The RINO Shuffle

Hugh Hewitt was a Romney guy from the beginning.  So much so that he even wrote a full-blown book in support of Mitt Romney's candidacy, A Mormon In The White House.  As Romney's presidential bid started falling apart in December and on through the debacles in Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, and finally Super Duper Tuesday, conservatives increasingly distressed at the rise of John McCain (aka Darth Queeg) and Mike Huckabee (aka Darth Scudder) as the destined 2008 GOP ticket could always turn to Double H's site for a fix of reassurance and sound, sane argument, even though you knew it was pro-Romney shilling and it was falling on deaf ears.  Preator Hewitt went to great lengths to underscore how McCain-Huckabee will have no money compared to Rodham-Obama, no comparable base unity and energy, will look old, tired, and "odd" versus the contrived regality of Hillary and the personality cult of the ebony JFK.  McCain-Huckabee would be a reprise of Dole-Kemp '96, Hugh argued, a doomed candidacy that would pre-empt the entire general campaign, restore Mrs. Clinton's aura of inevitability, and lead to wipe-outs all the way down the GOP ticket in November.

And none of that even touched on the manifest unfitness of the Sith duo for the nomination(s) they have now captured.

But before Hugh Hewitt was the leader of the Romneylans, he was something else: a loyal party man.  Some might even say party hack, as I did repeatedly during the Harriet Miers Supreme Court odessey a few years back when Hugh waxed eloquent about President Bush's bald betrayal of his iron-clad pledge to appoint constitutionalists to the federal bench, much less Olympus, and baited-&-switched the base with this cronyistic mystery meat instead.

This is the "dark side" of elevating party loyalty above philosophical integrity, and the other day that side of Double-H rose to the surface once again, like a turd that won't flush:

There are seven reasons for anyone to support the eventual nominee no matter who it is:  The war and six Supreme Court justices over the age of 68.

Folks who want to take their ball and go home have to realize that even three SCOTUS appointments could revolutionize the way elections are handled in this country in a stroke, mandating the submission of redistricting lines to court scrutiny for "fairness."...

If Democrats control the White House and gain even one of the five seats held by the center-right majority of current justices, this and many other crucial issues are up for legal grabs.  When activist judges are more than willing to rewrite rules of long-standing, periods of exile should never be self-imposed "for the good of the party."  Exiles can go on a very long time indeed.  Ask the Whigs.

They can go on indefinitely when enforced by courts.

Three words, Hugh: Gang...of...fourteen.  If John McCain would not stand and fight alongside his GOP Senate colleagues and the Bush White House to remove Democrat obstructionism to reconstitutionalizing the federal judiciary when the window of opportunity to do so was open, what on Olympus itself is there to convince anybody that a President McCain will decide to pursue that objective against a Congress that will be 60%-65% Democrat?  And remember, he didn't just sit out the confrontation, he intervened on the Democrats' side.

A McCain White House will send up a desultory, moldy stream of David Souters - sorry, "consensus nominees" - at best.  Most likely, he'll just pick from the list that Pat Leahy, Chucky, and Uncle Teddy send him.

The GOP as well is the party committed to victory in Iraq and the wider war.  A four year time-out would be a disaster, a period of time in which al Qaeda and its jihadist off-shoots would regroup in some places and continue to spread in others.  Iran, even if punished in the months before November, would certainly continue and accelerate its plans under the soft pleadings of a President Obama or Clinton 2.0. 

These aren't the years to wish a pox on your primary opponents' heads beyond June.

A President McCain will leave us defenseless at home by reverting to treating jihadist terrorism as a law enforcement issue (emptying Gitmo, lavishing constitutional rights upon illegal enemy combatants) and realizing his cherished dream of a full amnesty for illegals and erasing our borders altogether.  All al Qaeda would have to do is relocate its HQ to northern Mexico and they'd have a safe haven.  Iraq would be rendered almost irrelevant.

As for Iran, there is no, zip, zero, nada inclination from ANY quarter of the American political landscape for doing ANYTHING to pre-empt the nuclear war that the mullahgarchy plans to unleash once they have the means to do so.  Perhaps a McCain administration would more likely to retaliate afterwards than a President Rodham or Obama - over-retaliate, even.  But by then it would, of course, be too late.

