In The Tank For McCain

by Steve Soto

Today's must-read is a great piece by Eric Alterman yesterday in The Nation, summarizing the media infatuation with John McCain, and their collective willingness to ignore his actual behavior and position on issues and instead project onto him what they want to believe about him.

Alterman concludes:

Let's take a moment to sum up: the anti-torture candidate supports torture. The pro-immigration candidate opposes immigration. The candidate who opposes tax cuts for the rich supports them. The pro-campaign finance reform candidate has a campaign that is run almost exclusively by lobbyists, and exploits loopholes in the law to skirt spending limits--even the laws the candidate wrote. The candidate who opposes "agents of intolerance" in the Republican Party embraces them. The candidate with the foreign policy experience frequently confuses Sunnis and Shiites and misreads Iranian influence in the region, but is proposing permanent war. The candidate who claims to be a fiscal conservative wants to bust the budget. The candidate who claims to take global warming seriously does not want to take any serious action to address it.

In light of this evidence--as well as much, much more that space does not permit discussion of here--it is difficult not to conclude that the figure with whom so many mainstream journalists are infatuated is largely an invention of their collective imagination, one they often admit they love not because of what he says and does but because they--as with George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin--can discern what lies in his heart. Recall that the liberal Nicholas Kristof professes to admire McCain because the candidate "truly has principles that he bends or breaks out of desperation and with distaste. That's preferable to politicians who are congenital invertebrates." This is a view echoed by New York Times Magazine political correspondent Matt Bai, who explains, "Like every politician I've known, McCain will sometimes surrender to the cheap ploy or prevarication when the moment demands it, but it is often with a smirk or a wince, some hard-to-miss signal that he knows he's up to no good."

Perhaps the most impressively convoluted defense of McCain comes from Slate editor Jacob Weisberg. In his April 2006 article "The Closet McCain," Weisberg attacks those of us on what he calls "the literal-minded left" for getting "McCain all wrong." His history, his voting record, his speeches, his promises constitute merely what Weisberg terms "a stratagem--the only one, in fact, that gives him a shot at surviving a Republican presidential primary." The real McCain, he promises, will come "roaring back" once he dispatches the distasteful process of "building bridges to Bush and the evangelicals." On what does Weisberg base his self-confidence? "If you watch closely, you still catch plenty of signals that the old new McCain isn't dead, just hiding out. He continues to take on the president and his own party where it matters to him, on the use of torture in the war on terrorism and on immigration, where he sponsored a bill with Ted Kennedy to allow millions of illegal immigrants to become citizens."

Of course, McCain has disowned those positions together with almost everything else with which Weisberg credits him. But not to worry, Weisberg promises. "The Bull Moose has temporarily turned into a performing elephant. But the Moose will be back--around March 2008."

Here it is, summertime already, and we are still waiting. But be patient, dear reader. After all, when was the last time bigfoot reporters and pundits steered you wrong by advising you to ignore significant policy differences between two candidates and the two parties they represent and to trust instead in the steady "determination" and heartfelt "moderation" of a Republican candidate for President?

And we all know how that turned out. After reading this piece, you'll be able to make a list of the journalists and pundits whose every utterance should be ignored for good.