Monday, December 17, 2007

A True Gift at Christmas Time

This is sort of an odd post for Christmas, it really has nothing to do with Christmas, but with life & love...
The other night we were watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" & there is a line that says: "It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages boxes, or bags!" & the Narrator responds, "And he puzzled and puzzled, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more."
To all of my friends who don't have Christmas in your heart, perhaps it is because you do not have LOVE in your heart. No, I don't mean one special person, but I mean, you have a hard time loving anyone.
This year I have learned a lot about myself, who I am; not who others tell me I should be. I have learned a lot about life, and how I want to live; not about how others think I should live.
Truely, I think that often times we look too closely at others. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is a huge issue in our society. We want because someone else has it, not because it is what we value or think will make our lives more pleasant. I have a beautiful home, and nice things. I enjoy entertaining and having people over. This makes my life more rich. I don't care that I don't live in a HUGE house with all of the luxuries that one person can have. I dont care what the person next door has. That shouldn't be a priority to anyone if it won't further you and your relationships.
I used to look at life and think that I wanted something different than what I have now. When in all honesty, my life is greater for the people that have touched my life & for the things I have accomplished. Not for how much "stuff" I have aquired. Not for the life that magazines, tv and movies tell me I should have.
Dave has taught me what TRUE LOVE is. I never thought that I was capable of true love. I ran from anything that looked that way. I was afraid of it. No, it isn't always easy for us, and yes, we have our own issues to deal with. But we are human. No one person is perfect. So to think you will find the "PERFECT PERSON" is an oxy moron. But to find someone who truely loves you, appreciates you & respects you in every aspect is something wonderful. And it is possible for those of you who stop looking, and start relying on God & his ability to do something great.
To my "step-kids"- Each day you teach me something about myself & teach me to be patient and kind.I know that there are days that I fall short, but I love you all with every part of me, and cannot imagine my life being any differently than it is...but just remember, that doesn't mean you get a free pass on your chores! ha.
Zachary has taught me perhaps the most about myself though. While he & I cannot communicate in the traditional way, there are times when I swear he looks at me & knows that I love him. To have him wrap his hand around mine or to kiss me on the cheek makes up for all of the frustration & heart ache. I can ask God "Why him? Why does he have this cross to bear" or I can simply know that God has a plan, whatever it may be, even though I cannot see it or understand it, and know that I am learning to be patient and kind, full of understanding.
To my friends who have so much strength, who have endured life's struggles and heartaches, and still stand before me & beside me. You all have been my rock; you are the people I go to when I am upset or feel I cannot carry on. Thank you for your friendship and for helping me continue on.
You see, for so long I have been treated as a weak-minded individual who cannot make a decision on her own. Someone who is flawed and doesnt deserve all of the good things life has to offer.
I have found the truth. I am happy. No one can take that from me.
I hope that during the Holidays, and entering into the new year you all will find what I have found and learn to be content...and Happy.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

What is Wrong with Young People??

So today I heard on Fox News that a group of NYU students said that they would forfeit their right to vote for a million dollars, or even an ipod Touch.
This disgusts me.

But then later on, those students said that it was because they feel disconected from the candidates and the main stream parties.

What do you think?

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Issues that Matter to Young Voters

In a poll done around this time last year the top three issues (for voters ages 18-30) were as follows:

  • Economy
  • Education
  • Iraq
The far, far right would have you believe that most important issue is the LIFE issue. The far, far left would have you believe that the most important issue is the environment. Am I to believe that the great two party system is out of touch with young voters? Because I do more and more every day.

When are both sides going to understand that those issues, while valid & important, are not what decides the election? The far right & the far left basically cancel each other out. In the end, the ones who are considered moderate or independent are the votes that decide on election night who will lead us for years to come.

Granted, in 2004 George W. Bush won with phenomenal numbers, but that's mostly because the country wasn't comfortable with a post-9/11 world being lead by John Kerry. Yes, the far right turned out in amazing numbers, but lets not forget that the far left has turned out in record numbers for their own as well (ie: Bill Clinton).
Why do you think the Clinton's run as moderates? Because they know that is how they will win elections.
I am so sick & tired of hearing about how so & so is the "true" conservative candidate. Based solely on their "pro-life" voting record? Great, Good for them. I am ecstatic that those people are 100% pro-life. But that issue alone doesn't win you a seat. Or the White House.
It takes more than that. It takes real, honest understanding of issues. It takes a drive to see our nation thrive & be what it once was...the envy of other nations for being the nation that was wealthy and blessed beyond belief. It also takes the character to reach across the aisle from time to time & work with the other side, because frankly, that's how you get the job done.
Ronald Reagan was capable of it. But all of the sudden anyone who does that in this day and age (a mere 25 years later) is considered a traitor.

I would like to see the Republican Party return to its roots. Let's be concerned with keeping our nation safe, our economy strong (& taxes low), as well as protecting the Constitution.
(a little side note for all of you, when our forefathers built our great nation, judges weren't supposed to be deciding things like the abortion issue, they were supposed to allow the states & the people to decide. They were supposed to interpret the law. Both sides of the table need Roe v Wade to keep their base motivated & voting. What a sad world we live in)
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Remember Barry Goldwater, our great Senator from Arizona?
He was for lower taxes, protecting our country & upholding the constitution. He never believed abortion was a decision for the courts. It was a STATES issue. I want to see that kind of man lead our country. One who believes in LESS government & more freedom. What a better place this world would have been had he won in 1964.

Let's stop talking about the *Reagan Revolution. The Reagan Revolution brought us Jerry Falwell & other intolerant hypocrates who had no use for people with a different opinion and didn't show God's love or mercy, but only cared for what notorioty they would gain. Ministers who use their pulpits to spit words of hate should carefully reconsider why they accepted the call in the first place.

Its 2007, let's start talking about the REAL issues, the REAL voters, and how we can make a difference and win 2008.

*For those of you offended by my comments on the Reagan Revolution, it was meant in no disrespect. I once told my father at the age of 4 that I was going to name my son Ronald. I have nothing but love & respect for President Reagan, may he rest in peace, but I wholeheartedly believe it is time to stop focusing on who we had as a leader, at a time when the world was VERY, VERY different, and we step up & decide who we will have lead the new generation, in our new world where we have even greater threats than the Cold War ever was.

Remember, only 6 short years ago our Nation's Capitol & NYC were attacked in a vicious, horrible way. Shall we repeat that because we can't unite to elect a candidate that can beat Hillary & keep us safe, as a nation?

Wake up & smell the coffee America. Before it's your hometown that's attacked.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Division Instead of Unity

After James Dobson's blatant excuse for "morals", stating he will sit out the 2008 election if Rudy Giuliani becomes the official nominee, I want to say that I am not going to church again until faith based leaders stop using their position to tell me how to vote. I am a Christian. I am also an intelligent human being.

I can make a decision for myself. I don't like when Sean Penn or some other liberal yahoo tells me how to vote or what to think, why do Republicans allow our Pastors to do the same? Is there a difference? Dont argue that its because Pastors are urging us to vote our morals; its the same for Tim Robbins. He wants to buy the world a coke & live in harmony. He is just "urging" you to vote his morals, too.

If you can't make your own decision on who you will vote for and you need the news media, Hollywood, a commercial or a pastor to tell you how to use your vote; you shouldn't be voting!!!

While I am definitely, without a doubt, 100% voting for McCain, Giuliani is not a bad second choice. At this point, anyone is better than a democrat. Lets just nominate someone that can BEAT the fearsome threesome (Hil, JE & Obama). And that doesn't mean Huckabee or Tancredo.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Damaging Morale





















I believe this goes especially for those senators & congressman running for President of the United States.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Sixth Anniversary of September 11th

Where were you?
I believe that we should still be seeing these images. Some liberals think that we have memorialized this tragic day for long enough.
I disagree. I think this day should live on in our hearts and our minds forver, so that we NEVER FORGET.

Usama Bin Laden to Address American People on 6th Anniversary of September 11th

The Associated Press & Fox News are reporting that there will be a video from Usama Bin Laden within the next 72 hours, directed at the American people.

The last time Bin Laden addressed the American public was just before the 2004 Presidential Election. Meanwhile, federal counterterrorism officials are analyzing a posting on an Islamic forum website that warns of "a special gift" to be given on the sixth anniversary of September 11th. The warning was posted Sept. 2 on a site frequented by radical groups and said in part that "there will be a special gift coming on the day of the blessed invasion of Manhattan."

Federal officials told FOX News they are trying to determine if it might be a specific warning or just part of broad chatter that has been heard during the last few months. Postings talking about "gifts" have been seen before in the days leading up to the anniversary of Sept. 11th.

---I for one am tired of living in fear. I am also tired of our country not being United as ONE. Remember, United we stand, Divided we fall. Perhaps a message from Bin Laden is what it will take for our country to stand together like we did after the attacks.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

John McCain Sings

John McCain says "Barbara Streisand has been trying to do my job for years, so now I'm trying to do hers"

Adopt-a-Jihaddist

i found this on foxnews.com & i laughed. LOVE IT!

If you were to ask the media to rank a list of evil things, Guantanamo detention center would be in the top five — beating out Adolf Hitler, suicide bombers, Dick Cheney, disposable diapers and fat children. Gitmo is their moral red herring: As long as they keep bringing it up, they can avoid any discussion of real evil in the world.

The American left says they hate Gitmo because they think war is bad, but trying to win one is worse. And to win one, you need to keep the bad guys off the playing field. But the American left also loves Gitmo, because it's their political fig leaf, the thing they hide behind when they've got nothing else.

But I'd be willing to close Gitmo, if you agree on my alternative: Let's call this "Adopt-a-Jihadist."

For the price of one cup of coffee a day — and not fancy blended coffee drinks like frappuccinos, though they are delicious — you can help save a grown man, like Mahmood.

