How About the Conservatives Learning Something from McCain?
Frank B,
He’s not my ideal choice either, but you’re asking the wrong question. We don’t only nominate RINOs, so the question is, if we don’t support our nominee (even when the nominee is from a different wing), why do we have a party?
The fact is, America is going to gradually leave Iraq. If a Dem does it, it will be reckless and based on partisan interests (as that Party’s whole Iraq policy has been) and branded as correcting an error committed because of deception.
If McCain does it, it will (hopefully) be measured and labelled an ultimately successful removal of a perceived threat, at least by the branch of government responsible for prosecuting future military actions. That is important, because the remaining bad actors in the region need to understand we have a leader who will credibly maintain the resolve to take any action when it is perceived to be necessary, a resolve that, whatever G. Bush’s failures, he has, to his credit, steadfastly maintained.
And maintenance of that resolve has come at a cost. My brother-in-law was killed in Iraq to demonstrate that resolve and make creditible future threats of action. If you’re considering sitting out this election, I’d ask you to think about those, who like my sister, her four children, and her in-laws, and many families like them, have sacrificed children, siblings, parents and spouses to keep US foreign policy credibly options open, ultimately allowing us to protect this country at lesser cost in the future — unless we squander it. Don’t let this resolve, built-up at such high cost, be squandered by the party of surrender so it can pander to its wobbly base for political advantage.
Nobody is asking anyone to give up his or her principles, but we should all think long and hard about what electing a Democrat will do to the credibility of any future threat of a use of force by US, the only democracy militarily capable of doing so. Sometimes the flexibility to make such a threat credibly saves the cost in money and treasure of having to carry it out.
