When Senator McCain looked like he might win the Republican nomination in 2000, I asked what, exactly, my friends were so worried about. McCain was honest, like Bush, while Clinton and Gore were steeped in moral slipperiness. McCain was pro-life, like Bush, while Clinton and Gore were pro-abortion.
McCain, like Bush, supported a strong military, while Clinton famously “loathed” the military and Gore followed him like a trained poodle. McCain’s ACU (American Conservative Union) voting record is conservative and was even more conservative in 2000. Who did I favor for the nomination in 2000? Bush, because I liked him more and I thought he would win, but was I afraid of a McCain presidency? No, I was afraid that the nation could not survive a third Clinton term.
Has anything happened in the last eight years to change my mind? Not, not really. September 11, 2001 has driven all politics since then, even energy (remember how recently gasoline was cheap?) and while I can conceive of McCain handling the war on terror differently, in some ways, than Bush, I cannot see either man being particularly better than the other. Although we are sometimes loath to admit it, McCain appeared more prescience than Bush on Iraq: McCain supported the Surge, asked for the Surge when Bush was reluctant, and McCain was dead right. The Left would have vilified President McCain just as it vilified President Bush and for the same reasons: It wants America to lose all its wars.
On what domestic issues do we see how President Bush has been decisively better than a President McCain would have been? Campaign Finance Reform? That was a law which President Bush should have vetoed, but did not. Education “Reform”? Letting Ted Kennedy write the education bill was he brainchild of George W. Bush. Supreme Court appointments? Who knows, but Harriet Myers was, again, write out of the mind of Bush and McCain voted for Alito and Roberts.
I still like President Bush more than Senator McCain. He is a much more likeable man, for those not poisoned with hatred. But has President Bush really and clearly been a better president than President McCain would have been? ANWAR has not been the critical issue for the last seven years. Defeating our global enemies, who are patently trying to gain a stranglehold on our energy supplies, has been the single vital issue. McCain might – a qualified “might,” but a real “might” – have been a better wartime president than Bush.
What Happened to the Peace Dividend?
What we are in danger of losing, if Obama wins in 2008, are years of very hard work and huge amounts of treasure and blood. Most people forget just what happened during the presidencies between Reagan and George W. Bush. After Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot, the world was – or at least the world should have been – transformed forever.
Overnight, Communism – a grotesque notion which has great cachet today – was utterly debunked everywhere. Nearly everyone knows about the Berlin Wall falling right after Reagan left office, and the consequent collapse of the whole Warsaw Pact structure, many recall Yeltsin standing up to the Old Bolsheviki and ending the Evil Empire once and for all, but what was perhaps the most striking scene during these thrilling years? Chinese students constructing their own Statute of Liberty at Tiananmen Square. The legacy of Reagan was that freedom was everywhere – electric, transforming, indomitable.
The next dozen years of establishment complacency squandered it all. George H. Bush had to “wait” until Hussein invaded Kuwait to show his skill in moving the diplomatic and political chess pieces, and then instead of finishing off Hussein in 1991, when almost the whole world would have been behind him, he threw away the chance to radically change the Middle East for the better by playing it safe.
What Clinton did with the “Peace Dividend” and the American military was even worse. Chinese political bosses who a few short years earlier were besieged by their own people for freedom found a crass pair of pols in Washington who would wink at security leaks for campaign contributions. The banality of the Clintons simply defies description.
Russia, once led by a flawed but heroic Yeltsin, is now simply old Tsarist Russia, or something even worse. The chance to help the Russian people become happy, prosperous allies in a movement to improve the human condition were lost by the last three American presidents (George W. Bush cannot escape censure on that point.)
The money, the hundred of billions, lost in political payoffs and useless government programs under Clinton was paid for by huge treasure which Reagan’s victory in the Cold War brought America. It is depressing to imagine how this wealth might otherwise have been used. Tax rates could have been radically reduced without any effect on social programs. Part of the National Debt could actually have been paid off. Our highways, levees and bridges could have been rebuilt. Reagan left us with a virtually painless way to solve many of our domestic problems.
