A liberal reader explains why he’s open to a McCain candidacy – and it’s not because McCain is a liberal:
The people bashing you for what you’ve written about McCain are wrong to suggest that McCain will turn out to be another Bush.
I have a lot of problems with Bush, and I’m a liberal. But they’re not problems that are rooted in his conservatism. I’m on the left, but if a conservative wins, then those are the rules, that’s the outcome, and I can live with it. I believe in democracy.
My problems with Bush come from his contempt for our system and our values. He’s a guy who looks for reasons to torture people, and for legal excuses to cover him after he does. He doesn’t believe in checks and balances, or in any restraints on executive power. He doesn’t think search warrants or judicial supervision is a good thing. He doesn’t think Congress should have any role in oversight.Those aren’t conservative postions. They don’t really have much connection to anything in the American political tradition. They express a kind of ignorance of, or perhaps even a contempt for, what’s made this country great.
McCain is a conservative, and in normal times, I’d oppose him. To give you an example of a policy on which I disagree strongly with him, I’d toss out the recent bankruptcy law. I think that was terrible, that it hurts working poor people. McCain was a big supporter of it. I don’t have any illusions about him on those kinds of issues.
But I believe that McCain believes the same sorts of things about the way our government should be structured that most everyone else does. I think he understands the roles of the various branches. I don’t think we’d have the torture, or the signing statements, or the warrantless surveillance under McCain.
Bushism has inflicted terrible damage. It’s eaten away at many of our core institutions and our core values. And that has to be put right. If our next president continues on as Bush has, it becomes bigger than one man, or one administration. It becomes the new status quo.
I would love to see a Democrat win. Or rather, I would love to see a Democrat who is good enough to win. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think the GOP primary will decide who our next president is. And as far as I’m concerned, McCain is the pick of the litter. Not because he agrees with me on any of the issues that are normally in play; he doesn’t. But because he seems honest and competent, and because he seems to understand the difference between right and wrong. He seems to understand the things in the Federalist papers – how the various branches of the government are supposed to fit together.
We have to be realistic about where we are. A president who won’t torture people would be a big improvement. I don’t need a president who will implement European-style social-democratic policies. I’d like to see that, but it’s not going to happen.
I just want a President who will follow the law.
That would, indeed, be an improvement.
The Dish 