North Star Writers Group

If you look at any of the early polling for the 2008 Republican presidential race, you will see the same two names at the top: John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. I have no doubt that this is due to name recognition and a liberally biased media wanting to promote the two most liberal Republicans they can, rather than that the GOP rank-and-file are really all that fired up about either man.

Nevertheless, having that sort of attention builds its own momentum. And by the time the first primaries roll around a little more than a year from now, the GOP may find that it has no choice but to accept a liberal candidate (likely paired with a strong conservative running mate) in order to keep Hillary Clinton out of the Oval Office. That risk notwithstanding, I cannot in good conscience support John McCain. In fact, I find him to be fundamentally unsuitable and unfit to hold the most powerful office in the world for the following reasons:

Reason #1: Campaign finance. The President takes an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," so help him God. Yet by sponsoring the McCain-Feingold “campaign finance reform” law, Sen. McCain deliberately and knowingly trashed the First Amendment solely to protect incumbent congressmen and senators from electoral competition. There could not be a more flagrant violation of our most fundamental constitutional rights than to silence and muzzle political speech at election time. Yet that is exactly what he did with the help of his fellow politicians, President Bush (who was too scared of media backlash to veto it as he should have) and five Supreme Court justices (who didn't throw the McCain-Feingold law out as they should have). Someone so caught up in his own power that he would even consider, much less perpetrate, such an offense against the Constitution has disqualified himself from the presidency before ever running for it.

Reason #2: Media darling. In line with the above, anybody whose main constituency is the mainstream media is not suitable to the presidency. The main reason they supported him in his Constitution-trashing was that doing so would increase their power. The mainstream media would be the only outlet for electoral information, since much direct advertising would be illegal. And you can bet they would use this monopoly to aid (however informally, for the sake of plausible deniability) whatever candidates they wanted to win (liberals and Democrats).

Reason #3: GOP traitor. This logically follows the previous reason. McCain has gone out of his way to stab the GOP in the back, solely to curry favor with the media, who lovingly call him a "maverick" for doing it. If he thinks he can just swoop back in and get the GOP base to fall behind him, even with the specter of Hillary looming, he's got another thing coming. Those bridges have been burned and McCain cannot re-cross this Rubicon. Whatever conservative principles he may once have had, he threw away for short-term popularity, as we also see with his on-again, off-again relationship with President Bush, whom he alternately embraces and undermines, depending on which is most politically expedient at the moment.

Reason #4: Prisoner treatment. Senator McCain's behavior on the terrorist prisoner treatment bill has been nothing short of deplorable, if mystifying. I know what you're thinking as you read that: "But he was a prisoner in Vietnam! Who else would know better? How dare you pass judgment on someone who served, sacrificed and suffered so?" But that's exactly the point. McCain's personal history makes his position all the more incomprehensible. He admits that torture affected him, but then claims treatment of a less severe nature than what he received - sleep deprivation, noise bombardment, etc. - would have no effect on Al Qaeda captives. (Never mind how quickly Khalid Shaikh Muhammad cracked and sang like a canary.) Is he inadvertently saying that our present treatment is too soft to be effective? Or that the average Al Qaeda terrorist is mentally tougher than he was? Frankly, I've given up even trying to determine a coherent position out of this contradictory mish-mash.

The only rule in war against an enemy as ruthless as Al Qaeda is victory. And if McCain cannot bring himself to do what has to be done, for whatever reason, when the number one responsibility of the president is protecting the country as Commander-in-Chief, then he's not fit to hold the office. His past, however heroic and noble, and however much credit he deserves for it, is irrelevant.

It remains to be seen whether McCain can get the GOP nomination, and what he may do if he does not. If he's half the Republican he still routinely claims to be (though he rarely behaves like it), he'll fall in line and support the party’s nominee. If it's Giuliani, this is a distinct possibility. If it's a rock-ribbed conservative, I wouldn't count on it. Then it becomes a question of whether McCain launches a Quixotic, media-supported, independent run ala Ross Perot.

I certainly hope it doesn't come to that, but there is no way I'm going to presume it couldn't. And if the only way McCain can win over conservatives is to use the specter of Hillary – pointing out the only alternative is demonstrably worse – that says it all.

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