Poor Mahmood. Since he was in his teens, he has been waging jihad against the criminal Zionist enemy. Yet today, he calls a 20 by 35-foot cell home, where he cannot even carry out a simple beheading. He lives on just three square meals a day, but he has so much love to give — and not just to 72 virgins.

Please — please! — Sean Penn, Michael Moore... are you listening? Won't you throw open your mansions to Mahmood and the other members of his terror cell? Their energy is infectious — some might even say it's explosive.

So please, adopt a beautiful, bouncing jihadist like Mahmood today. They're just dying to meet you.

And that's my gut feeling.

Greg Gutfeld hosts "Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld" weekdays at 2 a.m. ET. Send your comments to: redeye@foxnews.com

The Republican Debates in a Nutshell

  • Giuliani hasnt gotten over the fact that he is NOT the mayor of NYC anymore.
  • Huckabee thinks he's ironic and funny. This is actually quite annoying.
  • Romney is pulling an Edwards and trying to win on looks and charm. Which TOTALLY makes him qualified for the White House...huh?
  • Brownback. I love Jesus, but stop "thumping the Bible" -get the issues straight, and not just the social ones. No one wants a know nothing in the White House. Learn ALL the issues.
  • Tancredo is a racist idiot. I have never met a Tancredo supporter that I liked. Mostly because I don't like people who lack common sense...
  • Ron Paul hates freedom. (Chris Wallace made me so happy when he asked Ron Paul if he thought we should "take our marching orders from Al Queda?" LOVE IT!)
  • Hunter...does anyone really know who you are? Does anyone really believe you will win? (although I did REALLY appreciate his statement on the successes in Iraq over the last year, and with the surge -thank you McCain- and his appreciation for our Troops)
  • (Although he wasnt at the debates, I'm going to throw him in the mix): Fred Thompson is waiting to announce but I think he is alienating more would-be supporters than he is gaining them. National Polls are all over the place. Never believe the polls. Remember, just after the actual polls closed on Election Day, 2004 the national news media reported that John Kerry won; based on Exit Polling.

If you're American, you love freedom and you believe in less government and lower taxes, VOTE MCCAIN.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Prince Charming? Or Skewed Cartoon Version of the Men We Already Know?

I know that I typically use this blog as an outlet for political topics, current events and even faith sometimes. But tonight, something else is on my heart...and my mind. Out of need to express myself, but not being able to find my journal (as my entire being seems to be in a disheveled state whilst packing up mass amounts of "life") I am going to unload here on the internet.

I am 26 years old. I have had men who have "loved me," showered me with undying affection, etc, etc; yada yada yada, who have adored me and have been willing to give me the moon, should I ask for it.

Something is always keeping me from accepting this affection. Its not that these men are altogether terrible people (no one is perfect, I am included in this), they are not ogars (although it is rare that you will find that I am attracted to a man w/o physical imperfections or flaws); Brad Pitt has never been my type; or that they lack the ability to make me happy -most of the time.

I think my problem is more inward though. I am not sure how to make MYSELF happy. I don't know what makes me happy, so how can I expect someone else to know how? I have read the Five Love Languages, and to be honest, I couldn't tell you what my love language is.

Here is the "whoa is me" moment of the night (and then I promise to stop): I didn't receive affection in any form as a child, at least not often, so I think that as an adult I crave them ALL.

As an American female, we are told as girls that we should wait for our 'Prince Charming' -but then that dream is shattered when we realize that this cartoon version of what we are supposed to wait for is just that: a CARTOON. Its not real. Its insanity. If someone would have sat me down when I was 16, and still very much dreaming of my white knight on his gallant steed riding in to rescue me, and smacked me upside the head and helped that dream come to a screeching halt, would I be better off?

waiting for something that is in no way mirrored by reality wise? Is shattering some one's dreams of fairy tales a good idea? Is the reason that so many of my friends are still single because we have unrealistic expectations of men? Often times we whine, stating that men are the ones with the unrealistic expectations, looking for a mother more than a wife.

Remember in the old movies, men used to go to work and women stayed home with the children. Men went to work and provided. Women were the emotional, sometimes insensible creatures, while men provided the level headedness that is needed in day-to-day life. In the age of the metro sexual, effeminate, in-touch-with-his-emotions male, have we lost our sense of place in relationships? With single parent homes, two income households to keep up with the Joneses and such, are we pushing role reversal to a stressful wish list to build the perfect man, when perfection doesn't exist?

Do women think that Prince Charming is going to ride into our lives, sit down, shut up, go to work & bring home the bacon, be emotionally available at ALL times, help rear the children, be the head of the household, but also the tail? Are we being unrealistic in what we want? Are we being FAIR in what we're asking for? Do we even know what we're asking for?

As a woman who was recently asked, "Just how many boyfriends have you had?" -I have to look back and evaluate those relationships. Have I learned anything in the past 10 years? Have I really tried to better myself once a 'quirk' is pointed out? Am I afraid of commitment? (<---I threw this in for my friends who told me last Sunday that it is me, not the men)

Anyhow, I guess life isn't always easy to figure out. I could very well end up being my worst nightmare; 30 and SINGLE.

Pastor Barnett did a sermon once and he talked about learning to ride a horse before you actually bought the horse. It seems crude to relate marriage to riding a horse, but I will do it anyway. HA! I've taught myself to cook, I've read the books on being a Godly, supportive (and even prayerful) wife. Apparently there is something else I need to learn or do before I actually get married.

If I want to be married I can do that. If I want to be successful in marriage, and in love, I need to slow down and figure out what exactly He is trying to teach me.
All I know is that I am over Friday nights alone, and sitting by myself at church. I want someone to take care of...but also someone to take care of me.
Perhaps its selfish. But I am only human...

Monday, June 11, 2007

The Faith of McCain

Posted on Sun, Jun. 10, 2007
2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONMcCain reaching out to Christian conservative baseBy Matt StearnsMcClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - In his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Arizona Sen. John McCain is reaching out to conservative Christians, and many of them want to know how much McCain reaches out to God.
McCain has written movingly of how his faith helped him survive 5 { years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, but he says little about the current role of religion in his life.
"I think it's something between me and my creator," McCain said in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers. "It's primarily a private issue rather than a public one. ... When I'm asked about it, I'll be glad to discuss it. I just don't bring it up."
But in an era in which the Republican Party has become heavily dependent on conservative evangelical Christian voters conditioned to eight years of overt faith talk from many GOP politicians, including President Bush, some want McCain to deliver a more open discussion of his faith. Even Democrats, long regarded as the more secular party, this year have seen its leading presidential candidates openly discuss the importance of their faith.
McCain "seems to have a difficulty in discussing it in terms that people relate to," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a leading conservative evangelical organization. "I think people want a sense of where someone stands in their relationship with the Lord. I think George Bush was able to do that in the way he communicated, using terms that evangelicals are familiar with."
Many who agree with McCain's comprehensive approach to an immigration overhaul, such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., routinely invoke biblical imperatives in defending their stance. McCain doesn't.
Perkins and Gary Bauer, both key players in advancing the Christian conservative agenda in Washington, said they knew virtually nothing about McCain's religious life.
Pressed on the issue in the interview, the normally garrulous McCain haltingly - "I just pray the way most people pray" - but convincingly described a rich and fulfilling spiritual life.
Learned in childhood. Deepened in Vietnam. Nourished today by a redemptive Baptist church, daily prayer, generally in the evening, sometimes holding hands with wife Cindy, occasionally reading a family Bible, always seeking "guidance, comfort and wisdom in almost every aspect of my life."
McCain was raised an Episcopalian in a family that "observed our faith openly and without reservation."
In his memoir "Faith of My Fathers," McCain recalled the religious model his father provided: "(He) was devout, although the demands of his (naval officer) profession sometimes made regular church-going difficult. ... My father didn't talk about God or the importance of religious devotion. He didn't proselytize. But he always kept with him a tattered, dog-eared prayer book, from which he would pray aloud for an hour, on his knees, twice a day."
Comparing his practices to his father's, McCain said ruefully, "I'm not as devout or as good."
McCain has for years attended North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona. The church has about 6,000 members and is part of the theologically conservative Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest evangelical denomination.
Cindy McCain and two of their children have been baptized in the church. McCain hasn't: "I didn't find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs," he said.
McCain still calls himself an Episcopalian, but he said he began attending North Phoenix Baptist because he found "the message and fundamental nature more fulfilling than I did in the Episcopal church. ... They're great believers in redemption, and so am I."
"We encourage all our members to engage their world with their faith," said the Rev. Dick Stafford, the church's associate pastor. "That means they define the world they live, work and have a sphere of influence in, and try to live out an authentic faith in that environment. ... I think John's got an authentic faith. He has the same questions we all do about trying to find out what's right and living in accordance."
Marlene Elwell, a political activist who worked for McCain as a liaison to Christian conservatives until she left the campaign amid rancor a few weeks ago, nevertheless said she's convinced from conversations with McCain that he takes his church's mission to heart, prays regularly and "is a man of deep faith."
"There's a driving force that gives him a purpose in life greater than himself," Elwell said. "The greatest witness is how you live your own life."
McCain tiptoed near the subject on his campaign bus, saying, "I know this sounds schmaltzy and maudlin and everything like that. I'm not sure - have no idea - whether I'm intended to be president of the United States. But I know I'm being kept here for a reason, and that is to serve."
Gloria Haskins, a South Carolina state representative who's endorsed McCain, said she doesn't think his difficulty discussing his faith will hurt him with evangelical conservative voters, who make up at least a quarter of likely Iowa caucus-goers and more than half of South Carolina Republican primary voters, two key early voting states.
"I'd tell folks who would ask such questions of him to look to the Bible," Haskins said. "By his acts you shall know him. He has repeatedly shown a love of justice and mercy, which is a sign of someone with a deep, abiding faith and a love of God."
But while his reticence to talk openly of his faith may not hurt McCain politically, many observers said it certainly would help him if he did.
Given that his chief competitors for the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, aren't regarded as natural allies of Christian conservatives, "a positive religious proclamation would have a strong effect," said Don Aiesi, a political scientist at Furman University in South Carolina.
"They're looking for people who have faith that guides them in making decisions," agreed Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance.
McCain, told of that, pointed to his time as a prisoner of war, when a Vietnamese guard who had been kind to McCain etched a cross in the prison-yard dirt with his sandal one Christmas morning. The guard rubbed it out after the two had stared at it together for a minute or so.
The lesson has stayed with McCain ever since: "Wherever you are in the world, no matter how tough the situation is or how difficult, how despondent you are, there will be some way for your faith to lift you up and sustain you."

