This morning Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) endorsed John McCain for President of the United States. So did the Manchester (NH) Union Leader.
McCain has many virtues. Mark Levin lists his negatives: (Update: Drew Cline of the Union Leader responds to Levin's critique at the end of this post; Further update 12/18/07 - Andy McCarthy responds to Drew Cline, and so does Mark Levin)
In sum, John McCain has been weak on homeland security, joining with numerous liberal Democrats to argue for closing Guantanamo Bay, applying the Geneva Conventions to unlawful enemy combatants, extending certain constitutional rights to detainees, limiting tried and true interrogation techniques, and conferring amnesty on illegal aliens (which would include OTMs; that fact that Bush supported the same thing is no defense). He aggressively opposed the Bush tax cuts, even after they were scaled back. He is behind the McCain-Lieberman Stewardship Act, which is a
Kyoto-like manifesto. His role in McCain-Feingold goes well beyond merely voting for it (he was its primary crusader). He organized the Gang of 14, which I contended at the time and still believe effectively killed Republican efforts to kill the Democrat filibustering of judicial nominees. And while he votes against unbalanced budgets, he has no problem with federal intervention in a wide range of matters that are outside the federal government's constitutional limits.
Yes, McCain has been steadfast on the Battle of Iraq. And yes, that's important. But Rudy Giuliani's strength is said to be his understanding of the Islamo-fascist threat, and he would be no slouch; nor would Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney. But McCain has also been in the Senate for many years. And I don't recall prior to 9/11 that he was a leading voice warning against potential terrorist attacks, or al-Qaeda, or using his position to demand greater spending and preparedness for the U.S. military during Clinton's presidency (although I am open to evidence to the contrary). I don't recall him speaking out against efforts to weaken out intelligence agencies. Clearly, McCain knows how to make noise over any issue if he wants to, whether through the media or shutting down the Senate. He has been the mainstream media's favorite Republican for years, and there's a reason for it.
I think there's a bit of cult of personality associated with McCain's backers. He's unquestionably a war hero and a man of great courage. But he is wrong on so much that I have trouble understanding how the Manchester Union Leader can not only back him, but will now campaign for him.
Update: Drew Cline of the Manchester Union Leader responds:
Mark,
I hold out no hope of persuading you on the merits of a John McCain presidency. No doubt Ramesh, a more eloquent writer than yours truly, would do a far better job. But I'll try a brief response to your main objections.
The New Hampshire Union Leader editorially opposed Sen. McCain on the issue of harsh interrogation techniques for enemy combatants. We are more in line with your position than Sen. McCain's. However, the senator does allow for a "ticking time bomb" exception, and he proposes intensive training for interrogators so they might be better equipped to get the necessary information without resorting to roughing suspects up. He wants to get the information, but he thinks harsh techniques don't work as well as is claimed. (I'll get back to this topic in a moment.)
On the Gang of 14, I see no point in rehashing the finer constitutional points. Conservatives disagree over the role the Senate should play in approving judicial nominations. George Will thinks the filibuster is fine, so does Sen. McCain, who has said he would filibuster an unacceptable Democratic nominee if he felt he had to. This legitimate disagreement over constitutional authority does not make Sen. McCain (or George Will) any less conservative.
McCain's positions on Gitmo, torture and illegal immigration are driven by an inherently conservative respect for individual rights. I don't agree with all of his policies on these issues. (We opposed the immigration bill he championed this year, for example.) But I do think they stem from an instinctive conservatism, just as Bill Buckley's position on drug legalization does.
We acknowledged in our first editorial endorsing Sen. McCain that we disagree with him on some things. But in our view he is the strongest conservative candidate in the field. We didn't make this assessment mathematically by sitting down and checking off each candidate's policy positions and picking the one with the highest score. We kept their positions as a guide, and then we interviewed them. Some more than once.
At the end of those interviews, we concluded that Sen. McCain would not only make the strongest president, but would have the best chance of winning the election this fall and becoming president in the first place. As we have noted, a candidate can say he's for everything you're for, but that doesn't make it so. We remain unconvinced that some of the other candidates in this race are as conservative as they claim. They might be, but we are skeptical. We know exactly where John McCain stands on the important issues of the day, and although we disagree with him on some of them, we agree on most, and we know he won't surprise us later.
