PUBLIC NUISANCES: John McCain Battles On/Hastert La Vista!
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
7 0 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 John McCain Battles On WASHINGTON READ FOUR NEWSPAPERS A DAY, occasionally more. I watch television news and listen to radio...
...By comparison with Senator Clinton, Senator McCain is wise and serene...
...Or as some nitwit anchoring the midday CNN news broadcast, "Your World Today,"putitwhenIwaswalkingpastatelevisionmonitor,"DoesthatmeantheBushadministrationisessentially over...
...Hastert, the retired high school wrestling coach, had no appetite for ideas...
...TheReaganerabeganasarevoltagainstthewelfare state and appeasement of Soviet aggression...
...Actually there is a retiring Republican who does deserveobloquy.InAugustitwasreportedthatformerSpeaker of the House Dennis Hastert is quitting...
...Yet never has Senator Clinton's volatile temper become a public issue...
...The foul mood coulddenyvoterswhatshouldbeastimulatingpresidential match-up, McCain against his Republican rivals and then maybe against the Democratic nominee.Ihavepartedcompanywithhimonhiscampaign finance positions...
...He becameSpeakerinDecember1998,afteradozenlackluster years in the House...
...Wrestlingisaverydemandingsport,andIwishHastert had stayed in the gym...
...And we are told that Fox News is biased...
...Until Republicans return to a politics of Reaganite ideas, they will be as antiquated as the Democrats and infinitely less interesting...
...The media fascinate me...
...Intellectuals such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, and--for a time--Daniel Patrick Moynihan were joining with Bill Buckley and Milton Friedman and suggesting new solutions to problems liberals ditheredover.Suchliberalscametobecalledneoconservatives--and frankly only these skeptical liberals whoeventuallyjoinedforceswiththeReaganitescan accurately be called neoconservatives...
...Whataboutstupid...
...On Iraq, he has shown the wisdom of a seasoned military mind...
...for instance, for years she has demanded that Secret Service agents carry her bags despite regulations barring them from doing so...
...That might give him the sustenance to keep battling for the Republican nomination, but it would put him at a disadvantage against the candidates who are flush with money and will not have to settle for federal funds, for instance, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney...
...Well,whohasbeenafinerpoliticalstrategistthan Rove was in 2000, 2002, 2004, and even in the defeat of 2006--James Carville or the Clinton administration'sothermachiavel,PaulBegala?Whiletheysweated to keep up with the arrant lies and other misbehavior of their playboy president, the Democratic Party went into its steepest decline since, roughly, the Civil War...
...In August the old combat pilot made it into the news with slightly increased frequency, but still the storieshadacharnelquality.First,therewerethestories about his age...
...His period as Speaker marked the Republican congressional delegation's final decay fromReagansplendortotheprovincialRepublicanism ofanearlierera.ThelateHardingagaincomestomind...
...For weeks the news stories about him have been few and fraught with pessimism...
...I have visited with her and like her...
...Call me a contrarian if you will, but the gloomy media mood shrouding the McCain candidacy is a reflection of the unseriousness inherent in the presidentialcampaignatthispointinthenewscycle.Byhistoric standards McCain is perfectly acceptable as a presidentialcandidate.HispresenceintheOvalOfficewould benosurprisetoDwightEisenhower,JohnF.Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan...
...Now the mood coloring the coverage of Sen...
...She could probably hit the campaign trail with him today...
...On the age issue, her son is right to boast of his DNA...
...The two Democratic frontrunners' presencewould.Beingonceafirstladyinthemostscandal-plagued presidency of recent memory or being a UnitedStatessenatorwithonlythreeyearsofservicein the Senate are not sufficient qualifications for the Oval Office.Infact,theyarethemostmeagerqualificationsof anyfrontrunnersinmodernAmericanhistory...
...In 1999 he released 1,500 pages of medical and psychiatric reports gathered since his release from that cell...
...Supposedly news stories are based on facts, but often more significant than the facts--pockedastheyarewitherrorandbiasedselection--is the mood...