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Undecided?: WHY JOHN MCCAIN

John McCain is an experienced conservative leader in the tradition of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan.

"Common sense conservatives believe in a short list of self-evident truths: love of country; respect for our unique influence on history; a strong defense and strong alliances based on mutual respect and mutual responsibility; steadfast opposition to threats to our security and values that matches resources to ends wisely; and confident, reliable, consistent leadership to advance human rights, democracy, peace and security."
-Senator John McCain


He is a common sense conservative who believes in a strong national defense, a smaller, more accountable government, economic growth and opportunity, the dignity of life and traditional values.

  • America's Strength At Home and Abroad
    The world is a dangerous place, and we need a leader who is ready to assume the job as Commander in Chief on day one of the Presidency. No candidate has the experience or is better prepared for this task than John McCain. America is engaged in a war against violent Islamist extremism. A totalitarian enemy declared war on America, attacked our nation on September 11, 2001, and is committed to the destruction of the values we hold dear.

  • John McCain understands the importance of America's values and the need to protect freedom against the forces of hatred and despotism. As a Naval aviator, prisoner of war and a legislator who is a trusted leader on national security issues, John McCain understands that the first duty of government is to protect the American people and our freedoms. He has been on the front lines in advocating for a comprehensive strategy in the long war against violent Islamist extremism using all the instruments of national power.

  • While some have argued for wholesale retreat in Iraq, John McCain realizes that failure in Iraq would be devastating to U.S. national security. He has long believed that security must be established first for there to be any chance of political progress and civil stability. That is why since 2003 he has advocated for more troops and a change in strategy to give our forces in Iraq the best chance to succeed. He understands that we must not leave Iraq and the region in disarray, or it will be a security problem for the United States for many generations to come.

  • John McCain knows that America is a force for good in the world, and for peace and freedom to prevail our defenses must be second to none. He has been a strong proponent of missile defense, a larger Army and Marine Corps, and a broad-based strategy to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. John McCain agrees with Ronald Reagan that "peace through strength" is the best policy for America.

  • McCain on Smaller Government and Economic Prosperity
    John McCain agrees with the Reagan philosophy that Americans are not taxed too little, but rather government spends too much. That is why John McCain has been a forceful advocate for smaller, more responsible government.

  • Unfortunately, even a Republican Congress lost its way on this important principle - spending too much and growing the size of government. John McCain stood his ground even when it was unpopular, leading a tough and often lonely fight in Congress against pork barrel and other profligate government spending.

  • Washington too often serves special interests and ignores the interests of the American taxpayer. John McCain can be trusted to reduce the size of government and enact reforms that will make it more responsive and accountable, so that taxpayers' hard earned dollars can be used to meet national priorities, not the spending schemes of politicians more interested in their incumbency.

  • As President, John McCain will make it a top priority to balance the budget and get federal spending under control so that our children aren't burdened with a mountain of debt that will rob them of their future.
    As President, John McCain will pursue pro-growth economic policies. He believes in simplifying the tax code, keeping marginal tax rates low, and pursuing free trade policies to increase American prosperity and competitiveness. John McCain also believes that tax cuts work best when tied to spending restraint. Higher taxes and runaway spending discourage entrepreneurship, foster wasteful tax-planning and slow long-term economic growth.

  • The Dignity of Life and Traditional Values
    As President, John McCain will promote a culture of life in word and in deed. The dignity of life and our traditional values are under assault in a culture that is growing coarser and more indifferent to the inherent value and dignity of all human life. Since John McCain entered the Congress, he has been strongly and consistently pro-life. He supports the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and believes that the abortion question should not be decided by judicial fiat.

  • John McCain believes that marriage should be defined as a union between one man and one woman. He believes that the courts should respect the right of the people to decide this question.

  • As president, John McCain will fight to ensure that the law is on the side of families against the corruption and exploitation of children in the media and on the Internet.

  • John McCain believes judges should interpret the law, not invent it. As president, he will appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary.

A Leader for America
Whether in the military or civilian service, John McCain has never ducked a fight for his country or his principles - even when unpopular. Because of his courage of convictions and his experience, John McCain is ready to lead our great nation with the patriotism, principles, and strength that America deserves, the first day he assumes office.

Address on Immigration

John McCain - Address on Immigration

ARLINGTON, VA - U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver remarks to the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce at 10:00 a.m. EDT. Below are Senator McCain's remarks, as prepared for delivery:

"Thank you for this opportunity to share with you a few thoughts about the issue that has occasioned much debate in our country: illegal immigration and the failure of the United States to secure our borders. It is a serious problem that poses many challenges, and how we address it will impact directly the destiny of the great nation we are blessed to call home. Those of us privileged to hold elective office have the responsibility to secure our borders and change the immigration policy that has allowed this intolerable situation to persist: a nation at war, confronting an enemy that means to do us great harm, has failed to control its borders, tolerated for years an immense wave of illegal immigration, and is presently unable to discern from the hundreds of thousands of people who cross our borders illegally each year, who came here to work; who came here for criminal purposes; and who came here to hurt us.
"This problem cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Finding an effective, just and practical solution is difficult, but it is our work to do, on our watch. The politics of Washington have encouraged us to leave solutions to the toughest problems for another unluckier generation of leaders. Problems are left unsolved year after year, because we fear the political consequences of seriously addressing them or value their utility as political attacks in our campaigns. Illegal immigration and our porous borders are problems that we have, to our shame, ignored for too long because it was too hard and politically risky to solve. But the problem has grown too acute and dangerous to ignore any longer. To do nothing now would be an unconscionable abrogation of our responsibilities to defend the security, prosperity and values of our country.

"A number of us, Republicans and Democrats, and the President, have tried to meet this responsibility. We have proposed a remedy that, while imperfect as all compromises are, is, nevertheless, a serious, comprehensive, and practical attempt to secure our borders, defend the rule of law, help our economy grow, and make it possible for the United States to know who has entered this country illegally, and who among them have done so for purposes more nefarious than making better lives for their families. As the legislation is debated in Congress, many changes will be proposed and some adopted. Many already have been. I welcome any attempt to meet our responsibility to fix our broken borders and immigration system. Our proposal has provoked criticism from some on both the left and right. Compromises usually do. People of good will, who take their responsibilities seriously, argue variously that our ideas are too tough or not tough enough. I do not question the sincerity of their convictions or their purpose in proposing other ways to address the problem. There is one premise most of us agree on: the status quo is unacceptable. Our borders are unsecured, our laws our being violated, and our current immigration laws do not meet the needs of a growing economy. And while we argue over the means to solve the problem, we should respect each other's intentions.

"Both proponents and opponents of the legislation agree on another point: the last attempt to address the problem, made over twenty years ago, was a failure. The immigration reform adopted in 1986 simply granted amnesty to the millions of illegal immigrants living in our country, and did virtually nothing to improve border security. It is important that we avoid repeating these mistakes. A country facing an enemy as malevolent as the enemy we face must have effective control of its borders. And we cannot prevent further waves of illegal immigration without drastically improving border security. Those improvements alone will not stop people from coming here illegally, but without them, we cannot stem the tide of illegal border crossings by those who are simply fleeing despair and injustice or those who mean us harm. So we began by authorizing tough and effective measures to secure our borders, which must be operational and visually certified before other provisions to reform our immigration laws take effect.

"We will increase the number of border patrol agents up to 20,000. We will complete 370 miles of border fencing, and 200 miles of vehicle barriers, which will not be, as some critics have suggested, all that will be constructed. We will continue until we have protected our border with fencing, vehicle barriers, ground sensors, unmanned aerial systems, cameras, advanced communications systems and the most up to date security technologies available to us. New detention facilities will be constructed to hold those who have crossed our border illegally. We will institute a tough new employment eligibility verification system, tamper proof biometric cards to prove to an employer that foreign workers are in this country legally, and impose substantial fines on employers who hire someone without proper status. We will not admit one temporary worker or grant one undocumented worker a visa until the Secretary of Homeland Security can certify that these tough, new measures are in place.

"As imperative as these measures are, they will not alone ensure our control of immigration or enable us to know the identity, whereabouts and purposes of the millions of undocumented workers who are in our country now. To address those problems, we must recognize that as long as the job market in our growing economy offers opportunities to immigrants, they will come here, legally or otherwise, for the same reasons immigrants have always come here: to escape poverty and injustice, and seize opportunities so abundant in our good and blessed country. Moreover, our economy needs them. Ask any orange grower, restaurant manager or hotel owner in Florida. We have proposed a temporary worker program that will discourage illegal immigration by allowing more workers a legal way to come here to fill jobs that are available to them and have not been taken by an American. It is genuinely temporary. It grants each worker a two year visa that can be renewed twice but only after th e worker has returned to his or her country for a year. They will be granted a visa only if they prove a job is waiting for them, and it didn't come at the expense of an American worker.

