"The Rights Man"

A rerun:

The Right's Man, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times, March 13, 2006: It's time for some straight talk about John McCain. He isn't a moderate. He's much less of a maverick than you'd think. And he isn't the straight talker he claims to be.

Mr. McCain's reputation as a moderate may be based on his former opposition to the Bush tax cuts. In 2001 he declared, "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us."

But now — at a time of huge budget deficits and an expensive war, when the case against tax cuts for the rich is even stronger — Mr. McCain is happy to shower benefits on the most fortunate. He recently voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, an action that will worsen the budget deficit while mainly benefiting people with very high incomes.

When it comes to foreign policy, Mr. McCain was never moderate. During the 2000 campaign he called for a policy of "rogue state rollback," anticipating the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war unveiled two years later. Mr. McCain called for a systematic effort to overthrow nasty regimes even if they posed no imminent threat to the United States; he singled out Iraq, Libya and North Korea. Mr. McCain's aggressive views on foreign policy, and his expressed willingness, almost eagerness, to commit U.S. ground forces overseas, explain why he, not George W. Bush, was the favored candidate of neoconservative pundits such as William Kristol of The Weekly Standard. ...

When it comes to social issues, Mr. McCain, who once called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance," met with Mr. Falwell late last year. Perhaps as a result, he is now taking positions friendly to the religious right. Most notably, Mr. McCain's spokesperson says that he would have signed South Dakota's extremist new anti-abortion law. ...

The bottom line is that Mr. McCain isn't a moderate; he's a man of the hard right. How far right? A statistical analysis of Mr. McCain's recent voting record, available at www.voteview.com, ranks him as the Senate's third most conservative member.

What about Mr. McCain's reputation as a maverick? This comes from the fact that every now and then he seems to declare his independence from the Bush administration, as he did in pushing through his anti-torture bill.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Guantánamo. President Bush, when signing the bill, appended a statement that in effect said that he was free to disregard the law whenever he chose. Mr. McCain protested, but there are apparently no hard feelings: at the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference he effusively praised Mr. Bush.

And I'm sorry to say that this is typical of Mr. McCain. Every once in a while he makes headlines by apparently defying Mr. Bush, but he always returns to the fold, even if the abuses he railed against continue unabated.

So here's what you need to know about John McCain.

He isn't a straight talker..., he's a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush. He isn't a moderate. Mr. McCain's policy positions and Senate votes don't just place him at the right end of America's political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party.

And he isn't a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration's ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.

It's worth recalling that during the 2000 election campaign George W. Bush was widely portrayed by the news media both as a moderate and as a straight-shooter. As Mr. Bush has said, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Comments

[Joe]

Welcome back

[napablogger]

I mostly agree but the few things that are mentioned that are supposed to make him a moderate are the things that make him a moderate to Democrats. The things that make him a (mostly unwelcome) moderate to Republicans are his stands on campaign finance and amnesty for illegals. I think most Republicans appreciate his voting against the first round on the Bush tax cuts, because he was trying to hold down spending and didn't ultimately vote against them. It was only the screamers like Limbaugh, etc, that made a big deal out of that during the primaries.

Now that I have written this I realize that once again Krugman has demonstrated his liberal Democrat bias. He didn't notice the Republican perspective.

[reason]

napablogger...
It seems to me that perhaps you should be glad Krugman didn't notice the Republican perspective. He might have started frothing at the mouth.
Republicans don't like him because he might have wanted to make American democracy a little less absurdly corrupt than it is? And that is considered a valid viewpoint?

[Richard A.]

Even on immigration he is no moderate. His objective on immigration is to allow business interests to import foreign labor under inferior guest worker visas that prevent the foreign workers from selling their services to the highest bidders. This is very close to slavery. It also has a negative impact on domestic labor. McCain is anti-labor.

[Richard A.]

Let's not forget -- McCain is the last of the Keating 5.

[Lafayette]

Article: As Mr. Bush has said, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

This lapsus linguae would become known as a hallmark of the Bush administration.

Begone, devil!

[Lafayette]

napa: Now that I have written this I realize that once again Krugman has demonstrated his liberal Democrat bias. He didn't notice the Republican perspective.

So what? What do you expect of a journalist? Perfect impartiality?

That's not on in our day and age ... if it ever was.

[anon/portly]

"Mr. McCain's policy positions and Senate votes don't just place him at the right end of America's political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party."

This may be true of McCain's "recent voting record," if "recent" is defined as 2007-2008, but I don't think it's accurate otherwise.

Here...

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Senate/senator_ratings-2005.html

...for 2005, using the combined rankings of 8 liberal interest groups (ACLU, ADA, etc.) McCain was clearly in the left wing of the Republican party - the 8th most liberal of 55 Republican senators.

Then here...

http://www.acuratings.org/2007senate.htm

...in 2006, McCain was again in the left wing of the Republican party, according the American Conservative Union, which gave him a ranking of 65. His lifetime ranking of 82.16 seems to put him somewhere in the middle.

McCain has a reputation as a moderate Republican because, at least at times, that's exactly what he's been. If McCain has veered back to the far right, it seems like the more telling criticism would be pandering (to the right to get the nomination) or simply a lack of principles.

[Lafayette]

If really, truly interested in BigMedia and what it is doing to America's Media Landscape, have a look at this Other-Opinion, here.

What happened on May 15th, two days ago, in the Senate regarding the media and the FCC is timely. It should interest you.

You didn't hear/see it on TV? That shouldn't surprise you.