McCain stopped putting duty, honor, and country first

By Michael Gaynor

Unfortunately, heroism does not immunize a person from developing character faults with age as a result of overwhelming personal ambition or greed. Yes, John McCain was an American hero during the Vietnam war. So was former Congressman Duke Cunningham, now in prison.

King James Bible: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Mitt Romney understands that and he's spending his own money trying to save America's soul by preserving the Reagan coalition that transformed America and toppled the Soviet Union.

Sadly, liberal media darling John McCain craves the presidency so much that he's been losing his soul.

McCain's campaign seems to be based on the subliminal (and silly) premise that because he was shot down and imprisoned in Hanoi for about five years and survived two suicide attempts, voters should ignore liberalism, evidenced by McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Leiberman and McCain-Kennedy-Edwards and his opposition to the Bush tax cuts as well as his age (71), his medical history, his history of reckless behavior, his legendary temper, his shameful divorce of his first wife after she had a terrible automobile accident and he reached 40 and the obvious: being president is gruelling and ages a person fast (Ike had a heart attack and a stroke and finished second term younger than McCain would be if he is elected president and LBJ died before age 65).

McCain's been shamelessly lying about Mitt's position on the war in Iraq as well as trying to take the credit for military operation's there being back on track that belongs to President Bush, General Petraeus and the Americans serving in Iraq.

At least as bad, McCain's been lying about his secret contempt for United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and those conservatives whom he thinks "wear their conservatism on their sleeves."

Robert Novak:

"As John McCain neared his momentous primary election victory in Florida after a ferocious campaign questioning his conservative credentials, right-wingers buzzed over word that he had privately suggested that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was too conservative. In response, Sen. McCain recalled saying no such thing and added that Alito was a 'magnificent' choice. In fact, multiple sources confirm his negative comments about Alito nine months ago.

"McCain, as the 'straight talk' candidate, says things off the cuff that he sometimes cannot remember exactly. Elements of the Republican Party's right wing, uncomfortable with McCain as their nominee, surfaced the Alito comments long after the fact for two contrasting motives. One was a desperate effort to keep McCain from winning Florida. The other was to get the party's potential nominee on record about key issues before he is nominated.

"The latter want two assurances: first, that McCain would veto any tax increase passed by a Democratic Congress; second, that he would not emulate Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush in naming liberal justices.

"That is the background of conservative John Fund's Wall Street Journal online column Monday. He wrote that McCain 'has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."' In a conference call with bloggers that day, McCain said, 'I don't recall a conversation where I would have said that.' He was 'astonished' by the Alito quote, he said, and repeatedly tells town meetings, 'We're going to have justices like Roberts and Alito.'

"I found that what he could not remember was a private, informal chat with conservative Republican lawyers shortly after McCain announced his candidacy. I talked to two lawyers present whom I have known for years and who have never misled me. One is neutral for president, and the other recently endorsed Mitt Romney. Each said they were not Fund's source. They gave me nearly identical accounts: 'Wouldn't it be great if you get a chance to name somebody like Roberts and Alito?' one lawyer commented. McCain replied, 'Well, certainly Roberts.' Jaws were described as dropping. My sources cannot remember exactly what McCain said next, but their recollection is that he described Alito as too conservative."

McCain is a septuagenarian, but Mr. Novak's statement that McCain could not remember is simply assumption: McCain saying that he does not remember does not make it so.

McCain's publicly claiming that he would appoint justices like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Alito, but would he really appoint persons who would declare his "great" legislative accomplishment, the McCain-Feingold campaign "reform" law, unconstitutional and antagonize the leftist media and the Democrat Senators with whom he joined to pass McCain-Feingold and push (fortunately, unsuccessfully) McCain-Kennedy.

Mitt, speaking to supporters in Missouri: "All you guys are family. Don't expect to be part of the inheritance, I'm not sure there's going to be much left after this."

How much of the inheritance of the Republican Party if McCain finally wins the Republican presidential candidate and then the presidency and moves the party leftward?

Terry Jeffrey:

"While the liberal establishment may be conflicted over whether it wants Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee, there's no doubt which Republican it favors.

"John McCain is the liberal elite's go-to guy in the GOP. They believe he'll be there for them when they need him.

"That was the essential message of last week's New York Times editorial endorsing McCain for the Republican nomination.

"'With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field,' said the Times. 'We have shuddered at McCain's occasional, tactical pander to the right because he has demonstrated that he has the character to stand on principle.'