"The most difficult problem is what to do about the twelve million or more undocumented workers who live and work here now. No critic of our bill has offered a serious proposal to round up all these millions, many of whom have children born in this country, and ship them back to their countries of origin. There is simply no practical way to do that, and most Americans understand that. We have proposed a way to encourage them to come out from the underground economy, submit to a criminal background check, pay fines, back taxes and prove they are gainfully employed in exchange for a visa that would allow them to continue working here. Getting these people to declare themselves and prove they have come here for a job, pose no security threat and have no criminal record beyond entering the country illegally will enable our security and law enforcement officials to concentrate their resources on those who have come here to threaten our way of life rather than embrace it. DHS Secretary Chertoff, who helped negotiate this legislation, has warned that two million people in this country illegally have committed serious crimes. If some of them attempt to legalize their status, we will apprehend them. If they don't, we can concentrate our efforts on locating them and not rounding up lettuce pickers, hotel maids, and babysitters. Most importantly, we can devote all the resources necessary to finding terrorists who have broken our immigration laws, like three of the terrorists who intended to attack our soldiers at Ft. Dix.

"Those undocumented workers who declare themselves, pass criminal background checks, prove their employment, pay fines, taxes, learn English and study American civics may be offered eventually, and I stress eventually, a path to citizenship. Critics of the bill attack this as amnesty and a special path to citizenship that is denied to lawful immigrants. Both charges are false. Amnesty is what we gave in 1986, and it didn't work. It was unconditional forgiveness for breaking our laws. Illegal immigrants broke our laws and they should pay a penalty for doing so. We impose fines, fees and other requirements as punishment. And if the path to citizenship we offer them is 'special,' it is because it is harder, longer and more expensive than the path offered to those immigrants who come here legally. Those undocumented workers who attain legal status are not automatically provided a green card and citizenship. The process could take as long as thirteen years, and will cost them thousands of dollars, require them to learn English and understand our laws and culture, return to their country and get in the back of the line - not the front, not the middle, but the back of the line for a green card. That is a fair, practical and humane way of dealing with the problem of twelve million undocumented workers. And if someone objects to it, especially if they are a candidate for President, they should have the responsibility and courage to propose another way.

"The situation as it currently exists is de facto amnesty. These people are here in numbers too large, diffuse and concealed to round up and deport, which even critics concede is impractical. They will stay here. They will work. And we won't have any idea how many of them are simply here to earn a living and how many are here planning an attack. It is a hard problem, and I understand that. But the choice is between doing something, imperfect but effective and achievable, and doing nothing. I would hope that any candidate for President would not suggest doing nothing. And I would hope they wouldn't play politics for their own interests if the cost of their ambition was to make this problem even harder to solve. To want the office so badly that you would intentionally make our country's problems worse might prove you can read a poll or take a cheap shot, but it hardly demonstrates presidential leadership. Americans are problem solvers, and they want their leaders to be problem solvers, and to show the same common sense, civic-mindedness, sense of justice and humanity that they do. We have a chance now to secure our borders and place effective controls on immigration that benefit all of us, and enhance our ability to apprehend terrorists before they strike us. It is a common sense, conservative approach to the problem. Is any office worth sacrificing the progress we can make now to solve this crisis? I want to be President to do the hard but necessary things: to protect our country and defeat its enemies; to solve our country's biggest problems on our watch and not leave them to a more responsible, braver, and wiser generation of leaders. I make one pledge to you that I will keep no matter what. I will never conduct my campaign in such a way that it makes our country's most difficult challenges harder to solve. I hope you will hold all candidates to that same standard. Pandering for votes on this issue, while offering no solution to the pr oblem, amounts to doing nothing. And doing nothing is silent amnesty.

"I know that except for a very few people on the fringes of our society, we all value legal immigration. And though the waves of people who have come here over the centuries have posed some challenges to our society, immigration has always proved in the end to be a great and valued part of the American story. Irish, Italians, Poles, Cubans, Japanese, Mexicans and people from every country in every corner of the world have come here, assimilated, and given America renewed vigor and opportunities. Most arrived destitute, worked at any job that would put a little food on the table, and then they rose, or their children rose to succeed in every profession. And they made this country great. No other country in the world has so successfully absorbed immigrants and made them an asset and not a problem. Even in many developed democracies today, immigrants are left in a segregated, unassimilated underclass and pose serious and threatening challenges to the prosperity and stab ility of those countries. Here, people arrive from everywhere, and are given the opportunity to become citizens of the greatest nation on earth, a nation that is based not on tribal identity or ethnicity but on an idea, the boldest, bravest, truest political idea ever conceived by man: that all people are free, and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights. As long as you embrace and defend that ideal, you are an American.

"How proud that makes me of my country. How proud that must make you. Florida is a living testament to the benefits of immigration, a great and prosperous state built in large part by immigrants who came here to escape tyranny and despair, live the American Dream, contribute to our greatness and defend our ideals. I am honored today by the presence of Miami's police chief, John Timoney, who arrived in this country from Ireland at the age of thirteen, and whose contributions to our country have earned our respect and gratitude. Florida has been well led by its most recent governors, my friends, Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush, both of whom have fought for immigration reform that protects our security, laws, economy, and values. I want to particularly salute former Governor Bush, for the recent column he wrote with the former chairman of my party, Ken Melhman, which made an eloquent and persuasive case for our proposal.

"As a country deeply rooted in a tradition of religious faith, we are taught to love our neighbors as ourselves. In the trackless deserts of Arizona, people who broke our laws, not to harm us but to possess for themselves the ideals and opportunities cherished here, are dying, led into the wilderness by unscrupulous smugglers of human cargo, and left to perish in an agonizing death. Allow me to quote from a newspaper article that put faces on a few of these forgotten people who died in the desert of my state in one year.

"'Maria Hernandez Perez was No. 93. She was almost 2. She had thick brown hair and eyes the color of chocolate.

"'Kelia Velazquez-Gonzales, 16, carried a Bible in her backpack. She was No. 109

"'John Doe, No. 143, died with a rosary encircling his neck. His eyes were wide open.'

"We can't let immigrants break our laws with impunity. We can't leave our borders so undefended that people who come here to hurt us can enter it as easily as someone following a dream of living in a great country. But these people are also God's children, who wanted simply to be Americans, and we cannot forget the humanity God commands of us as we seek a remedy to this problem. Over 200 illegal immigrants died in Arizona last year. We have a chance this year to prevent such terrible tragedies from occurring in the numbers they have occurred in the past. Let's do it. For the sake of security, justice, prosperity and humanity, let us do it.

"The United States of America, the greatest experiment in human history - powerful, prosperous, industrious, inventive, striving, madly in love with liberty, hopeful, generous and good - has been the ideal of my life. I have always loved her, but it wasn't until I lost America for a time that I realized how much I love her.

"I loved what I missed most from my life at home: my family and friends; the sights and sounds of my country; sports; music, information; the endless variety of American life; our hustle and purposefulness: our fervid independence; our hopefulness; and our confidence that we could make of our industry and talents a better life than we had begun, a better country than we had inherited.

"I missed all of it, very much, but I still carried her ideals in the habits of my heart. And because they were all I possessed of my country, I cherished them all the more. I cherished the honor of being a citizen of a country that was the last, best hope of mankind, the great refuge of those who sought escape from despair and tyranny on crowded, miserable steamers into New York harbor, on small rafts across the Florida Straits, and on foot across the punishing deserts of the southwest. I know why people want to come here. I once thought I would rather die than be denied my country for one more day.

"I want us to seize this opportunity to secure our borders, and change our immigration laws to meet the demands of our security, economy and values. I don't want to use the issue to make it easier for me to be President. I'm not running to do the easy things. So, I defend with no reservation our proposal to offer the people who harvest our crops, tend our gardens, work in our restaurants, care for our children and clean our homes a chance to be legal citizens of this country. They will have to earn it. They must come out from the shadows, pay their penalties, fees and taxes, stay employed, obey our laws, learn our language and history, and go to the back of the line and wait years for the privilege of being an American.

"Riayan Tejeda immigrated to New York from the Dominican Republic. He came with two dreams, he said, to become an American citizen and to serve in the United States Marine Corps. He willingly accepted the obligations of American citizenship before he possessed all the rights of an American. Staff Sergeant Tejada, from Washington Heights, New York by way of the Dominican Republic, the father of two young daughters, died in an ambush in Baghdad on April 11, 2003. He had never fulfilled his first dream to become a naturalized American citizen. But he loved his country so much he gave his life to defend her. Right now, at this very moment, there are fighting for us in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers who are not yet American citizens, or whose parents are not, but who have dreamed the dream, and have risked everything for it. They make me proud to share this country with them. They are my countrymen, and I am theirs.

"They came to grasp the lowest rung of the ladder of opportunity, and they intend to rise. Let them rise. Let them rise. We will be the better for it. Our America -blessed, bountiful, and beautiful - is the land of hope and opportunity, the land of the immigrant's dream. Long may she remain so."

