There’s probably little point to arguing that much of the political media establishment is embarrassingly in the tank for John McCain, but the Washington Post has been especially frustrating this week.
On Monday, for example, reporter Jonathan Weisman noted that McCain is faring well in national polls because he’s been “branded” an “independent maverick.” Suggesting that the reputation is deserved, Weisman mentioned, “[McCain] fought the GOP over tobacco in 1998” — without noting that McCain shamelessly flip-flopped on the issue.
On Tuesday, Richard Cohen sought to dismiss McCain’s flip-flopping ways, calling him an “honorable man who has fudged and ducked and swallowed the truth on occasion,” which Cohen described as “understandable.” (He didn’t say why McCain’s mendacity is “understandable,” but simply granted absolution.)
And today, David Broder, a long-time McCain ally, kept the streak going.
Yet, in pointing to those vulnerabilities in her rival, Clinton has heightened the most obvious liability she would carry into a fight against McCain. In an age of deep cynicism about politicians of both parties, McCain is the rare exception who is not assumed to be willing to sacrifice personal credibility to prevail in any contest.
Broder didn’t say who makes this assumption about McCain’s integrity, which is odd, because I can think of all kinds of examples of McCain “sacrificing personal credibility to prevail” politically.
Perhaps Broder could take a look at that flip-flop list I put together (and continue to update thanks to McCain’s penchant for changing directions). In nearly every instance, McCain abandoned a more moderate position for a far more conservative one, and in each case, it was a transparent effort to curry favor with the Republican Party’s far-right base in order to help him with the GOP presidential nomination.
Taking Broder’s analysis at face value, it’s literally true. McCain isn’t assumed to throw his credibility away to win an election, but therein lies the problem — he does it all the time, and gets away with it, precisely because of these faulty assumptions.
The way to hold McCain (or any other political figure) accountable is to highlight the cynical ideological shifts. Instead, we have Weisman, Cohen, and Broder doing the opposite.
Kevin, who’s a little more forgiving on the subject than I am, added some astute thoughts on the subject:
[I]t’s not as if the only way to fight this legend is by pretending that the polar opposite is true instead. McCain is hardly the most devious politician on the national stage. But there’s plenty of evidence that his MO is to get outsized credit for a very small number of mavericky stands while spending about 98% of his political life doing all the usual things that career politicians do. He hangs with lobbyists, he does favors for big contributors, he waffles on positions that might hurt him, he panders to constituencies whose votes he needs, and he very rarely takes a politically risky stand on anything. In other words, he’s just a normal pol with a really good PR shop.
And for all the talk about how ambitious Hillary is, does anyone really doubt that McCain has her well beaten on that score? He ran as a conservative bulldog in 2000, he moderated his positions and seriously considered switching parties to run as VP in 2004, and then switched back to Mr. Conservative afterward to prep for yet another run in 2008. McCain really, really, REALLY wants to be president. Isn’t it about time someone noticed that?
If Weisman, Cohen, or Broder wanted to tackle Kevin’s question, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.