Mitt’s Milestone Millstone / McCain’s Audacity of Jingoism
The most appalling thing to come out of the Florida primary this week was not John McCain’s victory over Mitt Romney. Instead, it came in the days immediately before the vote, when McCain attacked Romney for his supposed “weakness” in supporting the Iraq war. Romney had made a statement about “timetables and milestones” in the context of Iraqis meeting political benchmarks. In other words, he was reiterating the administration’s position almost verbatim, aside from his opposition to a multi-decade presence in Iraq. For this supposed call for “withdrawal,” McCain told Romney that he should apologize to American soldiers in Iraq. The worst of all this was that Romney has never voiced any meaningful objections to the war or to the “surge,” and he took this opportunity to redouble his support for the Mesopotamian misadventure. Such are the low antics in a party that has decided to define itself by its unwavering, unthinking commitment to remaining in Iraq virtually indefinitely.
As Richard Spencer has noted earlier, there is a clear tendency of antiwar and anti-Bush voters to rally around the candidate who has all but guaranteed to pursue policies that are equally, if not more, reckless than those of the current administration. Despite the observation that Romney seems better suited to make a break with the Bush administration in some ways, he has become the first choice for Bush loyalists and has become the de facto candidate of a movement that remains largely supportive of the president, particularly when it comes to his most disastrous policy.
The Republicans are now set to re-enact the 2000 primary contest in which “conservatives” support the moderate Republican and former governor and the “moderates” back an irascible warmonger. The outcome will be different this time because the winner in 2000 has re-made the GOP with his war and made jingoism and aggressive foreign policy generally the essential qualifications for the Republican nomination. Depressingly, the one thing that stands to bring most Republicans together is the war that has already led to one major electoral defeat and seems very likely to cause another. While movement conservative leaders, pundits, and talk radio hosts wax hysterical about McCain’s various policy errors, they are beginning to reconcile themselves to his nomination on the grounds that his pro-war credentials ultimately override everything else. To unite the GOP, a McCain ticket will emphasize the candidate’s pro-war views and make them a central focus of the campaign. The one thing a majority of Republicans finds attractive will be the same thing that ensures their humiliating defeat in November.
Comments
A very perceptive piece.
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I am not sure Republicans will go down in defeat. The Democrats seem to be ensuring their loss in Congress by refusing to impeach Bush and Cheney. If McCain picks Rudi as a running mate and runs against Billary I think they have a good chance to stampede the Paranoid Truculent Male vote, to quote a good article by Fred Reed
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed137.html
It is stunning to hear idiots from different states say they were against the war in Iraq and Rudi scared them so they went with McCain. Bush Republicans still have no concept of reality. Ron Paul should be leading by a landslide at this point.
As Chalmers Johnson says, plan your exit strategies. I am thinking Asturias.
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As Obama and HRC were saying at the most recent debate, “One of us will be the next President.” The Republicans seem determined to ensure that they are correct on that point.
My own view of this election is that there are no good candidates and not even any truly acceptable candidates except perhaps Ron Paul, who has no chance of getting nominated. The other Republicans are all repulsive in various ways, as are HRC and Obama. The choice between them seems to depend mostly on what kind of disaster you want for our country.
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Ron Paul for president. In a 3rd party run if we have to.
No suckup to Israel (or any other foreign country) should be allowed in USG.
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How early can we write in Ron Paul? I’ll do it now just so I don’t have to worry about them running out of ballots or any other underhanded trick down the road.
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I’ve been reading the comments of my fellow-historians
on a neocon website and am appalled by the smarminess
of most of the people writing in. Apparently we are
all guilt of “sour grapes,” because we have failed to
rally to the “choice of our party.” Needless to say,
the choice in question is that of the media, and one
would have to be a fool to believe that the smarmy
commentators I’ve been looking at would be backing
Buchanan or Paul,if the media gatekeepers had been
tolerant enough to allow
such"immoderates" to rise very far in the polls.
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