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February 10, 2012
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
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Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
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Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
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Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
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January 18, 2012
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Feb. 4, 2008
/ 28 Shevat 5768
A conservative's case for McCain
By
Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It is not news that much of the conservative base bitterly opposes John McCain
and is appalled that the man they consider a Republican apostate could soon be
the GOP's presidential nominee. From talk radio to the blogosphere to the
conservative press, many on the right are outraged that what Mitt Romney last
week called "the House that Reagan Built" the modern Republican Party
might anoint as its standard-bearer the candidate who by their lights is the
least likely to follow in the Gipper's footsteps.
Conservatives bristle at the thought of a Republican president who might raise
income and payroll taxes. Or enlarge the federal government instead of
shrinking it. Or appoint Supreme Court justices who are anything but strict
constructionists. Or grant a blanket amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Now, I don't believe that a President McCain would do any of those things. But
President Reagan did all of them. Reagan also provided arms to the Khomeini
theocracy in Iran, presided over skyrocketing budget deficits, and ordered US
troops to cut and run in the face of Islamist terror in the Middle East. McCain
would be unlikely to commit any of those sins, either.
Does this mean that Reagan was not, in fact, a great conservative? Of course
not. Nor does it mean that McCain has not given his critics on the right
legitimate reasons to be disconcerted. My point is simply that the immaculate
conservative leader for whom so many on the right yearn to vote is a fantasy;
ideological purity and presidential politics are never a perfect fit.
Conservatives who say that McCain is no Ronald Reagan are right, but Mitt
Romney is no Ronald Reagan either. Neither is Mike Huckabee. And neither was
the real as opposed to the mythic Ronald Reagan.
The conservative case against McCain is clear enough; I made it myself in some
of these columns when he first ran for president eight years ago. The issues
that have earned McCain the label of "maverick" campaign-finance
restrictions, global warming, the Bush tax cuts, immigration, judicial
filibusters are precisely what stick in the craw of the GOP conservative
base.
But this year, the conservative case *for* McCain is vastly more compelling.
On the surpassing national-security issues of the day confronting the threat
from radical Islam and winning the war in Iraq no one is more stalwart. Even
McCain's fiercest critics, such as conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, will
say so. "The world's bad guys," Hewitt writes, "would never for a moment think
he would blink in any
showdown, or hesitate to strike back at any enemy with the audacity to try again to
cripple the US through terror."
True enough, McCain was never an agenda-driven movement conservative. But he
"entered public life as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution," as he puts
it, and on the whole his record has been that of a robust and committed
conservative. He is a spending hawk and an enemy of pork and earmarks. He has never
voted to increase taxes, and wants the Bush tax cuts made permanent for the best of
reasons: "They worked." He is a staunch free-trader and a champion of school choice.
He is unabashedly prolife and pro-Second Amendment. He opposes same-sex marriage. He
wants entitlements reined in and personal retirement accounts expanded.
McCain's conservatism has usually been more a matter of gut instinct than of a
rigorous intellectual worldview, and he has certainly deviated from Republican
orthodoxy on some serious issues. For all that, his ratings from conservative
watchdog groups have always been high. "Even with all the blemishes," notes
National Review, a leading journal of the right (and a backer of Romney),
"McCain has a more consistent conservative record than Giuliani or Romney. . .
. This is an abiding strength of his candidacy."
As a lifelong conservative, I wish McCain evinced a greater understanding that
limited government is indispensable to individual liberty. I wish he were more
skeptical of politically-correct environmentalism, and less inclined to expand
top-down regulation. Yet there is no candidate in either party who so
thoroughly embodies the conservatism of American honor and tradition as McCain,
nor any with greater moral authority to invoke it. For all his transgressions
and backsliding, McCain radiates integrity and steadfastness, and if his
heterodox stands have at times been infuriating, they also attest to his
resolve. Time and again he has taken an unpopular stand and stuck with it,
putting his career on the line when it would have been easier to go along with
the crowd.
A perfect conservative he isn't. But he is courageous and steady, a man of
character and high standards, a genuine hero. If "the House that Reagan Built"
is to be true this year to its best and highest ideals, it could do a lot worse
than unite behind John McCain.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.
Jeff Jacoby Archives
© 2006, Boston Globe
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