But the real squandering of the Peace Dividend was in the idea of human freedom grinding to a halt around the world. This was not just a victory won behind the Iron Curtain or the Bamboo Curtain. In 1989, Reagan was vindicated to many Germans. Freedom was better than slavery. Democracy took root, finally, in much of Latin America. The bosses, the oligarchs, the totalitarians, the cynics of liberty – all these leeches on the human spirit – were on their heels. Twelve years later, the Peace Dividend in all its aspects had been totally spent. In 2000, we were as bankrupt of moral courage and human hope as in 1980, when Reagan was elected.
America and the World in 2008
September 11, 2001 tested just how weak we were. Can anyone really imagine this sort of crime taking place under Reagan? Islamic terrorists did test America and Israel during the Reagan years. What happened? Reagan hit Libya with overwhelming airpower and Israel destroyed Hussein’s nuclear program in Iraq. Reagan also proved that he was not against Moslems, but rather for freedom. While Carter was squeamish about helping Afghan freedom fighters resisting Soviet invasion, Reagan was not troubled at all. By the time Reagan left office, the Soviets were retreating from Kabul with their tails between their legs. Reagan and America were not enemies of Moslems, but rather their defenders from real imperialism.
President Bush has regained much lost ground since 1992. Although he has made many tactical errors, just as Reagan made a mistake in Beirut, President Bush has held the strategic goal in front of us: We win, they lose. This is precisely the opposite of what the neo-Marxists of American politics, who cannot believe their good fortune since 1992, wanted. America the Liberator was not an idea that appealed to Leftists who did not believe in liberation at all, but only in various forms of servitude.
If America wins in Iraq, if the banner of freedom and human dignity can be reclaimed and carried around the world, then the Left in America will once again be an unwed dowager stewing in spite. There are few, if any, domestic issues that will transform American politics. Victory in our global war will bring great opportunities at home.
The price of energy would drop if freedom won its battles around the world. The benefits of global prosperity would increase our own prosperity dramatically. The very cost of freedom – our defense budget – would plummet if we win our war against terrorism. Happy, affluent Americans never had much use for Leftists. Winning our global war will also win our political war at home.
The triumphant of victory will also bring us the fruits of the human spirit all over the world. A genuine change in Islam will be possible when women in Islamic nations are able to speak freely. A genuine change in China will come when the Chinese people again begin to look to America as a source of inspiration and not scorn. All depends upon us winning, and winning clearly, against those who would destroy us.
McCain is not Reagan
McCain, indeed, is not Reagan. But McCain, out of all the men who might have been president, at least remembers Reagan. He had lived through the Cold War and our victory in it. He understands what is possible, not because he is Reagan but because he saw first-hand what Reagan did.
Obama is, at best, a dull replay of Jimmy Carter – but one played without any of the hope that some of us had in 1776, when we voted for Ford but hoped that Carter might be someone good. No serious person can dream of a good Obama presidency. Already he has proven as cynical as Clinton, as naïve as Carter, and as surreal as Gore. It is not clear if Obama is hopeless enough to actually lose the war against global terrorism, but his slavish yearning for approval from ancient, angry Europeans and his quiet disinterest in serious faith are a recipe for a disaster even greater than Carter (a man who Obama and his fellow Democrat leaders view fondly.)
McCain is not Reagan, but McCain is surely not Obama. McCain is McCain. In one crucial respect, this makes McCain even better than Reagan in a hot war. Although some of us have heard the story so often that we are sick of it, McCain in war showed more physical and moral courage than most of us could even muster. Yes, he was a POW and not a hero. Yes, McCain has milked it for all that it is worth. None of that changes the facts: He could have gone home, ended his torture sessions, and no sane person would have held it against him.
This old fact of this old politician’s life will always be in the back of the minds of our fighting forces. Many of them may dislike McCain, but none of them can doubt that he truly knows the horrors that they face in war and that he will not put them in harm’s way without cause. This makes McCain, whether we like it or not, a good wartime president.
Morale in military conflict is more important than equipment or tactics or numbers. Morale is the key to victory. There seems little doubt that McCain will provide the right equipment and sufficient numbers of troops. He seems to understand military tactics and operations well. But most importantly, McCain can lead our forces in a way that few Americans could. That means McCain can win this war for us. That is why McCain must win this November.
