UGLY
AND GETTING UGLIER
It
is indeed hideous how quickly and shamelessly the publicists
of the neoconservative Right are hailing the ascension of
John McCain as the de facto frontrunner in the race
for the GOP nomination. Why it seems like only yesterday,
as I noted in my column, that John Podhoretz was gleefully
if implausibly proclaiming:
"George
W. Bush won the Republican presidential nomination last night
in Iowa – not because he received over 40 percent of the
votes there, but because John McCain received only 5 percent.
McCain may win New Hampshire a week from today – he has to
if he's even going to go on through the end of February – but he's basically toast."
Today,
Podhoretz, past editor of the New York Post and son
of neocon nabob Norman, is proclaiming
the opposite just as avidly:
"John
McCain will be the Republican nominee for president. Barring
some really catastrophic error on his part, he is on an inexorable
path to coronation at the GOP Convention in Philadelphia on
Aug. 2."
A
FICKLE BUNCH
Podhoretz
briefly acknowledges his previous prediction with an "oops"
and breezily waves "bye bye Dubya." What a fickle bunch these
neocons are! Making the case for "Why McCain Will Smash Bush,"
as the headline that graced his column framed the issue, Poddy
averred that the Bush campaign "was always built on a tower
of sand" – and this might not be such a bad thing after
all. Whereas before Podhoretz was likening McCain to such
phony liberal "populists" as John Anderson and Gary Hart,
now we are told that McCain's authentic populism is attracting
Democrats and independents "by the thousands." Besides, everyone
realizes that the ruthless Gore will rip Dubya to shreds in
the debates, and this prospect, along with the sin of having
addressed an audience at the politically incorrect Bob Jones
University, is cited by Podhoretz as reason enough to abandon
ship.
NO
TIME FOR LOSERS
But
the real reason, of course, is that it looks like Dubya is
a loser – and nothing causes a mass defection of neocons
and establishment "conservatives" quicker than the odor of
defeat. For this means that the one and only goal of this
crowd – access to power – is unattainable, if their
present course is maintained, and so they are shifting gears,
effortlessly dumping Dubya without regrets or even acknowledging
that this is what they are doing.
BILL
KRISTOL'S REVELATION
If
Podhoretz is a little late in jumping on the bandwagon, Bill
Kristol – editor of the Weekly Standard and the
little Lenin of the neocons
– didn't waste any time. The New Hampshire vote totals
had barely been announced before Kristol was out with an op
ed piece in the Washington Post headlined: "The
New Hampshire Upheaval: Bill Kristol Declares the Conservative
Movement 'Finished.'" The voters of New Hampshire had not
only rejected the Republican frontrunner, they had also ushered
in "a new politics of the new millennium." Serious stuff,
but just wait: it gets heavier. For, you see, conservative
primary candidates had flopped miserably: "leaderless, rudderless
and issueless, the conservative movement, which accomplished
great things over the past quarter-century, is finished."
Wow! Not only is Bush finished, but so is the
conservative movement – and Kristol, the editor of a
magazine that has ceaselessly lectured, hectored, and presumed
to lead that movement is now moving on to greener pastures.
JUMPING
ON THE BANDWAGON
In
their relentless search to be on the winning side, the Weekly
Standard crowd has jumped on the McCain bandwagon bigtime,
with Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Bill Bennett joining Kristol and
his editorial sidekick, David "National
Greatness" Brooks, in hailing the McCain "insurrection."
This is not just a defection from the Bush camp, but a "Dear
John" letter to the conservative movement. Having moved from
the Hubert Humphrey-Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic Party
to become ardent Reaganites in the 1980s, the neocons have
been meeting increasing resistance from the conservative rank-and-file,
especially in the foreign policy realm. The Weekly Standard,
along with virtually every neocon of any consequence, called
for the spilling of Serb blood long before the bombs began
falling on Belgrade. Most conservatives, on the other hand,
took the exact opposite position, bitterly opposing that war
and challenging the globalist mentality that motivated it
When a conservative Republican Congress refused to support
Clinton's Balkan bloodsports, Kristol fumed that he would
have to leave the GOP just as the neocons had once left the
"McGovernik" Democracy. Well, now it appears that won't be
necessary: McCain has come riding in to save the day for Kristol
and his fellow interventionists, a man on horseback they hope
to ride all the way to the White House – even if it is
over the prone body of a decimated and badly split Republican
Party.
A
LITERARY INNOVATION
Kristol
and Brooks exult in their certainty that McCain is the leader
of an insurrection that is almost fated to succeed: McCain,
we are told, is the new Reagan, the new Newt Gingrich:. Never
mind that he is coming from the left, in terms of domestic
policy; instead, we are told that "the McCain insurgency is
not ideological. It does feature certain themes and principles,
but they are not yet fully developed into a governing agenda."
He might as well have added: But don't worry, Senator –
we'll be more than happy to help govern your agenda. Here
is an altogether new literary genre, one peculiar to our era:
the job application disguised as an essay. Surely this is
an innovation that finds its natural home in the pages of
the Weekly Standard.
HAIL
CAESAR?
