John McCain, the U.S. Senator from Arizona with a supposed lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union of 82.3 (even though in 2006 – the most recent rating – it was a very liberal 65), yesterday severely damaged his self-congratulatory character in Florida with what can only be described as a dishonest attack on Governor Mitt Romney. McCain deceitfully proclaimed that Romney believes in a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq in order to shift the electorate’s focus away from the economy (which McCain – by his own admission – is very weak on with multiple votes against President Bush‘s tax cuts) and back to Iraq (which McCain thinks he can take credit for).
Governor Romney has said no such thing. How do I know that? Well, here’s the clip from which McCain developed his latest fabrication…
Governor Romney merely suggested that President Bush and his Iraqi counterpart probably have military objectives with regards to security in Iraq, but to make those public for our enemies’ exploitation would be foolish. Does Senator McCain not have any military objectives for Iraq, or are we to stay there with an unchanged operations tempo until the end of time?
McCain’s supporters continue to fall back on "character" as a reason to vote for the Senator when the issues fail them. With dishonest attacks on Governor Romney, can they still do this without calling into question their own character?
While we’re on the topic of McCain’s character I think it’s worth noting what conservative blogger and television pundit Michelle Malkin already has, that at the same time the Senator has stated he has changed his mind on illegal immigration since his very recent legislative partnership with Ted Kennedy, he’s also utilizing the consulting services of notorious open-borders activist Juan Hernandez as his "Hispanic Outreach Director".
From Malkin’s post on the topic:
"Hernandez was a close advisor to Vicente “Welcome to North America” Fox and headed up a Mexican bureaucracy called the “Presidential Office for Mexicans Abroad.” It was designed to allow Hernandez to travel across the country, meddling with local, state, and federal immigration enforcement on behalf of millions of illegal aliens in America. He lobbied for illegal alien driver’s licenses and Mexico first, defended Mexican bus operators carrying illegal aliens to the USA, and promoted extending banking privileges to illegal aliens.
"In an interview on ABC News’s Nightline, Hernandez stated bluntly that he was betting that the Mexican American population in the United States –all generations– “will think Mexico first…”I want ‘em all to think Mexico first.”"
January 27th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Mr. Probolsky is Mitt Romney’s Orange County campaign chairman: http://presidential.freedomblogging.com/2008/01/19/romney-supporter-says-his-guy-now-front-runner/
January 27th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I support neither McCain nor Romney in this race, but I find McCain’s tactics here troubling, as are some of the open borders friends he has made.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:00 am
If I might chime in as an uncommitted (Guiliani or Romney) voter: I think the questions of ideology and age miss the point with McCain. My biggest problem with McCain isn’t so much his ideology as his personality. He comes across as an applause-seeker. It seems that somewhere along the line, McCain decided he wasn’t going to retire a low-profile and slightly scandal-tainted member of Congress. Maybe it started with campaign finance (I should probably read his autobiography, it might help clear this up) but at some point he discovered that an occasional, high-profile conversion to the cause of Big Government would reap considerable PR benefits. The Washington Post and the Sunday morning talk shows all paid him a heck of a lot more attention when he backed a liberal cause or did other something to undermine conservatives. They even called him a “maverick,” the greatest compliment the Beltway press corps can stand to give a Republican.
That I think explains his tendency to pick big issues, ones that either the media cares deeply about (campaign finance reform) or those that grab top-line coverage (tax cuts, judicial nominations, etc), on which to stray. Maybe his ACU voting record hasn’t hit Arlen Specter territory yet, but the conversion seems almost as drastic.
Some of it is also stylistic. Think about how many occasions you can remember McCain calling out his “fellow Republicans.” He went as far as to make personal phone calls to a number of GOP members of the California State Assembly in favor of the Pavley greenhouse gas bill a few years ago (I picked up one such phone call. Imagine my surprise when the caller said “This is Senator John McCain.” He called entirely without warning and dialed the phone himself, no staff. Imagine my further disappointment when I found out what he was calling about). I can’t recall any other issue in our legislature where he got so personally involved.
Of course as president, McCain couldn’t be ignored and wouldn’t have to work for headlines. Would he continue this pattern or return to his previous consistency in defending the Constitution and economic and social freedom? I don’t know but I tend to believe, to paraphrase Sinatra, that he’ll stick with the lady he came in with.