A Party of Feckless Bipartisans

By: Mr. Curmudgeon
mrcurmudgeon@inthepublicsquare.com

During a recent campaign townhall meeting, John McCain spoke to some very frustrated supporters.

“We want to fight, and I will fight,” said McCain, “but we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments. I will respect him (boos from the audience). No, no, I want everyone to be respectful. And let’s make sure we are because that’s the way politics should be conducted in America.”

Later, an elderly female McCain supporter, microphone in hand, said, “I can’t trust Obama. He’s an Arab...”

McCain interrupted the woman, saying “no mam, no mam. He’s a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with him on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.”

With only a few weeks until the general election, McCain has yet to articulate what exactly those “fundamental issues” are. Bipartisanship, which requires abandoning the conservative principles of limited government and individual liberty to find a middle way with leftist social engineers, has emasculated McCain and the majority of Republicans in a pathetic effort to disguise gooey-insubstantial political mediocrity as a gee-whiz, nice-guy “respect.” Respectful disagreement is, in fact, an important element of being a principled conservative, but it is neither the highest nor most important element. Principle and inflexible dedication to a worldview you hold to be true is the hallmark of honorable conservatism. And this quality is dreadfully lacking in John McCain. Where is the steady, tenacious, certain and courageous assertions of principle and right thinking that are the armor and standard of a man armed with Truth? Tragically, without principle, “respect” only metastasizes into spineless obsequiousness.   

Unable or unwilling to state his political principles (other than reaching across the aisle), McCain and the Republican leadership have surrendered the political fight of our life against Obama and the Saul Alinsky Leftists he represents to squirrel-gun toting crazies, like those who in their consternation and inarticulate fear call Obama a socialist, terrorist, or Arab. In absence of a clearly articulated line of defense for the Republicans, without any plan of attack or strategy of resistance (which is the foremost job of the Republican Candidate), the work of fighting the enemy falls on the disorganized and confused partisans and desperate fanatics who snipe at the enemy as his victorious columns pass unopposed on the highway to the capital city of our country. 

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true,” said Abraham Lincoln, “I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

McCain and the Republican leadership have gone wrong. Even if McCain wins the presidency, his misguided “respect” for the party of Roe v. Wade and his willingness to find common ground with those who wish to nationalize health-care, punish the productive, reward the slothful, and leave America defenseless in the face of foreign threat, these compromises make McCain a  party to the dismantling of the Constitution and a contributor to the accelerating downward spiral of moral character and political wisdom that is the growing virulent disease of our country.

Until Republicans muster the necessary words to draw clear distinctions between the party of Lincoln and the worldview of nanny-state Leftists, our two party system will continue to disintegrate—albeit “respectfully.” McCain’s courteous bipartisanship abandons the good fight for the future of our country to the Code Pink Left and the wild-eyed John Brown crazies on the Right. And like the death rattle of a nation in the pitch of a frightful fever, we will be mumbling like madmen as the enemy approaches to devour us.

--Mr. Curmudgeon