So there ye go.  Hugh Hewitt, ex-Romneylan Praetor and once again subservient GOP party hack, takes his best shot at making a case for a McCain presidency, and a pudgy guy in his pajamas a thousand miles up the Pacific coast with a fraction of the time for analyzing these things easily shoots it down like fish in a barrel.

Hugh's last gasp?:

It is very possible to play full contact politics without the threat of going home if your team loses.  The stakes in the fall are far too high for that.

My "team" was Fred Thompson.  He quit after South Carolina.  I didn't go home; I moved over to Romney.  I could have lived with Giuliani as well, until he dropped out after Florida.  But when Romney called it quits this week, I - we - were left with two candidates who stand for virtually none of the center-right agenda, and who look and sound indistinguishable from the Democrats they'll be facing in the fall.

Conservatives have been disenfranchised at the presidential level.  We have been presented with the choice of two Democrat tickets, and all the policy implications that entails.  Neither is, or ought to be, acceptable.  Recognition of that fact is not "taking your ball and going home"; it is acknowledgement of bitter reality.

~  ~  ~

Darth Queeg is certainly aware of it; why else did he go to CPAC on Thursday and try to snow conservatives into closing ranks?  Although from most indicators he only took a half-hearted stab at it, and his appeal only attained limited success.  Michelle Malkin wasn't convinced, and she sounds like she wanted to be.  Her bottom line: deeds matter more than words.

And, of course, that is precisely McCain's problem.  He's not a skilled or practiced liar, and even if he was in Bill Clinton's mendacity league he'd have at least seven years of treacherous deeds to overcome.  That would be a tall order for the Sickster himself; for the Sith master, with his uncontainable self-righteousness and equally indiscrete compulsion to gloat about it to those to whom he feels himself morally superior (i.e. conservatives), it simply is not possible.

This is the political equivalent of short-sheeting one's own bed.  The Supreme Chancellor cannot count on the Republican base like the Bushies mobilized it in 2000, 2002, and 2004.  He can't even count on it in the disgruntled, demoralized shape it was in in 2006.  He's simply done too much to alienate it.  So where does that leave him?  Well, contrary to the fabled "conventional wisdom," there isn't any "base" to be found in the political "center".  That is the epitome of, to borrow another metaphor, building your house on sand.  "Moderates" stand for nothing by definition; you can't rely upon the ungrounded to stick by you when things go wrong.  Will Sailor try to compete with Hillary (and/or Obama) for the Dem base?  Hey, they like McCain, but only when he's screwing us; they don't like him THAT much.

So what national strategy is left for Senator McCain?  Running negative.  Use the Right's fear and loathing of Hillary to stampede them into holding their noses and voting for him as the (slightly) lesser of two evils, with the underlying calculation being "Where else are they going to go?", pick Mike Huckabee as his running mate to turn out gullible evangelicals, while somehow trusting that "moderates" and "independents" will catch on that he's just pandering to those neocon knuckledraggers and is still REALLY a member in good standing of the "reality-based community".

It won't work, of course.  Whether it's Rodham-Obama or Obama-Whomever, the Donk base will shatter records for rabidity.  They'll get 150% turnout that'll vote as many times as it takes to get rid of us Nazi, fascist, intolerant, polluting, calllous, heartless, bigoted, warmongering, sexist, homophobic, nativist pond scum once and for all.  The "radical middle" wants a return of peace and quiet (no more "partisan squabbling"), and that means appeasing the partisan squabblers (i.e. the Dems).  And the Right?  Haven't you been paying attention?

It is, to put it gently, not a Republican year anyway.  I don't think any of the GOP hopefuls could have held onto the White House in 2008.  How much less so the man who has deliberately left himself without a party to call home?

