Medved On McCain & Conservative Anger

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Interesting take Michael Medved had about the anger much of the base has towards McCain. He told Tucker Carlson today that Rush and those hurling the anger are acting like liberals: (h/t Newsbusters)

[flv:medvedrush.flv 400 300]

Transcript:

TUCKER CARLSON: Why exactly do you think — let’s put our shrink’s hat on here — why do [conservative radio talk show hosts] hate McCain so much?

MICHAEL MEDVED: Well they’re acting like liberals, and I know that’s a terrible thing to say about people I like and respect — I have great respect for Rush. But he’s acting like a liberal on this. Liberals allow personalities and emotions and feelings over issues, substance and policy. And that’s what they’re doing here. Because if you actually look at the three essential elements of the Reagan coalition: security, economics and social issues — McCain is solid. He is very conservative. He is a traditional Reagan Republican, and there is no policy reason, there is no issues reason, for people to be so hostile to him and to call him all these names and to bang on him day after day after day. I actually believe that talk radio is hurting itself more than they’re hurting Senator McCain.

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MEDVED: And the truth of the matter is, what I think this is showing is that talk radio may be losing some of its influence, and we deserve to, unless we open up at least to some alternate ideas and give a little bit more balanced perspective.


While I agree much of the right is reacting with emotion I would disagree with his assessment that McCain is a true conservative. The emotion is coming from knowing and understanding the man is NOT a true conservative. McCain-Feingold? McCain-Kennedy? Calling those who want immigrants to learn English a bunch of racists? His opposition to the Bush tax cuts and so on and so on.

But I will grudgingly agree with Ben Domenech’s take on the man. He has many many faults. As did Bush. Bush is no where near my perfect conservative choice but on three issues, the War on Terror, judges and tax cuts he was on the right side.

Will McCain be?

It’s true: stubborn and irascible, John McCain’s living rendition of Don Quixote has been infuriating to watch. He always had a bit of the mad saint of the valley to him—a quality that has only increased with age. His breaks from conservative doctrine are manifold, but fewer in number than those of several of his fellow Senators. Yet McCain’s breaks seem so much greater than those of, say, John Warner—why? Because when he goes on his separate path, he damn well wants you to know it, and know that he thinks you and his other conservative opponents to be inches from Lucifer for your damnable orthodoxy.

Or as Lileks put it: “I like John McCain. He seems like the sort of guy you could have a beer with, right up to the moment where he smashes the bottle on the table and jams it in your face over something you said six years ago.”

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Yet this is also what I’ve always admired about McCain, even if conservatives curse him in the course of legislative battle: he is the same man, whichever side he is on. He brings that same infuriating passion to our cause when his inner compass has led him to alliance. His support of the surge confounded the glitterati of the MSM, who gave him every opportunity to break with the president in a fashion that would’ve led to countless more cover appearances for the late-night self-pleasuring of pimply interns of the New Republic. And yet he could not be agreeable to them, as tempting as the doyennes and the cameras were: he rambled through, grousing yet triumphant, middle fingers raised to Rumsfeld on the right and the New York Times on the left. Even if you dislike McCain, you have to admit: It was a glorious moment for him.

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With Rudy’s ship sinking, Fred a non-factor, and Huckabee hampered by lack of foreign policy chops and a shoestring budget, the opportunity was there for McCain—once the establishment pick, imploded and then reborn, to once again don the armor and save the unseen Dulcinea and her doubtless properly filed FEC paperwork.

We are left with two realistically possible nominees, with hopes for a brokered convention dashed. In 2008, the question has become: do you support the calculating unprincipled friend, or the passionate principled foe?

For me, it came down to three choices, made on three critical fronts: McCain’s decision to side with President Bush on the surge, with President Bush on Alito and Roberts, and against President Bush on the largest entitlement in the history of America. In each of these areas, we were and are agreed—and in each, McCain displayed the courage and patriotism he has always possessed—the strength of character to do what he believed was right, regardless of whether it was popular.

