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OK, Anne, I’ll go there with you. But only because you called me an old-timer.
I don’t dispute for a moment that John McCain is a true maverick. But—and I can’t say it better than Matt Taibbi did—McCain’s “arrogant refusal to be a craven imbecile” is not moderation, either, even if it “makes McCain suspect in the eyes of Limbaugh and Coulter, who are terrified at the prospect of a Republican president uninterested in book burnings.”
Yes McCain has partnered with moderates and even liberals on occasion, and he’s shown us over and over that he’s nobody’s lackey. He has evinced an admirable desire to solve problems rather than howl at the moon, and for a while there, nobody but McCain was leading the charge against reverting to the rack and screws in the war on terror. But perhaps in trying to mollify the book burners he’s also managed to turn himself into a parody of a wing nut. He wants to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent? The man who has crusaded against torture voted against requiring the CIA He’s suddenly fallen in love with Justices Alito and Roberts? And as you point out, Anne, on the one issue most of us care about most, the war in Iraq, this is the one guy in America whose enthusiasm for the project has soared of late.
We can bicker about these details, but I take your linguistic point. But my response is that McCain may be independent-minded, even contrarian, but I don’t believe he’s a moderate. And certainly not on the issues that worry me the most.
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Greetings to all newcomers (including the ones I failed to greet months ago!) ... but I'd like to pick a tiny bone with an old-timer. I dunno, Dahlia, maybe if you are located somewhere out beyond Dennis Kucinich then John McCain doesn't look like a "moderate," but if you're located anywhere in the American mainstream, it's hard to know what other expression to use. He sure isn't a man of the left, and he is not now and never has been a member of the Democratic Party, but he is a Republican who has put his name on legislation dealing with climate change (co-sponsored with Joe Lieberman), with campaign-finance reform (with Russ Feingold), and, most controversially, with immigration (with Teddy Kennedy). All of these bills represented, for better or for worse, attempts to find compromise, bipartisan, "moderate" solutions to otherwise intractable problems, and pretty much everyone on the out-Right of his party hates him for it.
Though lots of people would like to rewrite history now, his views on Iraq were also, at the time of the invasion, smack in the middle of the moderate center of American politics and differed little from the views of, say, Hillary Clinton. Since then, they have evolved in a way you might not like, but at least are remarkably consistent, unlike the views of, say, Hillary Clinton. He was for the war; he criticized, rather harshly, its execution; he now thinks we should stay and fix it.
But that's not the point, since I'm not making a political argument here but a linguistic one. The word moderate, dull and uninspiring and boringly unradical though it is, deserves to be saved from total evisceration. Also, I'm sensing this rapidly growing desire to paint McCain as a closet winger and a fully paid-up member of the vast right-wing conspiracy, now that he's the candidate. But if McCain's not a moderate Republican, what is Mike Huckabee? A stark raving lunatic Republican? (OK, OK... I realize the answer may be yes)
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We're lucky enough to have two new XXers this week—welcome also to Liza Mundy. Great to have you both!
The other problem with the craziness you point to, Rosa, is that it makes the Obama-Clinton divide seem like it's about policy and substance, as opposed to personal preference and leadership style. Not that the latter don't matter—but if the Democratic candidate who wins isn't your guy or gal, he or she is still going to do a whole lot more to deliver for you on the issues you care about, if you're liberal or semi-liberal, than the Republican. John McCain has lots of stellar qualities, but if he's president, he's gotta pander.
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We are delighted to welcome Rosa into our XX family! Welcome to XX Factor, Rosa.
And I agree with you completely that the people who say they will vote for McCain if their Dem of choice isn't crowned appear to be drunk. But my objection, more than anything else, is because they help contribute to the fairy tale built by Coulter and Rush that McCain is a moderate.
McCain, a moderate? Is the Pope German?
I mean Canadian?
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OK, Melinda, I'll fess up. On the one hand, I am definitely ready for this to be over. (And it looks as if Tom Hanks agrees with us.) But, from a partisan standpoint, it is kind of fun to watch Barack and Hillary do John McCain's dirty work for him. (Saves him some money, too.) It's funny to me how, not that long ago, the talk was that the Republican Party was in "disarray" because three different candidates had won primaries. I didn't think that at all. We had three candidates who appealed to different, even conflicting segments of the party, and we had to decide what direction we were going in. It was a healthy debate (or, maybe we just all picked the guy we thought could win in November, and we'll resume the infighting in four or eight years when the hard-core righties take off their noseplugs). Which makes it amusing to watch the Democrats expend so much energy trying to choose between two candidates who are so similar on policy that it really does come down to personality and character.
But, as I mentioned yesterday, I think eight months is an eternity. And until we get to the general election, we won't know whether John McCain is going to come across as the man who can unite us, while at the same time scaring the baddies, or as another Bob Dole—an aging American hero who got his chance too late. And we don't know whether Obama can keep up the hope meme or—a possibility that others have raised—whether he'll be the next George McGovern. I won't even speculate as to what drama a Clinton nomination would bring, except to say we know there will be some. So while I'm enjoying the sparring that's exposing the flaws of the Democratic candidates, I'm not getting fitted for my dress to the inaugural ball. (Red of course!)
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The XX Factor entered a new medium this morning: video! Watch here as Emily Bazelon, Dahlia Lithwick, and Melinda Henneberger talk about what the results from the Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont primaries mean for Hillary Clinton.
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What's up with Democrats who say, "If Obama [or Hillary] doesn't win the Democratic nomination, I'll be voting for John McCain in November"?
This is making me crazy. I argued, today, that Clinton has become so fixated on tearing down Obama—despite her negligible chances of winning the nomination herself—that she's just increasing the chances that McCain becomes president. (I urge Hillary to drop out of the race before she becomes the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's best weapon!) Well ... in response, I got a ton of e-mails from people saying things like, "You're right, Hillary's attacks on Obama come right out of the Republican playbook. I'm so mad at Hillary that if she becomes the Democratic nominee, I'm voting for John McCain."
I don't get it. How can someone be mad at Hillary for attacking Obama in the same way Republicans might/will attack Obama but threaten to retaliate against Hillary, should her attacks on Obama prove successful, by voting for ... the Republican candidate?
This strikes me as nuts. I've never been crazy about Hillary—I think she's the Celine Dion of Democratic politics—and I'm a big Obama fan. But should Hillary, through some miracle, end up at the top of the Democratic ticket, of course I'll vote for her, and if she loses to McCain, I'll be very, very disappointed. Because, contra Ralph Nader, there is a pretty big difference between the two parties—a far greater difference than there is between Clinton and Obama.
Right? Right?
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