Benedict Arnold, another solipsistic moral supremacist convinced of his unappreciated genius and that he was destined for, and entitled to, bigger things, betrayed the American revolution for fortune and ego-stroking.  The British took what he offered them - the "keys" to West Point, New York (their attempt to seize it from within failed) - and paid him handsomely.  But they never gave him the prominent command he sought, shunting him off to irrelevant hit & run raids far from the main battlefront.  Why?  Because they did not trust him.  A man who would turn heel on one side is apt to betray his new "good, close, personal friends" as well.

John McCain has never betrayed his country.  But he has betrayed his party.  Repeatedly.  Putting him in the White House would, ironically, betray the country (just as Hillary or Obama would) as well.  At some point that HAS to matter.

Doesn't it?

~  ~  ~

Just to ensure no confusion on the above point, there'll be no, zero, zip, nada difference between a McCain presidency and its Donk equivalents.  Six of one, half dozen of the other.  That's why tactical calculations like this are just so much mental masturbation.  What difference does it make if conservatives fall into line, tell Sailor to bleep off, or play "hard to get"?  With the first he'd take us for granted (and his contempt for us would only grow still larger); the second would have the virtue of honesty and acceptance of the reality of what the base has done to itself; the third would, at best, elicit phony promises that both he and we would know in advance would never be honored.  Since a President McCain would govern as a Democrat in any case, I'd prefer to dispense with the self-deluding sophistry and extend the middle fingers now - unless even some conservatives have a perverse, neurotic hunger for even bigger betrayals later.

If the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me," where does the shame go, and in what quantities, the fifth time?  Or the tenth?  Or the twentieth?  How many backstabbings does it take?  At what point is the singular obsession of avoiding President Hillary Rodham (or Barack Obama) finally outweighed by the spectre of the same things being done to the country by a man who just happens to have an "R" after his name?

It's the ultimate Hobson's choice.

So what are conservatives to do?  Double-M has a good suggestion:

Some on the Right advise their readers and listeners to vote Democrat or sit home. My advice is exactly the opposite: Get off the couch and walk the walk for conservative candidates and officeholders who need all the help they can get defending free markets, free minds, and secure borders—no matter who takes the White House in November.

Dissatisfied with the flawed crop of GOP candidates who lacked the energy, organizational skills, and ideological strength to carry the conservative banner and ignite your passions? Then pay attention to the next generation of Republican state legislators who do vote consistently to lower your taxes, uphold the sanctity of life, defend marriage, and cut government spending. Support their re-election bids. Reward them for standing with you instead of their Democrat opponents and the liberal media....

If you can’t stomach John McCain, channel your support and energies to Republicans who do represent your values and who have treated the conservative base as allies instead of enemies. There are a new generation of combat veterans running for office who haven’t made a career of trashing the base. Check out staunch economic, social, and national security conservative congressional candidates like Iraq/Afghanistan veteran Eric Egland in California’s fourth district. Check out the Vets for Freedom (vetsforfreedom.org) group for their endorsements.

Opposed to the amnesty bill? Republican Senators Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, and John Cornyn of Texas all fought the McCain-Kennedy-Graham-Martinez-Bush open-borders disaster. All of those Senators are up for re-election this year. Send them some money. Then send a few more bucks to the enforcement proponents on the House side as well.

There are races below the presidential level.  Senate and House and gubernatorial and state legislative contests in which Republicans were going to be at a big enough disadvantage without the anchor of a McCain-Huckabee ticket being tied around their necks.  They are going to need all the help they can get, if for no other reason than to prevent the GOP from becoming permanently RINOized and America from being reduced to a giant Venezuela.  As still another old saying goes, "If we're going to go down, better to go down fighting."  Shoring up the GOP's conservative foundation while Darth Queeg and Darth Scudder are demolishing the forty-year-old structure sitting upon it is the only way for us to fight for the foreseeable future.

~  ~  ~

Michelle offered this post-script:

Twenty-six years ago at the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Reagan rallied conservatives:

“We must ask ourselves tonight how we can forge and wield a popular majority from one end of this country to the other, a majority united on basic, positive goals with a platform broad enough and deep enough to endure long into the future, far beyond the lifespan of any single issue or personality.”

I would think not nominating John McCain would have ranked pretty high on that list.  Which goes to show just how much re-building work the conservative movement has in front of it.