Category: The Dish

Yesterday was not a good day.

"Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He’s a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his "Read my lips, no new taxes pledge," except that Bush’s father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.

Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. Since that is the case, I have already written the campaign and asked them to take me off of their mailing list and to no longer send me invitations to their teleconferences. I see no point in asking questions to a man who has no compunction about lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it," – John Hawkins, RightWingNews. La Malkin herself seconds:

They’ve learned nothing. Nada. Zippo. How about you?

Bainbridge:

I can’t think of anything more contrary to the spirit of Burkean conservatism than a search for the “next big thing.” Indeed, I would argue that a large part of the problem with modern conservatism is that Bush and the K Street Gang were more concerned with finding something big to do than with standing athwart history shouting stop.

Megan’s response:

…as a policy matter, conservatives need to figure out how they’re going to stop the juggernaut. Reagan did it with tax cuts, big increases in defense spending, and deregulation. The first two are pretty much out of the picture, and no one’s mounted a serious drive at deregulation for more than a decade. It would be nice if one could win an election on "Don’t just do something–stand there!" This would quite warm my little heart. But it doesn’t work. Conservatives need to figure out how they are going to roll back the bad ideas and prevent new bad ones from getting through. For that, they need a proposal a bit more eloquent than "Stop!"

My related thoughts here. At a deeper level, the betrayal of so many conservative principles by the Republicans under Bush and Rove means that whatever emerges from the ashes of conservatism will probably not emerge quickly. Obama’s redistributionist approach to taxes is galling; his insouciance toward the welfare state unappetising.

But his return to pragmatism and realism in foreign policy, his support for transparency in government, his less statist version of healthcare reform, his disavowal of torture and the overweening executive, his respect for the Constitution, and his potential for taking us past the post-Vietnam culture wars: these are definitely appealing to small-c conservatives after the last eight years. When you add to this the unknowable cultural impact of the first black president, the re-branding of the US in the world, and the new interest of a whole new generation in the fate of their nation, it doesn’t seem to me to be a "crazy left-wing" idea to be attracted to his candidacy. Gerson agrees:

The enthusiasm of many Republicans and conservatives to defeat Hillary Clinton would have come unbidden. Against Obama, it will come harder.

The only thing worse in politics than not having power is forgetting why you wanted it in the first place. My own sense is that the great debate about conservatism that is in its infancy would be more fertile out of power than in it.

A census of some of the best of America. And how moving that so many were immigrants:

At 7, Victor H. Toledo-Pulido was smuggled across the border from Mexico through rugged mountains into California. He and another soldier were killed in May 2007 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle southeast of Baghdad.

"They judge us, and they say we just come to take their jobs and positions, but we also make sacrifices. Victor worked since he was little, in the fields and in restaurants," his mother, Maria Gaspar, said after the 22-year-old Mexican was killed in Iraq. "He was Mexican, but he thought like an American. And he gave his life for this country."

Dozens more were the children of immigrants, including Bunny Long, 22, a Marine lance corporal whose parents came from Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge imprisoned them for four years in a labor camp.

"This is our home," his father, Sim Long, said after his son died. "I’m very proud that Bunny was able to give back to his country. Our country."

James Forsyth, perhaps a little excitably, reacts to last night’s Tory by-election landslide:

A few weeks ago, the idea that Gordon Brown would be challenged for the Labour leadership would have sounded as, if not more, absurd as the idea that the Tories would win Crewe and Nantwich with a majority of nearly 8,000. But now it seems possible if not yet probable. The number of Labour MPs who now look almost certain to lose their seat is more than the number needed to trigger a leadership contest.

Labour is now in freefall; it is hard to remember the last good week for the government and the public seem to have taken against Brown with a passion. Brown was hidden in this contest—his image was on everyone but Labour’s leaflets. That, obviously, could not be done in a general.

The Guardian panics:

In scenes reminiscent of New Labour’s byelection successes in the 90s, jubilant Tories in Crewe and Nantwich celebrated as their candidate, Edward Timpson, won with 20,539 votes, 49%. The result, on a high byelection turnout of 58.2%, was particularly sweet for the public school-educated Timpson, who brushed off Labour’s "anti-toff" campaign to secure the Tories’ first byelection gain since 1982.

By "anti-toff", read "anti-elitist." If this swing were duplicated in the next general election (which it won’t), the Tories would have five times the seats as Labour.

(Photo: Peter MacDiarmid/Getty.)

McCain is David Cook. Not the hair.
 

(Hat tip: Galley Slaves)

Hugh Hewitt:

And did the Obama rally begin with the Soviet National Anthem?

No I didn’t make that up.

The human catastrophe continues:

"Why not move the bodies out of the water?" I wonder. Well, where is it dry? Ah, nowhere. The grounds are saturated and now the rains have hit again and are predicted to drop another 12 centimeters of punishing water in the next five days. The UN spokesperson predicted that these rains will collapse those fragile, life-protecting shelters. But wait — weren’t we told earlier that people were congregating in the monasteries where the floors were more stable even if the roofs had fallen in? Yes. But the situation is fluid. The military has sent them home. What home? There is no home. If people congregate with those conniving monks, they might drum up some plans. And so they must go out into the open air.

Noah Millman questions a few of the electoral maps floating around. I’m still befuddled why anyone would want to listen to the worst political strategist of our time.