"What the Times is saying here is that it does not take McCain's conservative campaign-season rhetoric seriously. No, they're convinced the man on the Straight Talk Express is railroading Republican primary voters.

"Long experience has taught the Times to read McCain's sign language. No matter what contortions McCain undergoes to shape this language, its message is reassuringly constant from the left's point of view. It says: I am no threat to the liberal agenda.

"Two Senate votes taken a day apart are illustrative. On June 7, 2006, McCain voted against a cloture motion that would have allowed the full Senate to vote yes or no on the Federal Marriage Amendment. Then, on June 8, 2006, he voted for a cloture motion that would have allowed the full Senate to vote yes or no on the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which would have allowed Native Hawaiians to create a race-based separate nation within the United States.

"In both instances, McCain voted with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and against most Senate Republicans.

"McCain professed deep support for the underlying purpose of the marriage amendment, he just opposed allowing colleagues to vote on it. Conversely, he expressed deep opposition to the underlying purpose of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act — he just supported allowing colleagues to vote on it. Each time, McCain gave rhetoric to the right and material cooperation to the left.

"In the process, he demonstrated radical inconsistency in his willingness to defend federalism, a principal he says is at the core of his beliefs.

"The marriage amendment was designed to prevent unelected judges from overruling state legislatures and voters and manufacturing by judicial decree a right to same-sex marriage, such as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did in 2003.

"In a statement submitted to the Congressional Record, McCain acknowledged this and other extra-legislative challenges to traditional marriage, but said: 'I do not agree that all the above circumstances have made it necessary to usurp from the states, by means of an amendment to the federal Constitution, their traditional role in regulating marriage. I'm reluctant to abandon the federalism that is part of the essence of conservative political thought in this country.'

"On one day — June 7 — so great was his commitment to federalism he could not allow the Senate to even vote on an amendment that would require a two-thirds majority in both houses and then ratification by three-fourths of the states before it could become law.

"On the next day — June 8 — McCain's commitment to federalism was a bit more flexible. Now the threat to state's rights was an effort to create a new nation out of one segment of the population of one state of the union.

"'I have serious reservations about the wisdom of this legislation,' McCain said on the Senate floor. 'I am sure that the sponsors have good intentions, but I cannot turn away from the fact this bill would lead to the creation of a new nation based exclusively — not primarily, not in part, but exclusively — on race. In fact, any person with even a drop of Hawaiian blood would qualify to vote on the establishment of this new, legislatively created entity that would then negotiate with the Federal government of the United States and the state of Hawaii on potentially unlimited topics.'

"Nonetheless, McCain voted for cloture on this bill — which, after all, he had already shepherded through the Indian Affairs Committee, which he then chaired. The cloture vote failed with 56 votes, just four short of the needed 60. Unlike the marriage amendment, this bill would become law with simple majority votes in both houses and the president's signature. (It won just such a vote in the House in October, and has been reintroduced in the Democrat-controlled Senate.)

"McCain's deference to what liberal's wanted trumped his vaunted deference to federalism. When push comes to shove, would it be any different if he becomes president?"

Answer: No.

McCain's secret contempt for conservatives and obvious enjoyment of the leftist media's praise signal that he will NOT be appointing Justices like Chief Justice Roberts or Justices Alito, Scalia and Thomas.

Who would nominate persons who would overrule Roe v. Wade and return regulation of abortion to the states, where the Constitution put it, and modify Everson v. Board of Education to allow government to acknowledge God and support religion generally instead of being neutral between religion and irreligion, as the persons who wrote and ratified the Constitution and the First Amendment intended and America understood until 1947 — McCain or Mitt?

The answer is Mitt!

Mitt: "We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders — in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'"

McCain is the secular extremists' Republican choice.

"Recall the early days of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, during the fall of 1774. With Boston occupied by British troops, there were rumors of imminent hostilities and fears of an impending war. In this time of peril, someone suggested that they pray. But there were objections. 'They were too divided in religious sentiments,' what with Episcopalians and Quakers, Anabaptists and Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Catholics. "Then Sam Adams rose, and said he would hear a prayer from anyone of piety and good character, as long as they were a patriot.

"And so together they prayed, and together they fought, and together, by the grace of God ... they founded this great nation.

"In that spirit, let us give thanks to the divine 'author of liberty.' And together, let us pray that this land may always be blessed, 'with freedom's holy light.'

"God bless the United States of America."

Who said it?

Mitt Romney.

NOT The New York Times' favorite "Republican," John McCain.

© Michael Gaynor