Not Pretty
I'll just come out and say it - I am not a big fan of Christopher Buckley Jr. Like a lot of the better writers of the Right end of the American political spectrum he holds a lot of views that I don't agree with. But unlike many of those writers he has at least had the common decency to coat his distasteful views in tart language that made it much better to read. Having said that, I was impressed to read his commentary in today's New York Times of the current state of discourse on the Right surrounding the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain.
From the beginning of the campaign back in the 2005, he's been poo-poohed by the usual suspects (the Fat Idiot Limbaugh, the Cadaver Coulter, everyone on the payroll at Fox News). The complaints ranged from complaints about his age, to his "electability", but finally settled on his being not-Conservative-enough. This of course echoes some of the initial shots at Obama's not being "black enough".
aside: electability has become a very convenient method for shunting candidates out of political races. It's specifically used to marginalize candidates who may actually have a chance of swaying the electorate with their message. Take a Nader or a Kucinich whose actual policies overlap with the desires of the American people, they are deemed "unelectable" due to their appearance or the simple decision of the party bosses that it's "not their turn". Subsequently they get no coverage in the media - harken back to Mike Gravel's observation about the podiums at the debate that were so far to the end of the stage that they were effectively off camera. Which is not to say that all candidates are Presidential material but they deserve equal access to media so that the electorate can make an informed decision about their policies... but that's not what I wanted to talk about ....
Mr Buckley righfully calls out these folks, and expresses my own disgust at conservative mouth-peices in the process. He correctly points out that a lot of current cult of Reagan-worshippers had branded Ronnie with a lot of the same ephithets that are currently getting lavished on Mr McCain. Finally, he points out their out and out hypocrisy - which is the worst part of course. The glee with which some of these tin drums proclaim their desire to see the mess that the country is in land in the laps of the opposition begs the questions, "who got us into this mess in the first place?" and "how has the party of personal responsibility so quickly metamorphosed into the party of the hot potato?"
All of which is really nuts since for God's sakes McCain is in the end an old line Republican! McCain's major crime is his refreshing refusal to engage in the high school pettiness that the mainstream of the Republican party have been going in for lately. Of course this leads to the chorus of Mean Girls turning on him. Grow up, people! Co-sponsoring legislation with Democrats doesn't mean you agree with their every tenet. Condemning torture doesn't make you "soft on terrorism". Get a clue you mouthpeices and look forward to the first election in a good long time when most of us can look at either candidate and honestly say that we'd be fairly pleased to have either of them.