Paid For By John McCain 2008

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Jon Kyl on Iraq & Congress

Crass-Test Dems
The choice to delay troop funding has put the Army in a crunch. By Jon Kyl

For the past two weeks, the U.S. Army has been scrambling to find the money to support our troops in the field because of Democrats’ decision to delay the emergency war supplemental-spending bill to score political points.A month ago, when the Senate first took up the president’s emergency funding request, military leaders warned that failing to finish the supplemental by April 15 would force the Army to begin cutting back on things like troop training and equipment. Despite this warning, Democrats insisted on delaying the bill by including an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal from Iraq, a provision they knew would guarantee a presidential veto. Then, instead of immediately reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bill and getting a final bill to the president so it could be returned to Congress for reconsideration, House leaders delayed appointing conferees for almost three weeks—three weeks during which the deadline for getting this funding to the troops came and went. Democrats finally passed the conference report, but they have now further delayed matters by waiting until April 30 to send the bill to the president.
Could it be this was intended to score political points by having its arrival coincide with the anniversary of the president’s “mission accomplished” speech? Meanwhile, while the Democrats delay, the Army has had to start cutting back on non-essential equipment repair and training to ensure it is able to fund our troops in the field and provide support to their families. Plans are also underway to temporarily redirect money from Navy and Air Force pay accounts to the Army’s operating account to support our troops in Iraq. If the Army fails to receive the money by May, it will be forced to take more drastic measures, including freezing new civilian hiring, releasing temporary employees, and canceling orders for parts, supplies, and services. An April 16 release from the Army notes that “[t]hese actions carry consequential effects, including substantial disruption to installation functions, decreasing efficiency and potentially further degrading the readiness of non-deployed units.” Setting arbitrary deadlines for withdrawing from Iraq is dangerous policy. It tells the terrorists that all they have to do is wait us out. It tells our troops that their efforts will not matter, since we will pull out of Iraq no matter what successes they have on the ground. And it tells the Iraqi people that we are not really committed to standing with them as they seek to reclaim their country.
Our new strategy has shown early signs of success precisely because the Iraqi people have seen that we are committed to standing with them for the long haul. Previously our troops would enter an area, subdue it, and then pull out, allowing the terrorists to come back in. Now, our troops enter an area, subdue it, and then, with Iraqi troops, stay there to prevent the terrorists from returning. A recent column in the Los Angeles Times illustrated the progress we’re making in Ramadi, where the Army has begun implementing our new strategy. Beginning last year with a build-up of U.S. forces near al-Qaeda strongholds in the city, U.S. soldiers and Marines joined Iraqis in an offensive to gain control of Ramadi. Throughout the process, U.S. troops established a number of bases and observation posts throughout the city to prevent the insurgents from returning. The results of these efforts have been encouraging. Attacks have dropped from approximately 20 to 25 a day to two to four a day, and enlistment in the police force is increasing. The whole of Al Anbar province has seen marked improvement of late: Tips to Coalition forces have risen significantly, U.S. troops are defusing 80 percent of IEDs before they can explode, and attacks have reached their lowest point in two years. Announcing we are going to pull out in less than six months, no matter what the situation on the ground, would dishearten our Iraqi allies and undo much of the progress we have made.
Pulling out of Iraq now would jeopardize our national security and endanger the Iraqi people. If the terrorists feel they have defeated us in Iraq, they will not hesitate to attack us elsewhere. Pulling out of Iraq would also likely result in a civil war that would cost hundreds of thousands of innocent people their lives. We have an obligation to try to make sure the Iraqi government is as stable and secure as we can make it before we leave Iraq.It is unconscionable to hijack the security supplemental funding bill to make a political point while the Army struggles to find the money to support our troops — but this is exactly what Democrats, through their delay tactics, have done. Congress needs to act immediately to send a bill to the president that funds our troops while leaving military strategy to our commanders on the ground. — Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) is the chairman of the Republican Senate Conference.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Curfew Eased In Bagdad as Safety Improves

Residents Return to Tea Shop and Amusement Park as Safe Zone Emerges
April 4, 2007 — - It's the question many people are asking -- is the troop surge in Iraq succeeding? It depends whom you ask. Sen. John McCain believes it is. He flew to Baghdad over the weekend, spent an hour in a market in the city center surrounded by heavy U.S. security, and then rushed to a press conference to announce that things are getting better.
"I believe we have a new strategy that is making progress," McCain said.
For the Republican senator from Arizona, there is a lot riding on the new Baghdad security plan. His presidential ambitions are more closely tied to the success of the U.S. surge than any other candidate's. For the citizens of Baghdad, the stakes are even higher -- for many, it is a matter of life or death.
One thing is certain: The security situation in Baghdad has improved enough that the Iraqi government is going to shorten the capital's imposed curfew.
Residents will be allowed on the streets until 10 p.m., which adds two hours to the cutoff time that existed when U.S. and Iraqi troops began neighborhood sweeps in February.
While Baghdad is still rocked by car bombs every day, a small area of relative calm has emerged in the city center, thanks to the stepped-up U.S. patrols and increased Iraqi checkpoints.
While it remains dangerous for Westerners to travel out of doors in the city, ABC's Terry McCarthy has spent the past week visiting five Baghdad neighborhoods where the locals said life is slowly coming back to normal.
Tea, Clothing and an Amusement Park
McCarthy visited Haifa Street, otherwise known as "Sniper Street," as it has long been considered one of the most dangerous parts of the city.
Now, people who live on Haifa Street say the violence is subdued enough that they can venture back onto the street. At one tea shop a group of men actually asked the ABC News crew to film them to show life as it returns to normal.
And the improved conditions are already starting to benefit business, according to one shop owner. "When people heard that it was safe they started coming out and spending money again," said Baghdad store owner Hussein Jihad.
Other signs of improvements: a mosque in Zayouna that was fire-bombed is now open for prayer, and Baghdad's biggest amusement park in Zawra is open again.
"It's safe here," said 12-year-old Abdullah. "There used to be some bullets, but not anymore."
Nobody knows if the small safe zone will expand or get swallowed up again by violence. But for the time being, people here are happy to enjoy a life that looks almost normal.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Thursday, March 29, 2007

