If you believe the problem with America’s war on terror is that it has not been ambitious enough, or tough enough, or monumental enough, McCain is your man. If you think the United States needs to be feared more than it needs to be loved, McCain is your man. And if you think that the economic policies of the past eight years – specifically Bush’s low tax rates – are necessary for growth, McCain is the obvious choice.
In some ways he is the last hope for the Republicans that their conservative movement is rescuable. McCain reassures them that the Bush era was not a total miscalculation but merely a good idea poorly executed.
Obama represents something more radical: a return of the multilateral, international umbrella of traditional American diplomacy and alliance-building. He represents this even as America is at war with deeply destructive forces in the asymmetrical global battlefield and even as partners such as Russia and China seem uninterested in keeping the international system as a model of rational discourse. He is less likely to see a struggle between good and evil in the world than a dark but promising place where the American national interest and the elevation of human dignity in the developing world are compatible.
While I think that the Bush era may have been one of miscalculation (very possibly a verdict that history will pass on the Clinton era as well), McCain is hardly the “last hope” of the Republican conservative movement. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, the first Indian American governor of a US state and a brilliant thinker; and Sarah Palin, the wildly popular and strongly fiscally conservative governor of Alaska, are both rising stars in the conservative firmament and will have a far greater impact on political conservatism in the United States than McCain (or GW Bush, for that matter, who has not followed conservatism’s – i.e., classical 19th century liberalism’s – preference for decentralized government).
The conservative dream ticket of 2012 might well be Jindal-Palin.
I agree with the above.
The Iraq war, which we might just win despite ourselves, will likely have long-term strategic benefits. The Bush Doctrine, particularly the heavy spending on health care in the Third World, is also a worthy legacy.
Remind me: exactly how is Sullivan conservative again?
Yes, St. Cuervo, and he’s Catholic, too. 🙂
[blockquote]… the multilateral, international umbrella of traditional American diplomacy and alliance-building.[/blockquote]
Mmmpf. “Traditional” only in the 20th century; it is very Wilsonian (which I for one do not count as a recommendation). In the last couple of decades we’ve seen NATO used as a figleaf to cover our vandalization of Yugoslavia, and as a threat to make an already paranoid Russian regime even more paranoid. The UN and the various other treaties — SEATO and the like — are terminally moribund laughingstocks.
Our real “traditional” diplomacy is to stay strictly out of other people’s wars. “Entangling alliances,” remember? This is what the American people keep voting for (1916: “Wilson: He Kept Us Out of War”; 1940: “I won’t send American boys overseas to fight a European war”; 1964: The famous anti-Goldwater nuclear war ad), and what our wise political leadership keeps trying to talk us out of.
I have to agree with Craig in #5 about the flawed idea of building alliances when those allies bring nothing to the table, a perfect example being the utterly counterproductive negotiations the Europeans conducted with Iran regarding its nuclear program. The only party that has benefitted from those talks has been Iran. Add to that the inability and/or unwillingness of our “allies” to fight in Afghanistan, and you have to wonder if there is anything to this multilateral racket but flattering plow-pulling geldings into thinking they are race studs.
So we should stay out of other peoples wars and all is well?? We stayed out of World War one and two for a year or so and derned if we didn’t get pulled right into them!! I can also remember The Soviet Union really calling the US down for getting involved with Germany since Russia and Germany were such “pals” at the start of WWII and then wanting to be real good friends with us when Germany rolled across their border!!