While
admitting that the McCain "reform" crusade may be "demogagic
and hyperbolic," Kristol and Brooks credit the candidate with
having "reinvigorated" the concept of "citizenship," whom
they compare to John Kennedy. Their ode to McCain might well
have been entitled "Hail, Caesar!" For what they celebrate
is not so much the man's platform as the man himself. What
makes this piece especially interesting is that it so dramatically
illustrates the character of the McCain movement as a cult
of personality, with all factions of the "respectable" Right
and the Left seeing their own particular visions reflected
in the Great Leader. The liberals see the anti-corporate reformer,
while the neocons see the perfect reflection of their "Big
Government conservatism" as well as the virtual embodiment
of the martial virtues.
CUT
THE DOUBLETALK
It
is this last, of course, that really motivates Kristol and
his crowd. All this talk about "national greatness" and the
virtues of McCain as a role model for self-sacrificing youth,
this celebration of the candidate as a war hero, is really
talking in code. Never mind all this doubletalk about "sacrificing
for a cause bigger than yourself" – what the authors
of this piece really mean to say is that this is a candidate
who will not hesitate to lead his country into war. Why don't
they come right out and say it?
CULT
OF PERSONALITY
Forget
all that sanctimonious guff about "citizenship" and the "reinvigoration"
of America, it is McCain's militarism that makes the neocons
at the Weekly Standard swoon. Mixed up with the McCainian
cult of personality is an unmistakable militaristic streak
that goes far beyond a (perfectly legitimate) celebration
of soldiering as a noble profession. As Kristol and Brooks
put it:
"For
all his conventional political views, McCain embodies a set
of virtues that today are unconventional. The issue that gave
the McCain campaign its initial boost was Kosovo. He argued
that America as a great champion of democracy and decency
could not fail to act. And he supported his commander in chief
despite grave doubts about the conduct of the war-while George
W. Bush sat out the debate and Republicans on the Hill flailed
at Clinton.."
HIS
DREAM IS YOUR NIGHTMARE
This
is what the neoconservatives, the intellectual Praetorian
Guard of the Republican Party lo these many years, really
care about – foreign policy. That is why they can't
stand a loser, and why they are willing to ride on practically
anyone's back in order to make it into the White House as
advisors and policymakers of one sort or another. For while
the President must depend on a Congress that often has its
own ideas of how the country should be run, in the foreign
policy realm what we have is a presidential dictatorship.
Ever since Truman went to war in Korea without congressional
consent, each and every President has asserted his right to
dispatch troops around the globe without so much as a by your
leave to the elected representatives of the people. With McCain
in the White House – and the neocons presumably ensconced
in key policy positions – the dream of a "benevolent
world hegemony" held up by Bill Kristol as the goal of
US foreign policy in a famous Foreign Affairs article
could turn into one long nightmare.
PUSH
THAT POLL!
If
the Bush camp were nearly as opportunistic and desperate as
everyone says they are, they would attack McCain for going
out on a limb and not only supporting the Kosovo war when
most Republicans – and most Americans – opposed
it, but rabidly harping on the absolute necessity of introducing
American ground troops and occupying all of Yugoslavia. Kristol
and Brooks are correct that this batty idea is what made their
hero so popular initially with the liberal media – but
outside of the elites, this stance is a liability. Why don't
the Bushies bring this up with the voters? It isn't enough
to call up fifteen year old boys and tell them that John McCain
is a liar, a fake, and fraud, a "hero" with feet of clay.
You have to tell that kid, in no uncertain terms, that President
McCain is going to send him off to war, to fight and die in
some godforsaken jungle – maybe Colombia, maybe some
Balkan backwater, getting shot in the name of "national greatness."
Now that is the kind of "push-poll" I would really
like to see!
A
FANTASY
Or
how about a TV modeled on the one that attacked Barry Goldwater
as a mindless warmonger? ! With a voice-over giving us choice
quotes from McCain's bloodthirsty ravings on the subjects
of Kosovo, and the need to confront Russia, we could bring
back that little girl innocently picking flowers in a field
and then the countdown starts: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – KA-BOOM!
That mushroom cloud should do much to deprive McCain of any
chance at a coronation.
SEIZING
THE MOMENT
The
Bushies will never bring out the big guns, in part
because Bush signed on to the Kosovo war, contrary to what
Kristol and Brooks seem to imply. In the foreign policy area,
as in the domestic arena, Bush and McCain differ in degree,
not in principle. Both candidates agree that the US must play
the role of the hegemon, and that we have no choice but to
follow the road to Empire. McCain, however, represents that
faction of the War Party which seems to be in a very great
hurry. With new opportunities for expansion opening up all
the time, in the Balkans, in the former Soviet Union, and
especially in the Caucasus, there is a certain sense of urgency
among some to seize the moment and establish a global order
centered in the West. With the Soviet Union gone, and the
lack of any counterbalancing superpower to take its place,
the US/EU alliance feels free to rampage throughout Europe
and perhaps beyond, and McCain is their man – or so they
hope. Kristol and Brooks started out by saying that the McCain
movement was not really ideological, but that two themes could
be vaguely discerned through all the bromides,: big government
at home, and perpetual war abroad. As we are treated to endless
reiterations of McCain's personal "narrative," his life story
reinvented as modern myth, the political subtext couldn't
be clearer. This year, the most militant wing of the War Party
is running its own candidate for President, and his
name is John McCain.
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