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So here we are, at the turn of the tide—and you go to the polls with the candidates you have, not the candidates you want. Saint John McCain of the Campaign-Finance Cross versus Willard of the North, well-mannered Ken Doll? The choice is an easy one for me. Let’s help old Don Quixote into the saddle one more time, and set him on his merry way, to win or lose with him.

The Reagan coalition survived Read my lips. It survived Bob Dole’s peanut butter. It survived compassionate conservatism and its kid stepbrother national greatness. And it will survive John McCain and everything he will do as our nominee and as president. In fact—in a twisted version of the ancient Vulcan proverb “Only Nixon could go to China”—only McCain can save it.

They will say the coalition is dead—but we will know better. We know it only sleeps. We will cast our votes knowing that the day will come, four years from now, when a new leader, one who knows what the shining city truly means, stands in front of the fresh-dug tomb, and calls into the blackness, as if to Lazarus—”Come out!”

And when we hear it, we will rise from out of our stupor, dust cobwebs from our arms, stumble to the door, our eyes blinking in the sunlight … and we will know our day has come.

It’s okay, you can smile. The bastards won’t know what hit ’em.

He isn’t my first choice, nor my second or third, but as I wrote here yesterday, you deal with the cards dealt you, and McCain appears to be the hand dealt to us, and I will not….WILL NOT….hand the keys over to a pure Socialist leader like Obama or Hillary. Some say we need to teach the country a lesson by handing it to either of those two, I couldn’t disagree more. The next President will pick one, possible two Supreme Court justices who will stay on that bench long after their terms are done. A liberal court gave us Roe v. Wade and a host of other terrible decisions we deal with 30 years after the fact.

That is not a gamble I’m willing to take. To hand over to my grandkids a society shaped by a liberal Supreme Court.

With McCain I know he will support our military, as he did with the surge. With McCain there is a better then 50/50 chance he puts up a conservative justice to SCOTUS. With Hillbama there is NO chance of that happening.

So, I will cast my vote for McCain and as Ben said, in four years dust the cobwebs from my shoulders and fight to get a real conservative to take his place.

UPDATE

Ugh, here is McCain flip-flopping on his own amnesty bill: (via Hot Air)

And more of his Edwardsesqe class warfare crapola via Michelle Malkins live blog of the debate:

McCain is asked about housing rescue.

“There are greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished.”

Not a word about the greedy homeowners and their brokers who pitched in.

Is this the Democrat or GOP debate? I thought John Edwards dropped on. Turns out he’s on stage at the Reagan Library!

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McCain is asked how he is more qualified to lead than Romney on the economy.

He served for “patriotism not for profit.”

Man o’ man….a bad hand has sure been dealt to us.

Sigh….

UPDATE II

A good take on the debate tonight on McCain by Beldar:

– John McCain is a grumpy, grumpy old man. He is mean. And he rambles.

– McCain’s nasty and deceitful distortion of Romney’s supposed endorsement of a “secret timetable” for an Iraq withdrawal managed to put Romney in the unfamiliar (but welcome and sympathetic) position of someone badly sinned against. The harder McCain struggled to repeat the charge and defend it, the more petty and disingenuous he seemed.

– I became gloomy tonight trying to imagine John McCain debating Barrack Obama in the general election. If McCain does become the GOP nominee, he should refuse all face-to-face debates, and just let Obama call him a coward. That charge might not stick badly anyway, but whatever damage is inflicted by McCain’s refusal to debate would be less than the damage that would be inflicted in the debates — regardless of substance. The contrast in age, energy, hopefulness, optimism, and articulateness would be devastating — vastly more damaging than Nixon’s sweat and five-o’clock shadow, which probably cost him more votes than were the margin of his loss in the 1960 election against Kennedy.

He has a great point about going up against Obama. If its Hillary I won’t be worried too much, but Obama….ouch.

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Actually, I agree with him. I also believe people such as Michelle Malkin are going to end up doing a lot more harm to the Republican Party than good. All of this “anybody but McCain” talk probably works to get a Democrat elected. And regardless of what anyone thinks of McCain, he is not worse than Hillary or Obama. What we have here are people who would cut off their noses to spite their faces. It is juvenile behavior that I generally see liberals exhibit so in this case I agree with Medved.

