Taking The Pee Out Of The Punchbowl

One of those periodic moments when I get plucked from my dichotomous obscurity has happened again - and, in a way, I actually have John McCain to thank for it.

And, of course, Ed Morrissey, whose - what's the right word? - gentle analysis of the Supreme Chancellor's candidacy and chances at hornswaggling conservatives into getting behind it inspired a counterpoint from moi that earned the accolade of being mentioned in the same "fine bloggers" breath with Powerline's Brother Meringoff.  Guess all that brownnosing on Hard Starboard Radio wasn't a complete waste of time after all.

Today the Admiral posts his rebuttal in the context of illustrating the daunting task Darth Queeg faces in trying to smooch the right-wing faces in which he's been whizzing constantly for the past seven years:

Obviously, I disagree with JASmius, but he does have a point. McCain has created much of the bad blood with conservative pundits and activists, and he hasn't tried hard to soothe the ruffled feathers over the years.

He hasn't tried at all, until now, when he needs something from us.

I don't consider McCain "weaselly" at all, and in fact, it's his allergy to pandering that has caused most of his problems. Conservatives seem to love that when it comes to his positions on the Iraq war and foreign policy - especially his hard-line rhetoric about Iran - but certainly don't appreciate it when he scornfully disagrees with conservatives rather than liberals.

I suppose that we need to tie down a definition of "pandering".  Since the topic isn't Bill Clinton, we can eliminate the prostitution references.  That leaves this one:

To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses.

To whom is Senator McCain pandering?  Conservatives.  What weakness is he seeking to exploit?  Our horror at a Hillary Clinton presidency.  What is his selling point?  His purported "electability".  Where does the suggestion of his purported electability come from?  Hypothetical Rodham-McCain polling.  Who comes up with those numbers?  The liberal media.

Sounds like the proverbial bill 'o goods to me.

Indeed, it is with the press, and his "good friends" on the other side of the aisle that "Sailor" has cavorted for years, all the while scorning and shafting his fellow Republicans on issue after issue.  He didn't need anything from them, so one can only conclude that that was the company he desired to keep. (I think McCain would have taken up John Kerry on his running mate offer in 2004 had he not retained presidential ambitions of his own.)  Conservatives cannot be faulted for associating McCain with that company, and balking at demands that, in response to his supposed Damacus-Road-Reaganism, they become supinely "credulous" now that he seeks to do in Florida what he has never done in either of his presidential runs: win a "closed" (i.e. Republican-only) primary. 

The Arizona "maverick" is desperately trying to tell Florida Republicans what they want to hear so that he can use them to grab the "inevitability" mantle and coast through Super-Duper-Tuesday and onto the nomination.  Once he has that mantle in hand, the cultivating of the Right will end, and the McCain of McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, and the Gang of 14 will return, cackling all the way to Minneapolis.

It's too late for that.  Rudy's social liberalism has been no secret for years, but he never went out of his way to rub evangelicals' faces in it, either.  That made it relatively simple for him to "agree to disagree" on social issues like abortion and gay rights and still remain a viable candidate with the base (other than with the Huckabeeans).  McCain, by gaping contrast, has made a second career out of being the self-proclaimed spoiler of most, if not every, high-priority conservative agenda plank, then going on the Sunday shows to grinningly collect all the coifed talking heads' slobbering accollades for it.  To call him a "conservative" after the past seven years is like calling Ted Kennedy a Catholic: maybe he was long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, but he's been practicing a vastly different "faith" ever since.

There's an old saying: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."  Eight years ago, John McCain tried to fool us, and we didn't bite; ever since then he's inflicted one betrayal after another upon us for our perspicacity.  And now we're going "take the blue pill" and believe whatever he wants us to believe?

I'll believe that only when I see it.

But I will never accept it.