...Yet Carville and Begala have gone on to become political sages within the media andwithnotaintofdiscredit.Botharerudeandvulgar and the political sidekicks of the American presidency'sclosestapproximationtoPresidentWarrenHarding, complete with sweethearts in the Oval Office, a bossywife,andapassionforgolf--thoughWarrenwas neverknownasagolfcheat...
...WASHINGTON SOMEHOW ROVE'S DEPARTURE must suggest his failure and disgrace...
...Stilltheoldcombatpilotbattleson,andfranklyI am in his corner...
...I write all this because the media's mood of pessimism and dismissal is ignorant...
...There have been rumors of his dreadful temper...
...I have not seen it...
...He deserves our trust that he can get through this war successfully with American national interests secured...
...The mood set in when his fundraising problems began...
...Hastert did preside over tax cuts and did help hammeroutlegislativeresponsestotheSeptember11 sneak attacks on New York and Washington...
...As for his age, he is going strong despite the daily demands of the campaign trail, his war wounds, and five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison cell...
...In fact, I have reported in columns and in my current book on her husband's life in "retirement," The Clinton Crack-Up, first-hand accounts from security personnel and innocent bystanders of herrages--throwingobjectsatherhusbandandstaff, cussing like a lowdown scamp, and causing unnecessary rows...
...I worry that when it comes to the P U B L I CN U I S A N C E S IR . E m m e t t T y r r e l l , J r . salutary economic benefits of tax cuts he needs constantreminders.Butotherwiseheisasolidconservative...
...The result was the Reagan administration, an amalgamofthebestoftherisingrightandtheoldliberal consensus developed at the beginning of the ColdWar.Itwasapoliticsofideas.IrvingKristolhad pronouncedmodernpoliticsthedomainofideasand he was right...
...He is always introduced in the news stories as "a former small-town high school wrestlingcoach,"andwhenImethimin1999helooked like a former high school wrestling coach to me...
...The mostintellectuallyagileliberalDemocratswereparting company with the ritualistic liberal conformists...
...7 0 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 John McCain Battles On WASHINGTON READ FOUR NEWSPAPERS A DAY, occasionally more...
...He allowed the Republican Party to return to the era of pork barrel deal making...
...He turned 71 this summer and if elected would be the oldest elected American president.Thenthereweretheironicstoriesabouthowhis impoverished campaign has sought authority to receive matching federal funds...
...I have known him since the late 1980s and never seen in him anything but a gentleman, a cheerful gentleman at that...
...He encouraged mediocrity and held back young principled Republicans of the Reaganite variety...
...Maybe it will, as her nomination to head the Democratic ticket puts her closer to control of the military and the Justice Department...
...I watch television news and listen to radio news...
...Hastert La Vista...
...I haveseenreportsofHillaryRodhamClinton'sdread-ful temper...
...It wasnotsimplyavisceralrevoltbyold-fashionedreactionaries but an advance by people who had analyzed sclerotic liberalism and found it incapable of responding to contemporary problems, for instance, cities that were increasingly ungovernable, stagflation in the economy, Soviet military growth, and subversion in what was then called the Third World...
...When it comes to patriotism, public service, and good citizenship, McCain is an exemplar hard to match...
...John McCain's presidential candidacy is bleak...
...No presidential candidatehaseverallowedsuchscrutinyofhishealth recordandfewwouldappearhealthier.Hismotheris now 95 years old, vigorous and sharp as a tack...
...When he speaks from principle, he is as unflinching as Ronald Reagan...
...R .E M M E T TT Y R R E L L ,J R . O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 7 1...
...Of course, both initiatives were pretty much devised by theBushWhiteHouse.Healsoopenedthefloodgates tocongressionalspending.Healsoturnedablindeye to the petty corruption that beset the House during his term...
...Many times the media suffer a collective mood swing that is more important than the facts they report...
Vol. 40 • October 2007 • No. 8