I disagree with you crosspatch if he was the nominee then I would agree with you but this is the primary so Medved is wrong and Rush and Michelle are more right than you think. besides all you have to do is look at McCains record in the senate lately and you will see that he is not the conservative that you think he is.

If the grim reality is that we have to accept McCain as the nominee, so be it. But then let all these squishy moderates and lib independents go out there and do all the work of getting him elected. Something tells me that these people have been content to let US do all the work, and are unlikely to pick up the tab when it is THEIR turn.

And while it is preferable to have McCain over any Democrat in the White House, it will only be the beginning of a very difficult period. Take the frustration we have felt with the Bush White House on issues like immigration and multiply it times ten.

When our leaders on Capitol Hill try and carve out a contrasting position with Dems, they will find it even more difficult as McCain will likely side with the Dems.

This primary season has generated the worst possible set of circumstances I have seen in my voting lifetime. It stinks and I am not going to pretend I am happy about it.

Smart politicans seize the majority which still leaves the minority of flaws that will result from compromise.

What would you do if the Democrats wanted to hand you a $100 billion anti-illegal immigration package (that every critic says will get rid of 80% of the illegal immigrants in this country) in exchange you would have to publicly support a $20 billion increase in the National Endowment For the Arts? What would Rush do? I would think Rush the politican would seize on such a deal. On the other hand, Rush the radio host would not only complain that the president is publically supporting the “evil” National Endowment For the Arts, but the expensive plan also would still keep 20% of the illegal aliens in this country.

McCain has been in office several years and has done a lot of compromising because he is one senator among many. I would suspect he is using those compromises to his advantage. After all that is how politicans generally get elected. Abraham Lincoln promised never to veto anything Congress asked for as long as he got the support to defeat the South in the Civil War. That compromise probably got him reelected even though the actions caused the death of around 600,000 Americans on U.S. soil (and temporarily stripped the U.S. of several liberties). Lincoln ended up labled one of the best presidents even though he let congress make the laws and the military do the fighting.

Out of 26 issues, he sides with the conservatives 22 times. This is based on a chart of 28 issues (one issue was stem cell research which is now mute because of recent discoveries and the other one is pro jobs which I wouldn’t even lable as an issue) that you could have got from a link on this site. Hillary supports 10 conservative issues from the same chart.

Medved is a deceitful piece of slime trying to manipulate the Republican Party to move left. He attacks a lot of liberals and their positions with vitriol but then just blows it when it really counts.

I don’t know if he’s really left, but when he calls CNN moderate you have to wonder if that’s part of it. Or more likely he’s an apologist tool for the Republican leadership and their misguided policy of chasing the left to maximize their vote.

Yea lets just turn 180 Deg. You all are saying lets accept him instead of fighting. This isn’t over until the fat lady sings. I personally will never listen to Medved again. His give us Barabas act makes me want to upchuck.

“Acting like Liberals” appears to be the standard Conservative alibi when Conservatives really ‘act like Conservatives”.

Whether it is sliming political opponents with innuendo about their fathering inter-racial children (The Bush Campaign against John McCain), or runaway government spending (the Republican Congress and President from 2002 to 2006), Conservatives always give speeches about “Conservative ideals”, but in truth they NEVER live up to them. And when their fellow Conservative can no longer hid from consequences of True Conservatism IN ACTION, the re-christen their (former) heros as “Liberals”.

Reality is that Geroge W.Bush is exactly the kind of President that Conservatives wanted: spending government money to stay in office, appointing and keeping incompetent hacks in office in order to reward loyalty.

That is real Conservatism.

If McCain’s the nominee, conservative voters have two options. Choose the 0 out of 10 Democrat nominee, and hope for something better in four years, or choose the 1 out of 10 “Republican” nominee and hope for something better in 8.

My point is that Conservatives do not have an option. It could be “0 out of 10” vs “0 out of 10” and they would still have to vote Republican.