National Review: What Really Happened in the US Attorney Mess

What Really Happened in the U.S. Attorneys MessA look at the case of Carol Lam.By Byron York
On Thursday Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the U.S. attorneys matter. Sampson’s appearance comes a few days after word that another top Justice Department aide, Monica Goodling, has informed the committee that she will take the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination if she is called to testify. In a statement, Goodling’s lawyer blasted committee Democrats, charging that chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy and others “have already publicly drawn conclusions about the conduct under investigation.”
The most incendiary charge leveled by Democrats, and particularly by committee member Sen. Charles Schumer, is that the Bush administration fired the U.S. attorneys to stop criminal investigations that targeted Republicans. The worst example, Schumer has alleged, is the firing of Carol Lam, the California U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted former Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham for bribery. Lam was fired, Schumer charges, to keep her from investigating others in the GOP. “The most notorious [case] is the Southern District of California, San Diego,” Schumer said on NBC’s Meet the Press on March 18. “Ms. Lam, the U.S. attorney, had already brought about the conviction of Duke Cunningham. It came out in the newspapers that she was continuing to pursue that investigation, and it might lead to others — legislative and others — and in the middle of this investigation, she was fired.”If that indeed happened, it would be reasonable to guess that there might be some clues in the more than 3,000 pages of e-mails and other documents pertaining to the U.S. attorneys matter released by the Justice Department. But that’s not the case. In fact, the e-mails show a much different dynamic at work. The picture that emerges from the evidence in the Lam case is of a Justice Department at profound policy odds with the U.S. attorney, preparing to take action against her, but at the same time ignoring or brushing off outsiders who criticized Lam on the very grounds that troubled Department officials. Added to that was a bureaucratic morass that made it impossible for the Department to do anything quickly. Together, those factors created a situation in which Department officials pursued a reasonable goal — finding a new U.S. attorney for Southern California — while denying to outsiders that they were doing it, taking far too long to get it done, and mismanaging its execution. In other words, it was an operation in which Justice Department officials did virtually everything wrong — except what they’re accused by Democrats of doing.A POLITICAL OFFICEIn 2001, for a brand-new Bush administration trying to move fast on many fronts, finding a new United States attorney for the Southern District of California wasn’t easy. Actually, finding any U.S. attorneys for the state of California wasn’t easy. Although they are officially nominated by the president, U.S. attorneys in each federal district — California is divided into four such areas — are traditionally chosen by the senior official of the president’s party in the state. Often that is a senator, but if there is no senator of the president’s party, the responsibility passes to the governor. And if there is no governor of the president’s party — well, the White House tries to figure out another way.That was the problem facing George W. Bush in California, with Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. The president’s solution was to rely on a selection committee headed by a man named Gerald Par sky, a Los Angeles investment banker who ran the Bush campaign in California and who also helped in the search for nominees to lower-court federal judgeships.It wasn’t an easy job; the position of U.S. attorney for the Southern District had been wracked by politics in the previous decade. In 1993, Bill Clinton replaced the Republican U.S. attorney, a career prosecutor and veteran of 20 years in the Justice Department, with Alan Bersin, a law professor who had no prosecutorial experience but who had been a classmate of Clinton’s at Yale and head of the Clinton campaign in San Diego. (Bersin pledged to vigorously pursue Clinton priorities like environmental law.) In March 1998, Bersin resigned to become head of the San Diego school system. The man who was thought to be the hands-down choice to replace Bersin was prosecutor Charles LaBella, but LaBella ruined his chances when he was chosen to lead the Justice Department’s investigation into the 1996 campaign-finance scandal. Frustrated with the restrictions put on his investigation by then-Attorney General Janet Reno, LaBella publicly called for an independent counsel — an act that deeply angered the Clinton White House. When the time came to pick a new U.S. attorney, LaBella was passed over. An interim prosecutor, never confirmed by the Senate, took the job.After George W. Bush took office, several names were mentioned for the job, including San Diego city attorney Casey Gwinn, who had the support of Republican congressmen from the area. By August 2001, a few more names were in the mix, including Charles LaBella himself and San Diego Superior Court judge Carol Lam. But months passed, and nothing happened. The word in Bush circles was that diversity concerns and political considerations were holding things up. “They had to have Asian-American women,” recalls one lawyer who was involved with the process. Lam fit that bill, but she was also an independent — not a Republican. In the end, though, she got the job; the Bush administration formally nominated her in August 2002, and she was confirmed by the Senate in November. It had taken the president more than a year and a half to place a U.S. attorney in San Diego.So a troubled selection process ended. But a troubled tenure began, a tenure that would end in December 2006, when Lam was one of the eight U.S. attorneys whose firings would become the latest scandal roiling Washington.IT DIDN’T START WITH DUKEThe key allegation in the Lam case is that she was fired because she was going to continue to prosecute cases that grew out of the Cunningham matter. But the documents release by the Justice Department show that officials there were dissatisfied with her work and were considering replacing her well before the first allegations against Cunningham ever arose, in a June 2005 story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.It all got started in December 2003, with an article in another paper, the Riverside, California Press-Enterprise. The story was headlined “Border Agents Face Uphill Fight: Even after arrest, prosecutions of smugglers are rare due to lack of resources,” and it quoted Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents the area, criticizing federal authorities for not prosecuting criminal alien smugglers. A month later, the paper published a follow-up story detailing how an alien smuggler named Antonio Amparo-Lopez had been arrested at a border checkpoint but later let go.Issa was disturbed by the story. On February 2, 2004 — 15 months before the Cunningham case began — he wrote a letter to Lam citing the Amparo-Lopez case and asking for “the rationale behind any decision made by your office to decline or delay prosecution of Mr. Amparo-Lopez.”Six weeks later, Lam wrote back, telling Issa to direct his complaint to the Justice Department in Washington. Two months after that, on May 24, Issa got a brief letter from Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, offering no explanation for Lam’s decision not to prosecute Amparo-Lopez. Moschella’s answer was, in full: “Based upon all of the facts and circumstances of his arrest, the United States Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Mr. Amparo-Lopez.”Unhappy with Moschella’s non-answer, on July 30, 2004 — still nearly a year before the Cunningham case broke — Issa wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft. This time, Issa was joined by other California Republican congressmen, including David Dreier, Chris Cox, Jerry Lewis, Dana Rohrbacher, Cunningham, and several others. “It is our understanding that on numerous occasions when the Department of Homeland Security has apprehended alien smugglers and have requested guidance from the U.S. Attorney’s office, they have been told to release these criminals,” the congressmen wrote. “It is unfortunate and unacceptable that anyone in the Department of Justice would deem alien smuggling, on any level by any person, too low of a priority to warrant prosecution in a timely fashion.”This time, it took the Justice Department six months to respond. When the Department finally got around to it, in a January 25, 2005 letter to Issa, Moschella defended the Department’s performance and offered no solutions. Issa grew more frustrated. “We were stumped in terms of getting information to explain the scope of the problem,” says Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the congressman. “We put the word out on the street that we were interested in getting more information about this.” Issa was hoping for a tip — perhaps from someone inside a law-enforcement organization — to give him the information he had been seeking. But even though the Justice Department was offering Issa no answers and no help, his complaints were apparently registering. On March 2, 2005 (still a few months before the Duke Cunningham case broke), as officials considered a proposal to get rid of all 93 U.S. attorneys in the country, Kyle Sampson, the attorney general’s chief of staff, placed Lam’s name on a short list of those to be replaced. Her name was put in the category of “weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors; chafed against administration initiatives, etc.” Sampson’s memo included the date on which Lam took her oath of office — November 18, 2002 — which meant that her four-year term would not expire until November 2006.Issa, meanwhile, kept writing letters. In September 2005, Issa and his fellow California lawmakers bypassed the Justice Department and wrote directly to President Bush, warning of “a crisis along the Southwest border that needs your attention” and specifically complaining about the San Diego U.S. Attorney’s office. Six weeks later, Issa got a brush-off letter from Candida Wolff, the president’s assistant for legislative affairs. Nothing was done.
THE BRUSH-OFFAfter more than a year of complaining, Issa had gotten nowhere. On October 15, he tried yet again, writing to Lam about another notorious alien smuggler, Alfredo Gonzales, who had been caught and not charged. “Your office has established an appalling record of refusal to prosecute even the worst criminal alien offenders,” Issa wrote. A week later, Issa and his fellow California Republicans wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, citing Lam’s “lax prosecutorial standard” and asking for a meeting to discuss their frustration.What Issa didn’t know was that officials inside the Justice Department shared his concerns about Lam. Several documents appear to confirm that: First, there was Sampson’s March 2005 memo listing the possibility of ousting Lam. Then, in January 2006, Sampson wrote a memo to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers saying, “I recommend that the Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. attorneys.” If the decision to fire them was made, Sampson wrote, then Lam should be one of those considered for replacement. In April 2006, Sampson wrote an e-mail to Miers listing Lam as one of the U.S. attorneys who should be fired.But none of that was public, and none of that was shared with Rep. Issa. But then, something happened to bring the problem into the open when Issa finally got the tip he had been hoping for. “We had a source in the Department of Homeland Security give our office a big stack of documents,” says Hill. Included in the documents were reports of cases logged by border stations in Lam’s district. There was case after case after case of smugglers being caught but never prosecuted. Issa was appalled.He gave the document to the Associated Press, which reported that “the vast majority of people caught smuggling immigrants across the border near San Diego are never prosecuted for the offense.” The story was then picked up by CNN’s Lou Dobbs. And that, finally, got the Justice Department’s attention.The revelations came amid increasing concern about the problem of illegal immigration. Suddenly lots of people wanted to know why Carol Lam wasn’t doing more. Even California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein inquired. And as they did with Issa, Justice Department officials told Feinstein that everything was O.K. “Please rest assured that the immigration laws in the Southern District of California are being vigorously enforced,” Moschella wrote to Feinstein — at a time when Department officials themselves were not at all assured that the immigration laws in the Southern District of California were being vigorously enforced.For her part, Lam argued strongly that Issa had gotten bad information, which he then passed on to the AP and CNN. “Representative Issa has been misled,” Lam wrote in a statement. “The document he calls a ‘Border Patrol Report’ is actually an old internal Border Patrol document, relating to a single substation, that has been substantially altered and passed off as an official report.”Issa did not accept Lam’s explanation. The cases were real, he argued. “Your failure to address the substantive issues raised in the memo is consistent with previous news reports and comments I have repeatedly heard from Border Patrol agents who work closely with your office,” Issa told Lam. Inside the Department, the reaction was skeptical, too. Shortly afterward, officials began a statistical study of Lam’s operation. The numbers showed that immigration prosecutions in the San Diego district had gone down since 2004, even as they continued to rise in other border U.S. attorney districts. “When you compare San Diego’s performance using 111 Assistant U.S. Attorneys…and New Mexico, with 59 Assistant U.S. Attorneys but still generating more cases than San Diego, it seems that San Diego should be doing much more,” said an internal email from the office of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.After the study was done, Kyle Sampson sent an email to one of McNulty’s top assistants. “Has [the deputy AG’s office] ever called Carol Lam and woodshedded her re: immigration enforcement?” Sampson asked. “Has anyone?” And the answer was no, although Lam surely knew that Justice officials were unhappy with her performance on that issue. A couple of months later, those officials were still studying her performance. “What is perhaps most striking to me is the fact that of the Southwest Border Districts [Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and South and West Texas], the Southern District of California is the only one that prosecuted fewer immigration cases in 2005 than it did in 2001 and 2002,” wrote one analyst. “Southern District of California is the only SW Border District to average a negative (-4.15%) rate of growth in the number of annual immigration prosecutions during the 2001-2005 period, which is all the more noteworthy given that with the exception of Arizona (which averaged just over 9% annual growth), the other SW Border Districts averaged double-digit growth rates over the same period.”The internal e-mails and documents indicate that unhappiness with Lam had finally reached a critical point inside the Department. There were concerns beyond the issue of immigration — Lam’s performance on the enforcement of gun laws was another troublesome area — and by Fall 2006, Justice began making preparations to replace her when her term expired in November. In December, the Department told Lam she was out. SLUGGISH, INSULAR, AND ARROGANTSo that is the story, at least as far as we know it now. The one factor that does not appear in the documents is the Duke Cunningham case, which Democrats claim was the reason Lam was fired. The only connection specifically alleged so far is a circumstantial one: On May 11, 2006, Sampson wrote a memo urging action on the Lam matter the day after Lam informed the Department she was pursuing an investigation that would target Republicans. In the memo, Sampson referred to “the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires.”Some Democrats have pointed to the memo as a smoking gun. But there are problems with their theory. The first is that Sampson wrote his memo in response to an inquiry the day before from the White House, and his note was basically a resending of an e-mail he had sent the month before. More importantly, the evidence shows that Sampson urged that Lam be fired in notes written in March 2005, January 2006, and April 2006 — all before Lam informed Washington of her prosecution plans. The notion that Lam’s most recent investigation was the cause of her firing simply doesn’t have much support in the documents.But the documents do reveal serious problems inside the Justice Department. The papers that have been made public show a Department that was sluggish, insular, and arrogant in its handling of the U.S. attorneys matter. Officials had no interest in hearing from critics, even those from the president’s own party, and they were not inclined to act until political pressure forced them to. All that is bad, and they deserve the criticism they get for it. But they didn’t fire Carol Lam to stop a criminal investigation.— Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

The Case for McCain

After speaking with conservatives, and following not only my heart, but my head, I know that McCain is the best man for the job in 08. I actually supported him in 2000, but once the primaries were over, I threw my support to President Bush.
(I obviously wasn't going to vote for Gore...ugh...)
I have been a long time fan of Senator McCain. I've also been quite outspoken about some of the things he's done/bills he's sponsored, but for the most part, I'm still a fan. He can't be all that bad, he's been in office since the 80's & he wins by such a large margin every election (in AZ) that I find it hard to believe that there are that many that disagree with me.
McCain is a Federalist. He believes in states rights, which limits federal governments role in the lives of american citizens. He's a nationalist. He loves America and gave up so much to become the man that he is today. There's something that he's not...and that's a coward. He spent years in a prison camp. He's spent years fighting in the trenches of the house & senate. He's got the experience. He's got the voting record.
Where do Giuliani and Romney stand on "conservative" issues? -Giuliani is far from being even moderate, especially when stating that abortions should be funded by tax payer dollars...HELL NO I WONT PAY FOR THAT! & Romney can't make up his mind...
I'm not saying McCain is perfect. I'm not saying he's got all the answers. I'm going to say exactly what I said about President Bush vs John Kerry, circa 04...
"At least we know where he stands. He'll tell you what he thinks, what he wants, what ought to be done, and then he'll do it. There's no turning back. No talking him out of it. He knows whats right and he acts on that."
That's what we need in America. To hell with opinion polls and surveys. Everyone in America is pissed off about something. Don't you see that we are as bad, or ever worse than that Democrats? When did Republicans decide it was okay to tear each other down, or to say that one issue is more important than the other? If we don't wake up, we are going to have a democrat controlled congress & white house.
Open up your eyes and realize that he's not pandering now. He's still a straight shooter. He's mended his ways (and this has been a long time coming, so everyone who wants to leave a nasty comment can save it) since the 2000 election. He's working hard to make sure our country stays free, strong, secure.
Do you think any democrat can or willdo that?

