Not a unique charge amongst conservative critics:
McCain abandoned Bush on tax cuts as 1 of only 2 Republican senators that did so,
Which is why I feel that it is important to illuminate this fact.
This is one of those issues where the whole story and context is important. From Kevin Stach of the Wall Street Journal:
In 2001, with the bitter primary battle still fresh, Mr. McCain voted against the final Bush tax-cut package. Why would he deviate from a pro-growth, tax-cutting position, built up over 17 years in Congress and dozens of votes, even after running on a tax-cut plan himself in 2000?Mr. McCain’s protest that he wanted spending cuts to accompany the Bush tax cuts has persuaded few conservatives. But what is not remembered is that, two weeks earlier, Mr. McCain voted to approve the final version of the Budget Resolution — the blueprint used by congressional committees for spending and tax bills — which included $1.35 trillion in tax cuts (the Bush proposal) coupled with a $661 billion cap on discretionary spending. When the promised spending cap never materialized, Mr. McCain denounced the wasteful earmarks and pork-barrel spending that he felt jeopardized the budget, and lodged the now famous protest vote against the tax cuts.
To not recognize the reason why, is to distort his record when it comes to tax cuts. In his 25 years serving in the Senate, he has never voted for a tax increase. And he has pledged to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Nothing in his record should indicate he is untrustworthy on this.
On the economy, I believe that Senator McCain is to the right of President Bush.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
Well, thank you for that refreshing bit of information. I will tell Sean and Rush to include this in their next show. Context is everything. Leaving out the context is the pervue of Media Matters, MoveOn, dKos and Olbermann. Rush, et al, should know better.
His reasoning the year before to not vote on a similar package is, however, less well thought out. It is one thing to argue he ‘voted for it before he voted against it’, but doing that a couple of years in a row, especially heading into an election year with a President that would have vetoed it doesn’t make much sense. Even Lindsey Graham was at a loss for words on that. Mind you his proposal a month later wouldn’t even begin to match what had come up on the Senate floor for him to vote on, but then he was deciding to run for President and you can’t very well pass something that you want to run on. Then there is his proposed foreign policy team from 2000, which was a bit much for Republicans then, also.
The internet means ‘reinventing yourself’ requires explaining your past actions and why you are changing your mind. I would actually like John McCain *more* if he would just talk about his record, tell us why lowering taxes has never been a priority with him save on the Presidential campaign trail, and why raising taxes and going after US industries is such a good thing. I do like his anti-pork stance and wish that he had been that way throughout his career. But every 4 years or so we are asked to forget what he has done in his career before that and accept that he will now be the ‘reformer’ (twice? three times?) and the ‘independent maverick’ (basically since voting to over-ride President Reagan’s vetoes on huge spending bills), plus something less than astute on the Constitution and the First Amendment… if you want to stop corruption via donations then the Senate can make its rules to bar those Senators taking such funds from writing, amending and voting on legislation from such backers. Plus make their calendars public as well as every function they attend as a Senator, not as a private citizen. But that would look at *ethics* as important, not restricting the American People from expressing their views. That might, however, take a few political risks and break up the ‘collegiality’ of the Senate… which hasn’t gotten us much for the past decade and some odd years… and it would require doing something tangible, immediate and hard to naysay.
Context does, indeed, mean a lot. Not just one time, but multiple times over a career. Tells me much, just not what you expect or necessarily want to find out.
Well, not having seen the WSJ article, it’s certainly more context, however taken, than I’d heard before. Mind you, I’m still not at all sold on a McCain candidacy. When I think that Ann Coulter was NOT joking in suggesting that she will vote for Hillary over McCain, it gives one pause…