LOL! As if there’s not leftnutjobs out there who, “do not have an option. It could be “0 out of 10″ vs “0 out of 10″ and they would still have to vote Democrat.”

Rush explained this morning that it’s not personal. It’s ridiculous to think it’s personal. Everybody knows that McCain will push the Amnesty through. Today there is an AP report that McCain lied about the reasons why he opposed Bush’s tax cuts (it was class warfare, not lack of spending cuts). Medved, which means “bear” as in “grizzly bear”, in Russian is acting more like the lap dog of the open border advocates.

Igor, you’re wrong again and Michael Medved is right. This is all personal because McCain was the first conservative to have the sack to tell us all that W was wrong about many, many things. Because of your liberal-like persoanl attacks you all now have MDS (McCain Derrangment Syndrom) another Liberal creation that you all are showing.

He is Conservative, regarless of how many times you say he isn’t. The fact is that he just is not conservative enough for you. Was Reagan a liberal when he passed a real Amnesty act? The first step to feeling better is for all of you simply to admit that, as Medved has now.

You are right about his name meaning bear however – очень хорошо

CentFla, I would vote for him in a nanosecond if I knew with any degree of certainty that he wouldn’t get the Amnesty done. As it happens, I don’t really like W other than on Iraq and believe he is a very poor communicator, which has cost the country and the Republican party.

I wish you many happy hours of listening to медведь in sunny Флорида.

спасибо Igor, to me the issue is closing the border. It won’t matter what level of forgiveness we allow if we don’t stop the bleeding. The illegals here now are an important part of the current economy. But if we don’t do something to stop this level of immigration we are doomed. McCain has sworn he will seal the border.

You and I argue about this all the time. I respect your point of view even if I rant uncontrolably otherwise at times. The point to Medved’s quote is that Bush gets a pass on his position on immigration – no vitriol there. Reagan passed straight amnesty – no hatred there. But McCain in unforgiven. I just don’t get it.

CentFla, I fundamentally don’t believe that closing the border is the end-all way to control the illegals. To me it’s a national security issue. You can get illegals just by having them overstay their visas. Also, no matter what kind of fence you build, it’s only as good as your willingness to deal with breaches.

The key to not having any more illegals is to make it difficult for them to find employment. If you treat the current ones as highly important, there is not way to do this. As I said many times before, imagine for a moment that there is a wide consensus to get rid of the illegals already here. Imagine for the sake of argument that we stop all deportations other than for serious crimes, but anyone convicted of employing an illegal in any capacity gets (again, for the sake of argument) a mandatory 10 year jail sentence and imagine that there is an easy to use and unambiguous government service (or at least a government service that’s good enough that when you use it properly you can’t go to jail) that tells you something worthwhile about the holder of a particular SSN seeking employment. How long do you think it will be before 90%+ of the illegals self-deport and the new ones stop arriving?

I despise Bush for his position on immigration. In fact I don’t like Bush at all other than for his steadfastness on Iraq. Juan Hernandez that I write about with respect to McCain first made contact with Bush years ago. McCain to me is pretty much the same as Bush, but a better military strategist. His temper and estimated lifespan are worrisome. He seems more random, and Bush more deliberate. McCain seems more predisposed than Bush to champion typical liberal causes, like Global Warming. Bush is hesitant, but McCain is gung ho, so he is somewhat worse. They are equally pre-disposed to twist the truth. The Republicans can’t freely express their vitriol towards Bush because of how the Democrats have demonized him on Iraq. If they express any significant (meaning with consequences) vitriol, Bush will lose in Iraq. It’s a terrible situation, but the thought of 4 or 8 years of this is too much. It was so hard to defeat the Amnesty with the current Congress. What are the chances that it will not pass once in the next 8 years? And then it’s over, they got the Z visas, and you can’t put the genie back into the bottle. Game over.

Reagan made a mistake. He knew he made a mistake. I listened to Ed Meese last night. He said Reagan made a mistake, but we have to learn from our mistakes. I didn’t like Reagan THAT much, but he had a magical ability to project gravitas and he could communicate so well. He was just so much better for the country than either of the two clowns.