Once Upon a Principle (Newsweek)

[chill_wind]

Once Upon a Principle
There was a time when John McCain had positions. Then he ran for president, and everything was suddenly up for grabs.

Newsweek
Apr 28, 2008 Issue

Barack Obama morphed in the public mind from populist to elitist with one ill-wrought comment about guns and faith and the "bitter" working class. Hillary Clinton responded by improbably re-creating herself as the kind of woman who knows her way around a shot glass and a rifle. But neither Democrat can match the transformation of the Republican candidate, who is running for president by turning his back on much of what he once was.

What John McCain really stands for came up most recently in light of his position on abortion. Planned Parenthood commissioned a survey showing that more than half of those women polled don't know much about McCain's stance, and a quarter of those who are in favor of keeping abortion legal mistakenly think the senator agrees.

That confusion may be because McCain has sometimes seemed confused as well. In 1999, during a campaign swing through California, he challenged conservative orthodoxy and said he did not support overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that found a constitutional right to abortion. He explained that a reversal could lead some women to undergo illegal and dangerous operations.

This is just the sort of nuanced position that has led to the widespread notion of McCain as maverick. But it didn't last long. After the right went nuts, McCain backtracked and said he did favor the repeal of Roe, adding, however, that it might lead to dangerous illegal abortions. A day later, his campaign issued a "clarification," and by that time McCain was saying that if elected president he would actually work to overturn the court's decision. Any concern over the effects of illegal abortions disappeared overnight in the cold clear light of must-win.


(...)

But now even his record has become irrelevant, since to become the front runner McCain has jettisoned many of his past positions. The Bush tax cuts: McCain voted against them as a senator, but now says he would make them permanent as president. Immigration: he cosponsored a bill in 2005 to make it easier for those in the country illegally to become citizens, but now says that if his own bill—his own bill!—came to a vote on the Senate floor, he would vote against it. After Columbine, he called for more gun control; after Virginia Tech, he said more gun control was unnecessary.

(...)

More- 2 pages at http://www.newsweek.com/id/132860/page/1

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Newsweek? That bastion of pseudo-moderate corporate propaganda?

Why are they doing ths to McCain? I don't get it. Is Limbaugh gonna start trashing him next?

[gordianot]

2. I am curious how much the media is willing to remember about McCain?

So far very little. They are letting him become George Bush III.

[mcctatas]

4. I'm not quite sure what you mean by that...

IMHO, McCain has become George Bush III all on his lonesome. If anything, the media has persisted in giving him the label of Maverick which he so clearly tore off his Members Only jacket, blew his nose in and threw off the bus without any help or much notice from the MSM...

[chill_wind]

3. "The Straight Talk Express is ALL OVER the road." More choice commentary..

This is completely at odds with the patented McCain persona, the alleged guy who speaks his mind without fear or favor. His notorious irascibility is often mistaken for principled candor, but experience teaches that McCain's principles remain consistent now only when they appear to lead to the West Wing. Sadly, no one understands better the personal cost of such pandering. In 2000 he was asked about the Confederate battle flag, which flew from the capitol dome in South Carolina. McCain first called it a "symbol of racism and slavery," then backed off with a "clarification" that described it as a "symbol of heritage." Later he admitted, "I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles."

He has done that over and over during this race. The Straight Talk Express is all over the road.

(..)