Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Opinion

John Aloysius Farrell

McCain's Faustian Bargain

September 11, 2008 10:15 AM ET | John Aloysius Farrell | Permanent Link | Print

Well, we can pretty much forget about President John McCain reaching across the aisle and getting anything done with a Democratic Congress in the next four years.

By choosing to run such a false and dishonest campaign, McCain has performed superbly, teaching liberals and Democrats to hate him.

And Republican right-wingers, if they push McCain across the finish line, will justly believe that they have him on their leash.

There will be no bipartisan goodwill if McCain takes office. No end to the bitter division in this country. Americans will hate Americans. The nation will continue to drift.

The tone of McCain's campaign has taken care of that. McCain-Rove has replaced Bush-Rove. We will have four more years of malaise.

Until he abuses it and Congress and the country cut him off, President McCain will have the authority to carry on our intellectually bankrupt Cold War foreign policy. He may get us in a third or fourth war.

The Democrats may try to stop it, and then we'll all get to call one another jerks and cowards, while our military families pay the ultimate price and the Chinese and Russians and Iranians thank their gods we are such fools.

The Bush tax cuts will expire—even the good ones for middle-class families, small businesses, and research and development—because McCain will be bound by the all-or-nothing pledge he's made to the antitax zealots.

The Supreme Court? Don't kid yourself. If McCain fails the religious conservatives and their plans to make this a holy Christian nation by nominating anyone less than another Clarence Thomas, the Democrats will be the least of his problems.

But, no. He's a maverick, you say. He'll think of some wonderfully maverick-y things to do to shake that ol' Washington up. Why, he'll break with those mean party hard-liners.

Don't kid yourself, Shirley Temple. McCain's an old man. Vary from the conservative script—betray the almighty base—and he'll have Republican primary opponents lining up in Iowa and New Hampshire by the spring of 2010.

You think that Vice President Sarah Palin will help? She's a darling now. But consider what Romney and Huckabee and a dozen other rivals with white teeth and dark suits and their own presidential ambitions will be doing to her in the next two years. Or maybe what she'll be doing, to distance herself from McCain.

The country needs jobs. An economic rebirth. A better healthcare system. Reform of government. Remember the administration of George H. W. Bush? And how divided government worked then? There's our template.

Remember, when Bush compromised with the Democrats, how Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot stabbed him in the back? Remember Bill Clinton getting elected and Bob Dole's Republicans refusing to give him a single vote in the Senate? Remember Newt and the government shutdown? Remember wasting Clinton's second term on that ridiculous impeachment, while Osama bin Laden chuckled and schemed?

McCain has cut his Faustian deal. He may win the Oval Office, but his tactics will make it a pyrrhic victory. For all of us.

Tags: presidential election 2008 | John McCain | campaigns

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Reader Comments

An extra to my comment above...

I have remembered one of the records that was deleted. The way i see it, You are the American hating the American. Why don't you stick that in your juice box and suck on it???

Mambo dog face in a banana patch

wow. You don't have proof that McCain will desroy our country further, which seems to be the point of this article. He may be older but with the age comes experience and leadership Obama has not yet received. Who is to say that McCain will take what this country is raised upon and abuse it to the fulfillment of his own satisfaction? You sit on your pretty bums and enjoy your silly tea and toast while thousands are sent to fight and protect the core of our country- freedom. The war going on right now is a war with many harmful affects to the citizens of the United States. The main ones we face are never going to be repaired until we repair what started them. This presidential campaign turned into a racial debate. Its not a matter of color, or black and white. Its a matter of who will be the best. I honestly did not back up either side although i wavered towards McCain. The man deemed our next president will face many challenges up ahead. We will have to see if him and his pansy wansy friends may handle them sufficiently according to our countries needs. As this is a small attempt to express defence for a man who may not even know how to check his email, I know not the affect it may have on his behalf. As far as this country is run, I think its the worst its ever been.

Sometimes things get deleted and I am at a loss to what was recorded. All I have left to say is that we must continue to fight for our freedom no matter what other countries may think of us. We do this and our American way of life may continue. For as the line goes, "...eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die."

You are all hate mongers

Based on the comments depicted in this article i think that the writer of this piece is displaying the exact anti american sentiments that they accuse Mccain of portraying. Just becasue a man tries to win an election any way possible does not make him a guy who wants to wipe his ars with whatever is left of american dignity. Mccain fought for our country and i believe that he wouldve done the same in office as he did on the battle field. Mccain may be old and computer illiterate meaning he can never hunt me down for this pitiful defense of his honor but i believe that he does have americas's best interest at heart. I think too many people made this election about race and it was the classic example of people getting behind the minority. Think this through though if enough minority gather together to back one person they become the majority. This may cause an irreversible trend in the white house because after all once you go black you never go back and some how black and white don't go together and seeing as the president lives in a white house this may not be the best fit. And don't get me wrong i'm not racist i'm just a synic. I didn't really back either candidate and i did shift more towards obama's side. I think the whole political system is whack though i mean honestly the only way a man can get in the white house is if he has had a long career in butt kissing politics. The only people who t into the white house are those who have payed their dues and patted the right people on the back. Therefore anyone who enters the oval office has to over the long term pay back the people who helped them get there. Our current political system is the dumbest thing since baseball for blind kids

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John Aloysius Farrell is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. An award-winning Washington reporter, he has written for The Boston Globe and The Denver Post and is the author of Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century and an upcoming biography of the great American defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

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