Don't Tell a Soul

Matt Welch | September 3, 2008

Hearing last night's repeated (and, I think, politically successful) defenses of the Surge as a watershed judgment call separating the man (John McCain) from the boy (Barack Obama), it reminded me of something I noticed at the Democratic convention: The word "surge" was almost as rare as the name "John Edwards."

So what's the Republican no-fly-zone equivalent? My early vote has been for "campaign finance reform," which remains deeply unpopular among many Republicans, and deservedly so. Fred Thompson last night did a gandy-dance around the term in this section of his speech:

What I remember most about those years is sitting next to John on the Senate floor as he led battle after battle to change the acrimonious, pork barreling, self serving ways of Washington.

The Senate has always had more than its share of smooth talkers.

And big talkers.

It still has.

But while others were talking reform, John McCain led the effort to make reform happen - always pressing, always moving for what he believed was right and necessary to restore the people's faith in their government.

Confronting when necessary, reaching across the aisle when possible, John personified why we came to Washington in the first place.

It didn't always set too well with some of his colleagues.

Some of those fights were losing efforts.

Some were not.

But a man who never quits is never defeated.

Tonight is "Reform" night here, so we'll see. Considering that I doubted we'd hear much about Michael Moore, and then Joe Lieberman smacked that pinata right out of the gate, I'll probably turn out wrong.

Comments

|9.3.08 @ 4:56PM|#

I often wonder if the campaign finance nuts even believe their own shit anymore. As we watch the two candidates spend like 100 million a piece on getting elected and Congress becoming an oligarchy of mediocre sons and daughters of other politicians, does anyone really beleive in this crap or do they just cling to it out of stuborness? I think with McCain it is the latter.

Fritz|9.3.08 @ 8:15PM|#

"But a man who never quits is never defeated."

Ha! That might be the best slogan for the whole damn election.

|9.3.08 @ 11:51PM|#

Oh... Romney speech. He thinks everyone is an idiot.
He blames our friendship with Saudis on liberals. These are Bush's friends, remember? Is Bush liberal? As if the entire energy policy for decades wasn't the republican idea.
What a hypocrite. I want to puke.

Big spending by Washington - by whom, you mormon moron? It was your republican president and his republican junta: Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, Gonzalez.

"America is strong because of the ingenuity" where is this ingenuity is coming from? Straight from God maybe? Or from universities, the bastions of evil liberalism? Name one industrialized country that does not run education and health care on tax money. Our current wealth is the return on investment made by JFK into the government programs in science and math.

"Opportunity rises when children are raised in homes and schools that are free from pornography, and promiscuity, and drugs, where there are homes that are blessed with family values and the presence of a mom and a dad." Thank you, genious. I did not know that. Liberals, they think that pornography and promiscuity was good for children.
Just look at that moralist Romney. As long as there is a dad, a pregnant teen is fine. Two wives is fine, particularly if the second is richer than the first.
What best defines republican leadership is the bigotry. "Values" - with the "wide stance" in the public bathroom. "Pro-life" - with a million dead Iraqis. "Compassion" - for Katrina victims.
"Conservatism" - with biggest cash flow to Pentagon in history.

Oh... compared to this horrible Romney character, McCain is not such a bad choice after all. At least McCain found the solution for my health care costs: We will import cheap drugs from other countries. We will outsource the last industry - pharmaceuticals - where the US has the edge. What a brilliant mind. Original. Being a conservative, I'd rather stay home and conserve my energy than vote for any of these clowns.