McCain, please

Wednesday, 6th February 2008

The Spectator on why John McCain should be the next US President

The farsightedness of McCain stands in stark contrast to his Democrat opponents. Hillary Clinton, who voted for the war, has tried to maintain a responsible position on it. But under pressure from her left flank, she has committed herself to start bringing troops home within months of taking office. Barack Obama’s position on Iraq is simply that he opposed the war in 2002. He shows little if any appreciation of what is now at stake, six years on, and seems indifferent to the consequences of withdrawal. He is on record as saying that preventing genocide is not reason enough to keep US forces in theatre. It is a supreme act of egoism to think that personal opposition to a conflict exempts a whole country from its moral responsibilities. It would be unconscionable for America to abandon the Iraqi people in the face of an enemy that uses mentally retarded women as a delivery mechanism for its bombs. When it comes to Iraq, for all Obama’s Kennedy allusions, it is McCain who has been the profile in courage.

The internal politics of America are, of course, of less immediate interest to Britons, but the steady flow of American ideas across the Atlantic — from tax credits to Wisconsin welfare reform — means that domestic policy is also relevant. Here too McCain’s record is impressive. He has consistently stood against wasteful government spending and the corruption that it engenders. He appreciates the need for America to reform its entitlement programmes if it is not to place an unsustainable burden on the younger generation. On immigration, he is more interested in finding a practical solution to the problem than demagoguery. He favours technological and free-market solutions to environmental problems that ensure that economic growth is boosted — not constricted.

A second Clinton presidency would, it is clear, simply be the restoration of a duumvirate that left the White House in disgrace seven years ago. Barack Obama has certainly been an invigorating and inspirational presence in this primary campaign. But we can not support him for the same reason that he says that he is running: the fierce urgency of now. The stakes are simply too high to elect a president who does not understand the nature and importance of the struggle that America and the West are engaged in. McCain is the man.

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John E Morrissey

February 11th, 2008 1:09am Report this comment

A Brit visiting here in Florida told me that he and most Brits were outraged at the Guantanamo prison camps,and felt that it was a source of alienation between our two nations.When asked how these same Brits felt about Vincenamaros,answer came there none,a blank look substituting for comment.So a prison in Cuba for 200 or 300 of the most vicious murderers the world has ever known, where they are treated far better than they would have been in their home countries proves to you that Americans are heartless,but a prison on the same Island where a dictator has for the past forty years held tens of thousands, with thousands of summary execution and real torture is beneath notice.In the words of Jack Nicholson, "You can 't handle the truth".

william walsh

February 26th, 2008 4:09pm Report this comment

Its nice to see other people who understand we are in the beginning of WWIII, unless we somehow can stop these muslim terrorists soon. History does not always repeat, but in 1939 if the French army and air force which outnumbered the Germans, whose army was busy invading Poland, had invaded Germany in Sept 1939 there might have been a fast end to the beginning of wwii