The WaPo and the LAT both ran good front-page pieces today on John McCain’s new political problem. After having mended fences with some of the less-sane elements of his party, the Arizona senator and 2008 presidential candidate is suddenly finding himself losing support because of his opposition to torture. It’s a trend that speaks volumes about the GOP’s values.
Sen. John McCain’s bid to position himself as the natural heir to President Bush as a wartime commander in chief and to court conservative leaders in advance of his likely 2008 presidential campaign has threatened to run aground in recent days, as the two men clash over how to detain and try terrorism suspects. […]
In a reprise of criticism showered on McCain during his 2000 campaign, some prominent conservatives are branding him a disloyal Republican and an unreliable conservative because of his assertiveness on the detainee issue.
The senator’s actions “are blocking our ability to gain from terrorist captives the vital information we need,” said a front-page editorial Saturday in the Union Leader of Manchester, N.H., the largest newspaper in the state with the first presidential primary. Conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh said Friday that opposition to Bush’s approach “is going to go down as the event that will result in us getting hit again, and if we do, and if McCain, et al. , prevail, I can tell you where fingers are going to be pointed.”
That’s right; Rush Limbaugh told his national audience that McCain will be at least partially responsible for future terrorist attacks on the United States.
McCain’s resistance to Bush’s plan is also drawing fire from so-called religious leaders in the conservative movement. The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition and a vocal supporter of the administration’s proposal, said, “This very definitely is going to put a chilling effect on the tremendous strides he has made in the conservative evangelical community.”
Think about that for a second — an alleged Christian minister is angry with a lawmaker for opposing torture. This is what today’s right has come to.
I can’t help but laugh at the irony. Over the last several decades, the right has condemned the left’s approach to morality. You’ve no doubt heard the exhortations — liberals refuse to embrace moral absolutes; they believe “if it feels good, do it”; their “moral relativism” fails in large part because it lacks clear guidelines for personal behavior.
What American society needs, conservatives have told us for generations, is less moral nuance and more clear lines between right and wrong. The left’s inability to accept black-and-white decency continues to undermine Democrats’ standing in communities across the country.
Except now, when it comes to torture, everyone has switched sides. The left insists that torture is wrong; the right insists it’s occasionally necessary. The left sees moral absolutes; the right sees nuances and situational ethics. Perhaps the most common complaint from conservatives lately is that the left, on the issue of abusing detainees, isn’t morally relativistic enough.
I’m not sure when, exactly, the right started to believe “if it feels bad, do it,” but it’s right around the time the conservative movement lost its soul.