McCain Appeal-A Far Superior Choice to the Democratic Alternatives.
Mackubin Thomas Owens updates his opinion of John McCain from eight years ago:
Eight years ago, I was writing a regular monthly column for the Providence Journal. On the eve of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, I wrote a column entitled “John McCain, the Anti-Clinton.” Although I supported George Bush during the primaries, I thought it was important to lay out the reasons for McCain’s appeal. I concluded that the main thing McCain had going for him was character, and after eight years of Clinton, this was not unimportant.
...I believe that what I wrote then is still relevant today. Many conservatives — Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the editorial board of National Review to name a few — have made clear their principled opposition to McCain. I am not enamored of his policies either. I would prefer Ronald Reagan, but last I heard, he isn’t running.
...if McCain is the nominee, he will still be a better president than the Democratic hopefuls. If he were the Republican nominee, I would support him on the basis of his likely policy prescriptions alone; as problematic as they may be, they can’t be any worse than that which will be pushed by Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
But McCain is far superior to the Democratic contenders on the basis of character and virtue. For instance, once the North Vietnamese found out that McCain was the son of the U.S. military commander in the Pacific theater, which included Vietnam, they offered him the chance to go home before his POW comrades. Had he accepted, it would have been a great propaganda coup for the Vietnamese communists. But he refused. That’s character and it ought to mean something even to those who are not convinced of his conservative bona fides.
Vote for Romney if you must, but if John McCain ends up the nominee, there’s no need for the party to self destruct.
Mackubin Thomas Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations.
