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The real McCain
John McCain just can’t suppress his real self. At a crucial moment in the 2000 presidential primaries, he got on a stage, with the hapless Gary Bauer standing behind him as “cover,” and called the leaders of the Christian right “evil.” It finished his candidacy. I had heard in recent months how in tooling up for another presidential run in ‘08, McCain had put aside his hyper-liberalism and his maverick side and was showing himself to be a good conservative. But he couldn’t suppress his liberalism, or rather his leftism. Whatever we call it, it is the instinct to try to prohibit any disagreement from your right by calling it a form of hatred. It is the declaration that only extreme liberalism is legitimate, and all other views must be silenced. It is the abolition of politics. So, this week, McCain called Rush Limbaugh, who has been literally silent about illegal and legal immigration for the 17 years of his national program, a “nativist” for opposing the most extreme immigration bill in American history. And on the Senate floor this afternoon, according to Michelle Malkin, McCain “shamelessly compared advocates of an amendment that would bar amnestied guest workers from the earned income tax credit to … racists during the Jim Crow era.” McCain doesn’t have to wait for spring 2008 to have his second Super Tuesday. He’s just had it.
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