Thursday, January 31, 2008

McCain & The Corner   [Jonah Goldberg]

As most readers know, I've been pretty distracted by the book and haven't been participating much in the Corner of late. But I think I should just be on the record that I disagree with the tone, tenor and substance of much — though certainly not all — of the anti-McCain commentary around here. It's not that I object to a single post or comment — though there've been a few. It's that I disagree with the overwhelming impression that supporting McCain is some kind of lunacy. I have serious disagreements with McCain. I think it is entirely right to disagree with him on all sorts of issues and entirely legitimate to think he would be bad for the party, bad for conservatism or bad for the country to have him as the nominee or the next president. I agree with some of those sentiments, disagree with others.

But this disaster talk leaves me cold. McCain wouldn't be my first pick. Then again, none of the candidates were really my first pick. But I think the notion that, variously, conservatism, the country or the party are doomed if he's the nominee or the president is pretty absurd.

And I find such claims odd coming from some people who've insisted for a couple years now that the war on terror is the #1 overriding issue of this campaign. Some people who said as much, used that logic to support Rudy Giuliani. Maybe they were right that Giuliani would be a better wartime president than McCain. But, that's an argument that requires a pretty substantial leap of faith given Giuliani's very meager foreign policy experience (never mind that Giuliani is now endorsing McCain). I haven't heard anyone make a credible case that McCain wouldn't be a good commander-in-chief. So it's a bit  hard to believe McCain would be a disaster given that he would be — at minimum — pretty good on the single most important issue facing the country.

One gets the sense that many (though not all) of the anti-McCain folks fall into one of three categories:

1) People who like Romney and are willing to use the nearest weapon to hand to defend him.

2) People who dislike McCain so intensely they're looking for any rationalizations that supports the anyone-but-McCain position.

3) People who think illegal immigration is in fact the most important issue facing the country and that it takes precedence over any other problem.

I'm sure that will raise some objections, but I'll wait to respond to those objections.

In the meantime, let me make one last point. I think both the GOP and the conservative movement could benefit from a slightly more adversarial relationship. George W. Bush moved the party leftward and/or damaged the image of the GOP in many respects precisely because he was given the benefit of the doubt by conservatives who saw him as "one of us." It's not obvious to me that having a more transactional relationship with a Republican president would be altogether bad for the country, the party or the conservative movement.

01/31 09:22 PMShare