The Corner on National Review Online
From this last few days, the McCain campaign seems determined to go down in history as a blend of personal viciousness and strategic ineptitude. Not an attractive combination.
What’s going on here is obvious. Maverick McStain, in all his arrogance, hubris, and bone-rattling imbecility, simply can’t imagine that is was his own lousy judgment, planning, campaign, policies, and, in fact, every single thing about his pathetic, hapless, Republican-in-name-only mess of statist and/or leftist approaches that sank him deeper than Bob Dole. So, as do all such losers, he’s casting about for somebody - anybody - but himself to blame. Bingo - Sarah Palin!
Leaving aside the fact that he selected Palin himself.
I hope the GOP is over its love affair with this repulsive, bitter old crank, who would have done us all a favor if he’d followed his original inclinations and deserted to the Democrat party he would obviously feel much more comfortable with. In fact, let me be the first to propose that trade: We’ll take Joe Lieberman. You guys can have Maverick McStain. Then, at least, we won’t have to listen to all that crap about how he’s such a “maverick” any longer.
UPDATE: Ann Coulter:
The Reign of Lame Falls Mainly on McCain - HUMAN EVENTS
Like Sarah Connor in “The Terminator,” Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That’s why the Democrats are trying to kill her. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is involved somehow, too. Good Lord, I’m tired.
After showing nearly superhuman restraint throughout this campaign, which was lost the night McCain won the California primary, I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities.
We’ll start with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Then we shall march through the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina — states that must never, ever be allowed to hold early Republican primaries again.
For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.
Starting tomorrow, if not sooner.
The rest is just pure Coulter vitriol. Don’t miss a word!
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This episode has put the final nail in the coffin of my self identification as a Republican. The simple fact of the matter is that the reason - the only reason - I pushed the button for McCain was his selection of Sarah Palin. Call it an investment in the future.
And now he and his staff show us the reality; all of them back stabbing, vindictive, ass-covering, cowardly sonsofbitches. The Republican Party’s reaction isn’t much better.
Fuck em all.
I feel that pain, Mojo, but I don’t see abandoning the GOP as the answer. They’re nowhere near where the Whigs of old were before a new party could displace them. I say, let’s seize the GOP machinery and take it back for liberty, and for the tens of millions of voters who would support that.
In business terms, martinra, you’re proposing a hostile takeover of a corporation whose current management has almost destroyed a once-reputable brand name. -shrug- Good luck with that.
Speaking solely for myself, I hold no truck for the Republican Party, neither the power grubbers they are now nor the “We’ll destroy American liberty if that’s what it takes to defeat Communism” of my parents’ generation. I might support the Libetarians, if the big-Ls weren’t mostly whack-jobs. Might as well directly support The Official Monster Raving Loony Party; at least they’re entertaining.
FWIW, I ran briefly for President in 2000 as an Official Monster Raving Loony Partian. Slogan: “Vote for Steve. You’d be crazy not to.” Didn’t get very far, but then I didn’t put any money into it. Literally none; my signs and such were made from materials I already had in the house. I showed up at a couple of rallies for other candidates just to chum the waters. A couple of people asked who I was or what I was or something, then wandered off without promising me their votes. They didn’t even have the common courtesy to threaten to call security. Stopped doing it when it was no longer entertaining.
McCain for Lieberman? Methinks we would probably have to pony up some serious “boot” to close that deal. Why would the demos want McCain? I mean the guy is already in their corner and Liebs does still vote with them on a lot of issues.
If Lieberman did switch, the Senate GOP would be wise to assign him to committees where he and they agree, such as Armed Services, Intelligence, or Homeland Security. It would minimize the friction.
Actually, that’s just about the best time to do it. The stock is on sale at bargain-basement prices.
Brand revival isn’t easy, and credibility at the top is absolutely vital (Harley couldn’t have come back without credible “bike guys” leading the way, nor Smith & Wesson without credible “gun guys”).
I’m not eager for the job either, but there is precedent.
The other problem is, scale is inimical to liberty (think Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy). We may, at some point, be forced to choose between ordered liberty and manifest destiny (William Grigg just wrote a good intemperate essay touching on that point).
A Constitutional Convention might be a good way to break up without (undue) violence.
Oldsmoblogger, every time I even think about the possibility of a Constitutional Convention, I get the cold shakes. Brr. It’s the shreds and tatters of the Constitution that constitute what’s left of our protection against the tyranny of the majority that just voted with the Obama machine. If that can of worms gets opened, with the national mood being what it is, you can expect our opponents on the Left to railroad us big-time. They’d ram through amendments that enshrine in black and white the things they’ve been using penumbras and emanations to get through activist courts until now. Gutting the 2nd Amendment. The Fairness Doctrine and permanent MSM life support as part of the revised 1st Amendment. Global Warmening as law, shoehorned into an Environmental Protection Amendment that undermines all private property rights. The Universal Healthcare Amendment, with unrestricted abortion on demand for free for anyone, doctor’s orders euthanasia, and strict price controls. The end of the Electoral College. Changes in the way in which citizenship is granted, and in who is eligible to vote.
A convention today would make all the crap they’ve been doing, and all the worse crap they’ve been pushing for, legal as church on Sunday. These assholes made a 3-page bailout bill into over 400 pages, can you imagine what they’d do with our nice, short, straightforward Constitution? It would balloon into monstrosity that only an EU
commissionercommissar could love.A Constitutional Convention, without preparing the ground first for a renewal of individual rights and liberty, would be the fastest route to national suicide imaginable.
True. All that you say could happen, martinra. And it could be an appalling document.
Would all 50 of the present states ratify the thing? If not all, how many would refuse?
It takes 3/4 of the States to ratify Article V amendments. Perhaps some of the more tendentious nonsense might not clear that bar, but would we be able to stop the nationalized healthcare or global warming trains? I’m not so sure.
What would the states that refused to ratify do next?