...Its not about right or left. Its about right & wrong. Who is right to lead our country?...

Slow Train Coming

Lexington
Slow train coming
Mar 8th 2007; From The Economist print edition

The last time he ran for president John McCain spent months rolling around New Hampshire in a bus, the Straight Talk Express. This time he has swapped the bus for a giant locomotive. He has hired high-price political consultants, some from the Bush entourage, tapped into a network of rich donors and established operations across the country. Yet the locomotive remains stubbornly stuck in the station.
Mr McCain is trailing Rudy Giuliani by as much as 25 points. His attempt to build bridges with the right has alienated his former friends in the centre without converting conservatives. And he seems to be dogged by bad luck—his recent announcement that he is going to run, for example, was marred by his faux pas about American lives being “wasted” in Iraq.
Why is the McCain express still immobile? The most important reason is the senator's outspoken support for George Bush's decision to send five more brigades to Iraq. This has not only put him on the wrong side of an unpopular war (two-thirds of the population oppose the “surge”); it has also strengthened the impression that he is speaking for the White House.
The other reason is his botched transformation from maverick to establishment figure. Mr McCain tried to turn himself into the inevitable Republican champion by mending fences with all the people he had upset in the past—from the Bush camp to the religious right to conservative activists. This made sense after his failure of 2000 (remember the old adage that Democrats like to fall in love while Republicans like to fall in line). But it is proving hard to pull off, with independents accusing him of pandering and conservatives still nursing their old wounds.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that Mr McCain will be static for ever. Mr Giuliani is a flawed front-runner. He has huge strengths as the architect of New York's turnaround and as the hero of September 11th 2001, to be sure. But he has equally huge weaknesses. His private life is tangled (his relationship with his son, Andrew, is so strained that he did not even turn up to his graduation). His business affairs are more tangled still. He has a foul temper and a mean streak as wide as the Hudson river. “Absolutely not,” was the response of Ed Koch, another former New York mayor and a political rival, to the suggestion that Mr Giuliani is a racist. “He's nasty to everybody.”
Mr Giuliani also seems unprepared for a national campaign. Last week George Will introduced him to the annual meeting of CPAC—a gathering of more than 6,000 red-meat activists—by saying that conservatism comes in many flavours, with Mr Giuliani the Thatcherite one. A nice point. But the former mayor then delivered a meandering speech that left the audience dispirited. His campaign may collapse as quickly as it inflated.
The Giuliani bubble is as much a proof of the weakness of the other anti-McCain candidates as it is a long-term threat to Mr McCain himself. The strongest competition to Mr McCain arguably came from Mitt Romney rather than Mr Giuliani (the rest of the candidates are midgets compared with the big three). Mr Romney has a long record of managerial competence—a huge selling point after George Bush's serial incompetences. He is also an efficient politician: his speech at CPAC was as smooth as Mr Giuliani's was ragged.
But the failure of the Romney campaign to catch fire is good news for Mr McCain. Mr Romney's Mormonism is proving more of a problem than many people expected: a quarter of Americans claim that they would not vote for a Mormon. But what is really damaging him is his opportunistic flip-flopping over abortion and gay marriage. If he is willing to pander on these issues as a candidate, might he not pander as president?
Conservative activists might warm to Mr McCain if they took another look at him. It is true that he has quarrelled with conservative pressure groups. But that is often because he sees them as obstacles to achieving conservative ends, such as a balanced budget or clean politics. It is true that Mr McCain refused to endorse the Federal Marriage Amendment. But he did so for the eminently conservative reason that these sorts of issues should be decided by the states rather than the federal government. It is true that Mr McCain has pushed for more federal funding for stem-cell research. But he has also been more consistently conservative on abortion than any of the other first-tier candidates.

Conservatism's best hope

Mr McCain has a rare ability to present conservative ideas in a language that moderates and independents can find appealing. He also has a rare ability to break with the conservative establishment on subjects where they are obviously batting on a losing wicket, such as global warming. This could make him the best candidate for reviving conservatism from its current dismal state—and also the best candidate for keeping conservatism alive in a Washington where the Democrats rule Capitol Hill.
Mr McCain has also often been right about the war. He was one of the first major politicians to call for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. He repeatedly criticised George Bush's tolerance of torture as a stain on America's good name. Even his support for Mr Bush's “surge” may not be as much of a liability as it appears. The bulk of Republican primary voters are in favour of giving the war one last chance; and Mr McCain's willingness to risk his political career over Iraq burnishes his tarnished reputation as a straight-talker.
His biggest weakness has to do with age rather than ideology. He will be 72 if he is elected to the White House, and his face is visibly scarred from bouts with skin cancer. But he has the energy and attitude of a much younger man, and seems to absorb energy from his audience. And he also boasts the most impressive biography in American politics. The McCain Express will not stay stuck in the station for ever.

Friday, March 09, 2007

The Coming McCain Moment

National Review: The Coming McCain Moment
Taking a second look
By Ramesh PonnuruNational Review

"I got some encouraging news this morning in the USA Today," says Sen. John McCain, holding a copy of the paper with his picture on the front page. "McCain firm on Iraq war," it says above the fold. He flips it over to show the rest of the headline: "despite cost to candidacy." "I can't worry about it," he says. "With something like this, you just can't let it concern you. The issue is too important."
Actually, McCain's campaign is doing better than it seems to be. It is true that the unpopularity of the Iraq War, and specifically of the surge he has long advocated, is dragging his poll numbers down. It is true as well that in many polls he is now behind Rudolph Giuliani.
But Giuliani is a useful opponent for McCain. The good news of the senator's season is that another rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, has so far failed to unite the Right behind him. In a McCain-Romney race, Romney would have most conservatives and portions of the party establishment behind him - and might win the nomination.
Giuliani is a different story. He supports taxpayer funding of abortion, sued gunmakers for selling guns, and went to court to keep New York City from giving the names of illegal immigrants to the federal government. Polls show that many Republican voters are unaware of these aspects of the former mayor's record. It is hard to see how he wins the nomination once they learn about them. In a three-way race, some people who prefer Romney to McCain will nonetheless back McCain to head off Giuliani. This year, then, a real threat to McCain has failed to materialize - and a fake one has replaced it.
McCain's apostasies from conservatism, unlike Giuliani's, are well known. The mayor's polls form a ceiling. McCain's could be a floor, if conservatives are willing to reconsider their view of him. If they do, then the current Giuliani moment will be succeeded by a McCain moment. I think conservatives will give him a second look - as they should.
It has become common to complain about the weak Republican field. Actually, it is a strong field. The three leading contenders are smart, competent, serious, articulate, and accomplished. (So is Newt Gingrich, who ranks fourth.) In some of these respects they exceed the incumbent. It just isn't a very orthodox field.
Romney, at least in his 2007 version, is the most conventionally conservative. If elected, he could make a fine president. But he has a big disadvantage as a presidential candidate: He is a Mormon. In December, a FoxNews poll found that 32 percent of voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate if he were Mormon. Speculation about the effect of Romney's Mormonism on his chances has centered on evangelical Christians' theological differences with him. But evangelicals were only slightly more hostile to Mormon candidates than the population at large. Democrats were much more hostile. So even if Romney's conservative social positions get him through the primaries, his religion is a liability in the general election. (It may be that many secular-minded voters consider Mormonism particularly alien and threatening.)
This is unfair to Romney, and to his coreligionists. But this country has elected a non-Protestant president precisely once in its history. If the Republicans were going into 2008 with a large margin of error, it might be worth finding out how voters would react to a Mormon candidate. But Republicans are not going into this election in a strong position. Nominating a Mormon is too risky.

