2008 Woodie Awards
For GOP, war trumps all
The war in Iraq rises above all other factors for Republicans unhappy with McCain
Issue date: 8/28/08
Section: Editorial
Despite promises to be a pro-life president, Republican presidential candidate John McCain recently refused to rule out the possibility of selecting a pro-choice vice presidential candidate.
That caused consternation among many conservative commentators, who promptly began begging McCain not to select the pro-choice Sen. Joe Lieberman or former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge - two men widely considered to be near the top of his running mate list.
"McCain would make a fatal mistake to assume that social issues, especially abortion, are ever off an equally blazing front burner for an inestimable number of social conservatives," wrote columnist David Limbaugh in apparently the most heated warning he could muster. His brother Rush has expressed similar views on his radio program, while editors at National Review warned against putting Ridge or Lieberman on the ticket, saying such a move would "shatter" McCain's momentum.
So it comes to this: what passes for the mainstream conservative movement today is reduced to begging its candidate not to pick a pro-choice running mate and threatening dire consequences if he does.
But such threats are empty. When McCain was poised to win the Republican nomination this spring, movement conservatives rallied behind Mitt Romney and threatened a mass revolt if McCain were to win. It didn't take long for them to mute their criticism of McCain, however, fall back in line and start peddling the usual excuses for voting for an unsatisfactory Republican candidate.
McCain's disagreeable stances and checkered past on, among other issues, campaign finance reform, immigration and taxes? Those could be excused, because at least McCain supports the war in Iraq, and supporting the war has become the single most important issue to most Republicans. They'll almost certainly find a way to excuse a pro-choice running mate as well, if McCain were to select one.
Indeed, some so-called conservatives - including Rep. Peter King and the influential William Kristol at The Weekly Standard - are pushing for McCain to select Lieberman, who has virtually nothing in common with Republicans other than supporting our government's disastrous foreign policy.
"The conservative movement is lying prostrate before John McCain, a position they'll be in more frequently if he wins the election," The American Conservative blogger Michael Brendan Dougherty recently concluded.
Lying prostrate before their presidential candidate might help Republicans win this election, but it'll do nothing to help restore a conservative movement destroyed by eight years of lying prostrate before George W. Bush.
That caused consternation among many conservative commentators, who promptly began begging McCain not to select the pro-choice Sen. Joe Lieberman or former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge - two men widely considered to be near the top of his running mate list.
"McCain would make a fatal mistake to assume that social issues, especially abortion, are ever off an equally blazing front burner for an inestimable number of social conservatives," wrote columnist David Limbaugh in apparently the most heated warning he could muster. His brother Rush has expressed similar views on his radio program, while editors at National Review warned against putting Ridge or Lieberman on the ticket, saying such a move would "shatter" McCain's momentum.
So it comes to this: what passes for the mainstream conservative movement today is reduced to begging its candidate not to pick a pro-choice running mate and threatening dire consequences if he does.
But such threats are empty. When McCain was poised to win the Republican nomination this spring, movement conservatives rallied behind Mitt Romney and threatened a mass revolt if McCain were to win. It didn't take long for them to mute their criticism of McCain, however, fall back in line and start peddling the usual excuses for voting for an unsatisfactory Republican candidate.
McCain's disagreeable stances and checkered past on, among other issues, campaign finance reform, immigration and taxes? Those could be excused, because at least McCain supports the war in Iraq, and supporting the war has become the single most important issue to most Republicans. They'll almost certainly find a way to excuse a pro-choice running mate as well, if McCain were to select one.
Indeed, some so-called conservatives - including Rep. Peter King and the influential William Kristol at The Weekly Standard - are pushing for McCain to select Lieberman, who has virtually nothing in common with Republicans other than supporting our government's disastrous foreign policy.
"The conservative movement is lying prostrate before John McCain, a position they'll be in more frequently if he wins the election," The American Conservative blogger Michael Brendan Dougherty recently concluded.
Lying prostrate before their presidential candidate might help Republicans win this election, but it'll do nothing to help restore a conservative movement destroyed by eight years of lying prostrate before George W. Bush.
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