McCain Resurrected

According to current political wisdom, John McCain is "controversial" among Republicans because he lacks true conservative credentials. His main offenses, ostensibly, are a smattering of domestic-policy positions that defy the GOP's Limbaugh-Hannity orthodoxy: He took a public stand against the Spanish Inquisition, he shared a room with Ted Kennedy for a few hours to fashion a failed immigration bill, he passed a roundly criticized campaign-finance-reform bill, he accidentally deemed the Bush tax cuts insane out loud before realizing that this was a political error.

From the battering that McCain is taking lately from the likes of Limbaugh and skanky bitch-whore Ann Coulter, who vowed to campaign for Hillary if McCain gets the nomination, one wouldn't know that most of his supposed crimes were actually based on conservative principles. His opposition to the tax cuts, for instance, was based on fiscal responsibility — i.e., a desire to avoid slashing revenues during a period of both high national debt and massive military spending ("I don't remember ever in the history of warfare when we cut taxes"). Only a Bush Republican would call insisting on actually having money before you spend it a lack of "true conservatism."

Even in McCain's ill-fated immigration initiative, which would have provided illegal residents with a path to citizenship, one can clearly see an essentially pragmatic, business-friendly nod to basic cultural and economic reality at work. Like George Bush himself, who tried for years to institute legal status for guest workers, McCain merely sought a means to legitimize the undocumented labor propping up American business. His real crime on immigration was saying things about Mexican illegals like, "These are God's children as well."

From torture ("Mistreatment of prisoners harms us more than our enemies") to the Dixie Chicks ("To restrain their trade because they exercised their right of free speech is remarkable"), McCain has repeatedly displayed an inability to connect with the bloodthirsty, emotional imperatives of the Limbaugh-Hannity line of thinking, in which all nuance and pragmatism must be dismissed in favor of an all-out crush-the-demon position. On some issues, in fact, McCain demonstrates a suspicious inclination toward actually solving the problem. This arrogant refusal to be a craven imbecile is what makes McCain suspect in the eyes of Limbaugh and Coulter, who are terrified at the prospect of a Republican president uninterested in book burnings.

Unfortunately, McCain has chosen to handle his conservative "problem" the way any self-respecting politician would: by changing his mind about everything he ever stood for. As I watch him campaign in Virginia and Maryland, it's hilarious to see him grit his teeth and try to work himself into applause lines like "The first thing we need to do is make the Bush tax cuts permanent!" He also mentions Ronald Reagan so often that his traveling press corps has to be getting ideas for a "Hi, Ron!" drinking game.

But for all his efforts to turn himself inside out for the mob, McCain still doesn't convince conservatives. In the politics of faith and emotion, you have to get it right the first time. "It bothers me," says Zack Skelton, a Huckabee supporter who came to see McCain in Virginia, when asked about McCain's change of heart on abortion rights. "Also, the issue of illegal immigration. I don't like that he had to change his mind."

To me, though, what's strangest of all is how irrelevant such positions seem when it comes to McCain. For all of his supposed unreliability in the domestic arena, McCain may be even more crazy than the Republican mainstream on the issue that matters most of all: the war in Iraq and war in general. My guess is that Republican voters are not going to mind that McCain's candidacy might drive a stake through the heart of the weenie fascism of Rush and Hannity, once they figure out that the candidate is a solid bet to deliver them World War III. And that should scare the shit out of us all.