McCain and the Crusading-crackpots

TAPPED:
"MCCAIN AND WAR. I loved this line from Michael Kinsley on John McCain: He 'has a unique genius for telling the truth from his heart and making people believe that he is lying. And these people are his supporters! They admire him as a straight-talking truth-teller, and they forgive him for taking positions on big issues that they find repellent on the grounds that he doesn't really mean what he says.' I do think, though, that Kinsley actually misses part of the dynamic here. He writes that lots of folks are eager to excuse McCain's misdeeds on the grounds that, 'Oh, he has to say that to get the Republican nomination,' where ''That' might refer to McCain's strong right-to-life stand on abortion, or his strong support for the war in Iraq, or his recent rapprochement with Jerry Falwell.'


On abortion and Falwell, that's correct. But with regard to the war, I think it's wrong. Many Democrat-favoring journalists forgive McCain's views of foreign policy because they agree with McCain's views on foreign policy. McCainiacs have gotten a little cagey about this point since the constituency for their views has dwindled to about seventeen people, but if you look up the classic works of left-wing McCainism from the heady days of 2002, it was pretty clear. Here's Jon Chait making the case: "