Over at NRO Victor Davis Hanson reminds us, in his attempt to make McCain appear palatable to conservatives, just how much the Republican Party has taken conservatives for a ride since 1980 (and, really, long before that):
It is understandable to lament the absence of conservative purity, but ahistorical to suggest that any recent Republican president would have met any of the litmus tests now demanded, given the dependency of the middle class on entitlements and its touchy-feely worldview.Reagan, and Bush I and II all adjusted to that unfortunate reality. A Democrat did not appoint Souter, O’Connor, or Kennedy, nor raise payroll and gas taxes in the 1980s, nor sign amnesty and de facto open-border legislation in 1986, nor, later, increase federal spending well past the rate of inflation, or offer amnesty again in 2007. Tax cuts were great, but without caps on spending they were unfairly slurred as revenue reducers once deficits soared. Recent Republican congressional scandals mirror-imaged some of the Clinton-era roguery.
Reagan’s pragmatism on taxes, amnesty, new federal programs and government expansion, was continued by both Bush I and II. In that regard, McCain seems a continuum, not an abject disconnect. His problem is mostly temperament — when he strayed he was blunt about what he was doing and sometimes gratuitously offended his base in a way that neither Reagan nor the Bushes dared. That is a legitimate concern of tactical aptitude, but not one so much of ideology.He also never was a conservative idealist that voiced conservative themes on the campaign trail which he could not enact once elected. But in terms of judicial appointments, foreign policy and the war, and federal spending, he is not much different from any of the prior three Republican presidents, and might well prove tougher, given his age and occasional contrarianism. We worry over his immigration stance, but his former mistaken position was Reaganite to the core and reflected the Bush consensus. His new stance of closing the borders first would be a radical departure, and a conservative remedy.
Hanson doesn't seem to think the GOP's betrayal of conservatives is any big deal, which is why he thinks McCain wouldn't be such a bad choice after all. It just goes to show how serious Hanson is about his alleged principles.
Then again, this is the same guy who wrote that when it came to "serious questions--like the U.S. economy, the pathetic dollar, rising debt, etc." at this week's debate, "Dr. Paul, in this regard, had all the wrong answers, but alone raised the right questions." I wrote a very polite email asking Hanson what the "right" answers are, if not Paul's. Not surprisingly, he hasn't replied.
