Arizona Senator John McCain, as the Guardian notes, may sense something in the wind:
Senator John McCain may have been in Bournemouth phsyically, but his speech to today’s Conservative party conference seemed to have a least one eye on the pending midterm elections in the US.
With little over five weeks to go before elections for the US Senate and House of Representatives, the man most likely to be the Republican candidate for the presidency in 2008 made two pointed references to affairs back home – attacking George Bush for being a big government conservative and seemingly being deceitful about the course of the war in Iraq.
Both times he accused Mr Bush – without naming him – of “hypocrisy”.
“Conservatives came to office to reduce the size of government and enlarge the sphere of free and private initiative. But lately we have increased government in order to stay in office.
“And, soon, if we don’t remember why we were elected we will have lost our office along with our principles, and leave a mountain of debt that our children’s grandchildren will suffer from long after we have departed this earth. Because, my friends, hypocrisy is the most obvious of sins, and the people will punish it.”
He also zeroed in on Iraq:
In his low rumble, he warned not to “attempt to placate public apprehension with false promises of swift victory and passing dangers”.
“They have seen enough of this war, in Iraq, Afghanistan and on our own streets to know better. We have an advantage over some countries. We serve a practical and stouthearted people. They can stand the truth better than they can stand deceit and hypocrisy.”
His comments are similar to comments that have been surfacing from traditional, Goldwater/Reagan Republicans. And they are coming within the context of a week when the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward’s new book “State of Siege” is coming up — a book that basically depicts the Bush administration as split, close-minded and deceptive.
You have to wonder, though, if McCain can achieve his presumed goal of winning the Republican nomination and the White House.
This kind of talk offends the Bushies and the lockstep-support Bush Republicans. The compromise on the detainee interrorgation bill issue turned out to be soundly blasted as McCain & Co giving Bush most of what he wanted, so he probably has lost some support from independent voters as well. So either McCain will have survived his political tightrope walk, or he have already fallen off. Stay tuned.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.