Andy McCarthy responds to Drew Cline:
Drew, Mark can speak for himself, of course. But, with due respect:
1. Senator McCain does not allow for a ticking time bomb exception. He has grudgingly conceded that in a ticking bomb scenario an interrogator would probably resort to rough tactics—a concession he makes only after arguing, incongruously, that rough tactics never work.
In any event, his legislation made aggressive interrogation in the ticking-bomb situation illegal—he is instead relying on the interrogator to break the law and the president not to enforce it (either by pardon or by persuading the Justice Department not to prosecute—which, naturally, would be portrayed as outrageous political interference if it ever happened). And that is only if it turned out that the interrogee’s information led to the thwarting of a terrorist attack—which, of course, the interrogator could not know before making the decision to violate McCain’s law … thus strongly incentivizing him against doing so regardless of how many innocent lives might be lost.
2. McCain’s amendment, which extends Fifth Amendment rights to overseas terrorists, also makes it entirely plausible that the federal courts will eventually deem those terrorists entitled to Miranda warnings (which the Supreme Court recently held, in the Dickerson case, are part of the core Fifth Amendment guarantee). There is nothing conservative about extending judicially created rights to unlawful alien enemy combatants making war on the United States under circumstances where intelligence is our only defense.
3. There is, furthermore, nothing conservative about the position that “individual rights” created in the Constitution (a compact between the people of the United States and the government they created) extend to illegal aliens. To compare that to Bill Buckley’s position on drug legalization is about as fatuous as it gets.
4. The Gang of 14 deal directly resulted in (a) several Bush nominees not being confirmed, and (b) making it even easier for Democrats to block Bush nominees once control of the Senate switched to Democrats. The filibuster is not an appropriate basis to block a presidential nominee to the courts. And, even if that were not the case, since McCain has a long record of voting to confirm very liberal judges and justices, it is cold comfort to hear that he would filibuster an unacceptable nominee “if he felt he had to.”
5. McCain—who is lauded as consistently pro-life—is the only GOP candidate who has tried to suppress the speech of pro-life groups. He did it recently and assiduously, a years-long campaign in the Wisconsin Right to Life case, in which he filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Court in an effort to muzzle a pro-life group that wanted to get its message out regarding pro-abortion legislators. (See here and here.) As if that were not enough, the underlying purpose of his crusade was to further the assault on Free Speech rights spearheaded by his McCain/Feingold legislation. (Query whether you believe McCain/Feingold is also “driven by an inherently conservative respect for individual rights”?)
Mark R. Levin offers his own response:
I appreciate Drew's response. It's hard to top Andy's reply to Drew. However, let me add a few points. I have no criticism of John McCain the man. As I said, he is a bona fide war hero. And if he were more consistently conservative, I would be his number-one advocate. But he's not. In fact, I think it is difficult to pin down his political philosophy. It seems to be a mix of comity, populism, and conservatism. He is proud of working with Democrats, which is fine as long as it's consistent, in the end, with a conservative agenda. Many of his efforts in this regard have not been. He strikes a populist pose when talking about limits on free speech in the context of political campaigns and arguing for fairly extreme environmental positions. He speaks eloquently about national security and the threats we face from Islamo-fascists, even while leading the effort to confer — for the first time — international and constitutional rights on terrorists and terrorist suspects. He opposes unbalanced budgets but, at the same time, supports an activist federal government (often an activist Court), so it cannot be said easily that he is for limited government. As for the Gang of 14 and whether filibustering judicial nominees is constitutional or not (I have argued it is unconstitutional, but there's no need to go down this road yet again), changing the Senate filibuster rule respecting judicial nominees need not be made on constitutional grounds. The Senate Democrats used or threatened to use the filibuster repeatedly against judicial nominees, which was unprecedented. The Senate makes its own rules. And there would have been no damage to the Constitution if the Senate limited its filibuster rule, as it has modified it in the past. And as Andy has noted, in all his years in the Senate, McCain has never led a filibuster against any judicial nominee.
Anyway, for me, there's not any single issue that speaks against McCain, but a series of positions that I simply cannot square with my view of conservatism.