Thread: Speak Up! (re: McCain)

Speak Up!
Now is the time to sort things out.

By Mark R. Levin

As I understand Victor Davis Hanson’s position, those of us who believe John McCain will cause severe damage to the conservative movement and the Republican party should hush up, or at least calm down, for this electoral juggernaut, who has managed to get 33 percent of the vote in South Carolina (despite backing by most of the establishment there) and is strong on the war in Iraq. And if we continue to bring attention to those issues that concern us — which are not insignificant to anyone who has worked in conservative circles for nearly 40 years — then we will destroy the party and Hillary Clinton will win, thereby losing the war on terror. VDH is neither the first nor will he be the last to make this case.

With all due respect, this is absurd on many levels. If John McCain is nominated and loses, it is because he doesn’t appeal to enough Americans, including the base that he has repeatedly betrayed (as Thomas Sowell puts it) over a long period of time. The suggestion that McCain and McCain alone is capable of fighting this war, given his experience, seems to be the core of the concern. Let me suggest that VDH and others who make this claim are wrong.

McCain never treated Bill Cohen, Clinton’s defense secretary, with the kind of personal animus he showed Donald Rumsfeld. McCain often confuses policy with personality affronts. He was social friends with Cohen so he didn’t admonish him about his hollowing out of the military. His attacks on Rumsfeld started before his disagreement over the surge. Their personalities clashed. And as before, McCain wanted to get even. The fact that he was right on the surge, which has now evolved into mythical proportions with the help of his campaign and supporters, goes high on the credit side of the ledger.

You ask, in essence, that we ignore McCain’s leadership in the amnesty debate and his course reversal of recent months as he seeks votes. What does this tell us about the man? The bill he co-authored with Ted Kennedy (and which was foolishly supported by the current president) would have caused enormous economic and cultural dislocations. (VDH doesn’t need lectures from me on the subject, since he’s written eloquently on it.) As the Heritage Foundation and many others pointed out at the time, the McCain-led effort would have resulted in tens of millions of new illegal aliens coming to the country with the likelihood of eventually receiving citizenship; the expedited bankruptcy of major entitlement programs, including Social Security; and the imposition of massive new costs on state and private enterprises, from schools and hospitals to law enforcement. McCain’s bill would have made it impossible for the already hapless federal government to properly conduct criminal background checks before issuing “probationaryâ€

Mark Levin has been a strong voice against McCain and Huckabee. I hope he continues to get the word out on McCain's liberal record in many areas.

I guess I'm also not surprised about Victor David Hanson. He's a fine writer, but unfortunately he recently spoke out against attrition as the way to deal with IAs, instead spouting the well-worn "make them learn English" pathway amnesty.