RUMBLES LEFT AND RIGHT
Most of McCain's conservative detractors concede that he would be a formidable candidate in November 2008. They question his ideological bona fides. But it would be a remarkably narrow definition of conservatism that excluded McCain.
"I think the important thing is you look at people's voting record," says McCain, "because sometimes rhetoric can be a little misleading." Over the course of his career, McCain has compiled a pretty conservative voting record. Neither Giuliani nor Romney, as McCain implied, has a record to match. An objective observer looking at Bush and McCain in 1999 would have had to conclude that, based on their histories, McCain was the more conservative of the two.
The senator's reputation changed during his exciting, disastrous 2000 presidential campaign. During the previous years, he had become a true believer in campaign-finance reform. His attack on monied special interests, and his bitterness at the Bush campaign's attacks on him, seemed to pull him left across the board: on tax cuts, on the environment, on health care. The effect was to enhance McCain's standing with independent voters and journalists while repelling conservatives. What further soured conservatives was that they were then starting, for the first time, to take a strongly negative view of campaign-finance reform, hardening into the conviction that it was an assault on free speech (and particularly on conservative organizations).
Independent voters and Democrats gave McCain some primary victories, but without Republicans he could not win the nomination. Still, he was America's most popular politician, and for the next few years he continued to play the "maverick" Republican - and to reap the rewards in his press clippings, which annoyed conservatives at least as much.
From 2004 onward, however, McCain has been moving rightward again, emphasizing his support for the Iraq War and the War on Terror. So far, this move appears to have cost him support among independent voters and reporters without buying him many friends on the right. Conservatives still have the impression of him they formed when he was tacking left. Besides, even in the last two years he has taken some stands to which a lot of conservatives object.
The good news for conservatives is that some of McCain's un-conservative positions concern trifling subjects, and some of them have little ongoing relevance. (Some of them are important, though, and I'll get to them later.) After 9/11, McCain shepherded a bill to federalize airport security through the Senate. That's not an issue that's going to come up again. The corporate-accounting scandals gave McCain an opportunity to rail against malefactors of great wealth, which he took. He zinged Bush's Securities and Exchange Commission for its inaction and urged more transparency in executive pay. But he gives no sign of itching to impose more regulations now. He supported a scheme of taxes and regulation to fight smoking. His bill didn't become law, but it is no longer an issue since most of its provisions were adopted by the states.
Even campaign-finance reform isn't the issue it once was. President Bush signed McCain's bill, and the senator says he doesn't want any more legislation. "I think that we need to give this law a chance to work." He doesn't think the Federal Election Commission needs any new powers, although, like most Republicans, he does want it to crack down on "527 groups" that fund political ads.
McCain supported a "patient's bill of rights" that would regulate HMOs. But that bill has gone nowhere, and even if it passed it would not be a large step toward socialized medicine. It was small change compared with the gargantuan Medicare prescription-drug entitlement of 2003. (President Bush, and many conservative congressmen, supported that bill; McCain voted against it.)
McCain wants to make people who buy guns at gun shows pass a background check, ending what he considers a loophole in current law. Gun-rights activists have strong objections to this proposal. But they will have to measure his offense against Giuliani's past, and never-repudiated, advocacy of licensing gun owners.
Some conservatives hold McCain's participation in the "Gang of 14" against him. In 2005, most Senate Republicans, frustrated by unprecedented Democratic filibusters against judicial nominees, wanted to change the rules to prevent such filibusters. Seven Democrats and seven Republicans reached an agreement: The Republicans would leave the rules alone so long as the Democrats used the filibuster only in "extraordinary circumstances." There were good arguments for and against the deal, although there were no good arguments for the preening collective self-regard with which the 14 senators announced it. McCain notes that months after his intervention, the Senate confirmed both John Roberts and Samuel Alito. He thinks it "would have been almost impossible" to confirm them in the aftermath of a bitter fight over a rules change. "That's why they called it the nuclear option, the Senate was about to blow up." Conservatives might disagree with that assessment, while still regarding it as the type of prudential calculation on which allies can disagree.
In 2005 and 2006, McCain differed with the Bush administration about how to interrogate suspected terrorists. The senator, having survived torture himself at the hands of the North Vietnamese, understandably wanted tough anti-torture language put into law. The administration worried that such language, particularly if susceptible to creative interpretation, might make it impossible to conduct coercive interrogations even if they fell short of torture. In the end, Republicans reached a deal that preserved tough interrogations while addressing McCain's concerns.
That leaves three substantial issues between McCain and conservatives. The first is global warming. McCain has been a believer throughout the Bush years. Most conservatives have associated the fight against global warming with environmental zealotry and overregulation. But McCain has tried to come up with a free-market solution, and he is now emphasizing nuclear power as a way to fuel this country without emitting greenhouse gases. "I don't often like to imitate the French," he says, but France is right to use nuclear power. His proposal, with Joe Lieberman, may not get the balance exactly correct, but right now it looks as though McCain was more prescient than most conservatives.
McCain was one of a few Republicans to vote against Bush's tax cuts. He said that the tax cuts were fiscally reckless and too skewed to the rich. But he now accepts those tax cuts as a done deal. Reversing them now, or allowing them to expire, would constitute a tax increase, and McCain has never voted for a general tax increase. When I ask him whether there were any circumstances in which he would accept a tax increase, for example to get the Democrats to agree to spending cuts, he says, "No. None. None." It seems pretty clear that a President McCain would seek spending cuts before tax cuts. But if you take him at his word - and he is a man who takes honor seriously - he won't raise taxes.
Finally, there is immigration. McCain sees eye to eye with Bush on this issue. He thinks a guest-worker program would reduce illegal immigration, and that we should give illegal immigrants already here a path to citizenship since we aren't going to deport them all. A lot of conservatives want tougher border security, period. Nothing McCain can do now will please some of his critics. But if his bill passes this year, he may try to move on. Or he could try to mollify his reasonable critics by supporting an amendment. Last year, Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia proposed that the bill's border-enforcement provisions go into effect first, and be shown to work, before illegal immigrants could start on their path to citizenship. McCain is open to the concept.

A SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE
McCain gets a bad rap from social conservatives. He opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment on the theory that states should set their own marriage policies. But he opposes same-sex marriage, too, and says that he would support a constitutional amendment if the federal courts ever tried to impose it on reluctant states. As a practical matter, it is hard to see how any president could get such an amendment enacted without that type of provocation.
The senator has been rock-solid on abortion. Unlike anyone else in the race, he has a pro-life record stretching back to the early 1980s. Like President Bush, he says that the Supreme Court made a mistake in Roe; he goes further than Bush when he adds that the Court should overturn it. He voted to confirm all of the sitting conservative justices, plus Robert Bork.
McCain muddied the waters with one foolish remark in 1999. He was trying to make the point that the country is not ready for abortion to be prohibited, but in the course of trying to say that he said that the country wasn't ready for Roe to go. He corrected himself quickly, but that lone remark has been used to portray him as a secret pro-choicer or a flip-flopper.
He really has broken ranks with pro-lifers twice. In the early 1990s, he voted to fund research using tissue from aborted fetuses, and he now supports federal funding for research on embryos taken from fertility clinics. But he draws the line at stem-cell research involving cloned human embryos. He says that he would prohibit that, even mistakenly claiming that he has co-sponsored legislation to that effect.
Social conservatives think that Republicans have repeatedly betrayed them. At the highest levels of national politics, that's not true. The reason that social conservatives haven't achieved many of their objectives even though they have helped to elect a lot of Republicans over the last generation is that those objectives are hard to achieve. It has been slow work to fight the pervasive liberalism of the elite legal culture. But when President Reagan appointed Anthony Kennedy and the first President Bush appointed David Souter, they weren't trying to betray conservatives; they didn't know how those justices would turn out. McCain thinks that type of mistake can be avoided if presidents pick nominees who don't just say the right things, but have track records of judging soundly. He's right. Conservatives' reception of McCain shouldn't be colored by historical mythology.
For some conservatives, these discrete issues matter less than what they say about McCain's instincts. His friendly relations with journalists - one of his campaign aides was only half-joking in 2000 when he called the media McCain's "base" - often make conservatives suspicious. But McCain's steadfast support for the Iraq War, and his advocacy of the surge, belie the claim that he will do anything for good press.
Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist who has long clashed with McCain, says that the senator is worse than a flip-flopper: By voting right, tacking left, and then tacking right, he has shown himself to be devoid of principle. But as the foregoing review of his record suggests, most of McCain's zigzags have been matters of tone and emphasis, not changes of position. He hasn't switched his views as much as Romney or even Giuliani.
There are genuinely disconcerting elements to McCain's politics. He talks about cutting spending, but he rarely connects limited government to individual freedom. He is an inveterate moralist, which eludes many observers because he is concerned about honor rather than virtue. In many of the cases discussed earlier, his moralism slid very quickly into support for regulation: of campaign contributions, of tobacco, even of boxing. At times, his rhetoric about the need for individuals to subsume themselves in the life of the nation verges uncomfortably close to idolatry of the state.
But McCain's merits are considerable as well. He has been tough on spending, and been willing to ally with the most conservative members of the Senate to fight earmarks. He has been a stalwart free trader: "Since Phil Gramm left, there's no greater free-trader in the Senate than I am." (McCain supported Gramm's presidential campaign in 1996, and Gramm is supporting his now.) Curbing the growth of entitlements, he says, will be one of his top priorities as president. He has long supported personal accounts.
Leave all of that aside for a moment. For a lot of conservatives, the War on Terror is paramount. That's why some of them are willing to overlook Giuliani's faults. But if toughness on terrorism trumps everything else, with toughness defined as competent execution of the administration's basic strategy - and that's the way it has to be defined for this argument to work for Giuliani at all - then McCain is hands down the best candidate. He has better national-security credentials than Giuliani, having been involved in foreign policymaking for more than two decades while the latter has barely been involved at all. More than any other candidate, he has shown a commitment to winning in Iraq. He has supported it, indeed, more vigorously than Bush has waged it, and he has put his career on the line.
McCain has the moral authority to get a country that has grown tired of the war to listen to him, an authority President Bush has seen slip away. That isn't just because he is a former prisoner of war with one son serving in the Marines and another in the Naval Academy - although that helps. It is because he is not seen as playing politics with the war, as most Democrats and Republicans are, and he never will be.
Conservatives may need to reach some understandings with McCain before throwing their support to him: on the vice-presidential nominee, on immigration, maybe even on the number of terms McCain will serve as president. (He is 70.) But he can win both the nomination and the election. He is plenty conservative. And he deserves a long second look.
March 9, 2007