth discussing.

3. John Kerry wanted McCain as his VP mate, and McCain said no and spoke in favor of Bush and the war in 2004. It was a floated idea that doesn't mean much, kind of like the Reagan- Ford possible ticket in 76.

4. McCain was against the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, sort of. Well, until we cut spending and cease having to fight multiple trillion dollar wars, cutting taxes isn't exactly prudent. McCain's reasonableness in the face of dogma is why he's the only one who really has a chance. Hillary would beat any of the others by about 44-6, Obama would beat them even worse. He wants a fiscally prudent balanced budget type government, whereas our first MBA President didn't veto anything for 5 or 6 years, and now Romney wants to run on compassion for Michigan and 'A businessman for a change', which is as silly as Hillary claiming she is change.

5. Campaign finance reform. Well, to dogmatically assert that money is speech (George Will and company) is no better than to dogmatically assert that money is corruption. Both are 50% true and 50% wrong. Companies don't give to both parties because they care about ideology. Candidates shaking down donors is often just as corrupt in reverse. McCain-Feingold wasn't the best legislation. Neither was the death of the 94-06 GOP Congress on Abramoff and corruption and pork barrel garbage a pretty event. I'll take McCain on campaign finance over Romney's "loan me money and if I win, you have access, if I lose, I'll pay you back" campaign.

6. McCain on abortion, gay marriage, and social issues. Mitt's talk is cheap and floating in the wind, just compare their actual records. Guiliani is a social liberal. McCain is the most socially conservative candiate out there, in my opinion, other than blasphemous Huckabee.

7. On the environment, Democrats are basically right and Republicans basically wrong on that issue anyway, so moderate McCain is a big plus.

A McCain one-term pledge, on honorably finishing Iraq, is a winning idea. I agree with Victor Davis Hanson on that.