Maverickus Uber Alles

Ya know that supposed advantage that John Sith McCain enjoys on the war and national security in general?  Does this utterance raise any doubts in your mind?:

Senator John McCain [last] Friday said as president he would consider bringing Osama bin Laden to justice through a Nuremberg-like international trial.

He told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “We have various options. The Nuremberg Trials are certainly an example of the kind of tribunal that we could move forward with. I don’t think we’d have any difficulty in devising an international — internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice. There’s no problem there.”

McCain said it would be a “good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of this guy’s crimes, and his intentions, which are still there.”

Um, Senator, this isn't a new idea.  Indeed, you didn't think much of it yourself when it came out of the lips of your greenhorn opponent:

Unfortunately, it is clear Senator Obama does not understand what happened at the Nuremburg trials and what procedures were followed. There was no habeas at Nuremburg and there should be no habeas for Osama bin Laden. Senator Obama cannot have it both ways. In one breath he endorses habeas for terrorists like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and in the next he denies its logical conclusion of habeas for Osama bin Laden. By citing a historical precedent that does not include habeas, he sends a signal of confusion and indecision to our allies and adversaries and the American people.

Let me be clear, under my administration Osama bin Laden will either be killed on the battlefield or executed.

The lone surviving point of demarcation between McCain and Obama now on this matter is bin Laden's habeas corpus rights.  And I'm not all that confident either how big a distinction that is or that it will survive Darth Queeg's true center-left nature either.

~  ~  ~

You may have noticed I've written zippo about the McCain veepstakes for reasons with which you should already be familiar.  With the additional proviso that I couldn't care less who he picks to ride shotgun with him because I won't vote for him regardless.

But the same high-rolling boil of speculation has percolated as usual elsewhere.  Mitt Romney, who some still believe will alienate evangelicals, an assertion that is baffling when seen in light of the equally baffling assertion that two-fifths of the evangelical bloc are leaning towards False Messiah.  My assertion is that picking somebody who is knowledgable about economic policy just reinforces how unreliable and ignorant McCain is about it.  And that's in addition to how little there would be in it for Romney, given the uphill struggle whichever GOP ticket will have in this cycle, as opposed to remaining clear of the whole debacle and returning in 2012 as the "See, I told you so" candidate.

Mitt's star must have dimmed, or he privately told Team Sith "thanks, but no thanks," because the speculation mill has drifted back to pipedreaming:

There’s a bigger point — and this initial volley, they say, lays the groundwork for it. They will be sharpening McCain’s message that he, not Obama, is the true change agent, a man who’s repeatedly taken unpopular stands, made the hard calls and forged bipartisan alliances.

Part of the calculus now is how his VP choice will further sharpen that message. There is significant support among top McCain advisers that he make a “transformative” pick who would change the Republican Party — someone who would appeal to moderate Republicans and Democrats…

A person who fills that bill, these advisers say, is Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman, an Independent Democrat, flatly denied his interest to ABC’s Ron Claiborne earlier this month, but McCain is now seriously considering him as that “transformative” pick, sources tell ABC News…

Why, pray tell, does Lord Queeg want to "change" the Republican Party?  And into what does he want to "transform" it?  If the idea is to turn the party of Reagan [back] into the party of Rockefeller, the party of conservatism into the party of nothing, then why exactly should Republicans support this?

Annnnnd, if you're willing to swallow the idea that this is simply a tactical move designed to counter Lucifer's cult of empty-headed public worship, how does it aid McCain in the pitilessly substantive terra firma of shoring up demographics he can't possibly survive without?  FACT: McCain can't win without unified Republican support; FACT: the base of the Republican Party is overwhelmingly conservative; CONCLUSION: the Dark Side has reduced McCainiacs' brains to midiclorian mush.

But it's even worse than that.  Remember what Joe Lieberman is to the DEMOCRAT base: what McCain is to conservatives - a turncoat.  Only the nutroots hate Lieberman far more than the Right detests Sailor.  Thus, a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be the WORST of both worlds, not the best, by alienating EVERYBODY except the "senseless center," which has always been, is, and always will be far narrower than any self-styled political "expert" will ever publicly admit.

Which is why my veep money is still on Governer Biscuits & Gravy.  Same RINO credentials without the "transformative" baggage.

~  ~  ~

Hey, everybody - well, not the Democrats, anyway - there's still no recession:

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.9% in the second quarter of 2008 (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.9%. ….

The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from
exports, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), nonresidential structures, federal government spending, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, and equipment and software. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

I guess this isn't good news for Darth Queeg either, since he's already heaved overboard the token supply-sider who made this same point not so long ago.

~  ~  ~

What does the above reinforce?  The fact that John Sith McCain is what used to be known as a Scoop Jackson Democrat - sane on foreign policy, 'round the bend on everything else.  Is that enough to dupe or spook conservatives into backing him?  I decline to speculate on the grounds that my mind was already made up six months ago.

But he would help himself a great deal if he didn't vomit up verbal turds like this:

“I respect Speaker Pelosi. I think she’s one of the great American success stories,” McCain said during an interview with the [San Francisco] Chronicle prior to a fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

“We talk about (New York Senator) Hillary Clinton and her inspiration to millions of Americans. Speaker Pelosi has been an inspiration as well” in a role that is “in many ways … more powerful than the president.”…

“I agree with his [energy independence] goal,” the Arizona senator said Monday of Gore’s idea. “I may disagree with all the ways of getting there. But I again want to emphasize my respect for the former vice president’s leadership on this issue and his continuous leadership. And I am in no way trying to get into a fight with him.”

My problem with this stomach-turning praise isn't so much that it is the diametric opposite of the truth as that McCain thought it appropriate and helpful to his campaign to say it.  It's not as though I expect him to tell the unvarnished truth (straight talk?) about Pelosi and Gore in an interview such as this - that she's a ham-fisted, empty-headed old Bolshevik bag, and he's a bloated, greenified reincarnation of Leon Trotsky - but whatever happened to "If you don't have anything nice to say about somebody, don't say anything at all"?  Or at least pour forth a flat broth of rhetoric that essentially says nothing at all?  He's been in Congress for twenty-six years - he ought to be able to pull that off.

Maverick's November chances have improved of late, but he's still the underdog, and sure as hell can't afford to stick another thumb in the eye of the GOP base without whom he'll have no chance at all.

And an exit rebuttal to AP, who thinks nothing of this "liberal ass-kissing" and that the "Maverick brand" is something worth preserving: in light of the aforementioned, dontcha at least concede that the timing of this verbal bipartisan analingus was beyond abysmal?