The Cakewalk Express

From Erick Posted at RedState ...

At the end of the day, John McCain and his new found friends on the left might win the media primary, but they will have a hard time winning a Republican primary, where voters tend to actually be conservative. Being middle of the road means you are easily persuaded to jump into the left lane or the right lane depending on the issue flow. And Republican voters are so tired of the GOP's fondness for jumping into the left lane, I expect they'll run him over should he run in their primary.

This is the big talking point from the hard-line Right when it comes to McCain. He's a media darling and he's willing to throw his Republican friends to the sharks if he thinks it might mean more invitations to Manhattan dinner parties with the fourth estate. But I think there's something more serious at play here, and Glenn Reynolds (who rarely blogs at length with political analysis) says it concisely:

To the GOP, Bush is a wasting asset; like Reagan at the same part of his term, he's expendable. They'll use him up, and if the best way to get value out of him over the next couple of years is to bash him, then they will. That's just politics, and McCain's just ahead of the curve.

The "bashing" in this case was McCain's recent criticism of the war. He suggests that we should have known better, in the early days of the conflict, about the difficulties of occupation, the recalcitrance of the infamous "dead-enders". He lays blame squarely on the current administration for creating the illusion of a likely military "cakewalk".

The only problem here is that McCain isn't bashing Bush for the current management of the war. He's flat-out contradicting himself. This excerpt from an interview with, you guessed it, Chris Matthews, indicates that, whoopsy-daisy, Mr. Strait Talk himself was one of the cakewalkers from back in the early days of the invasion.

This much is true: Nobody's going to win the Republican presidential primary in 2008 by strictly and unquestioningly adhering to the Bush party line on Iraq. It's a golden opportunity for a new direction on the war on terror - not Kerry-like defeatism, not self-loathing, but a genuine "under new management" honeymoon for tactics on the ground and even some diplomacy with allies.

McCain still could be the guy to inherit that stance. He can recover from this - it's the type of kerfuffle only wonks care about - but the old man better learn his lesson. Weaseling hypocrisy immediately renders irrelevant the image of principle and backbone that has been his biggest strength. If we wanted a politician who can be on all sides of the issue at once we already have the perfect candidate for 2008.

Her name is Hillary Clinton.

Tags: McCain, 2008, Election, Instapundit, Redstate, Hardball