— A President Barack Obama, named by the National Journal as the Senate’s most liberal member in 2007, who campaigns as a post-partisan uniter on not only race but ideology — saying dismissively: “A liberal, oh he’s a liberal — a liberal. This is what I would call old politics. This is the stuff we’re trying to get rid of. . . . Those old categories don’t work”?
— A President Clinton or Obama who favors raising income taxes, corporate taxes and Social Security taxes? Who supports socialized medicine and expanded government regulation of the economy? Who — either of them — is one of the most pro-union candidates ever to seek the presidency?
— A President McCain who believes we should “stay strong” and “never surrender” in Iraq, or a President Obama or Clinton seemingly as invested in our defeat there and in the broader Islamofascist terror war as their ideological precursors were invested in our defeat in Vietnam? Indeed, a President Obama or Clinton effectively denying the Koranic sanction and inspiration for jihad?
— A President McCain rated one of the Senate’s most conservative members, or a President Obama who has broken with liberal orthodoxy in no discernible major area?
— A President Clinton or Obama totally enrolled in global-warming extremism, or a President McCain willing to take certain steps in the global-warming area while recognizing some may vastly overstate the human role in warming?
— A President Clinton or Obama who fails to comprehend (a) the meaning of the uprising in Tibet in this Olympic hour, (b) the importance of a Colombia free-trade pact, or (c) the consequences of defeat in Iraq — or a President McCain fully engaged and tuned-in?
We’re talking necessity here, if not conviction. So it is indeed time for hypercritical conservatives and business types to get over it — to bury their egos and their lingering hesitations or reservations — and support a John McCain with the appeal to the moderates and independents that any national Republican has to have to prevail against a lunatic leftism.
Then, with a President-elect McCain on his way to the White House, there will be plenty of time to focus on more crucial issues in the public arena — such as who really was responsible for the deaths of Dodi Fayed and Princess Di.