The Hollywood Liberal

Conventional wisdom watch: McCain edition
Conventional wisdom wellspring even-the-liberal Jonathan “war is good for children and other living things” Chait of the New Republic still sorta wants to have a beer with John McCain. Well, de gustibus and whatevs. He also says a McCain presidency would be the end of the Rove era. Lie is a harsh word. Perhaps he’s already started on the beer.

mmmmm, Beer

Even-the-liberal Jonathan Chait of the New Republic wants to have a beer with John McCain

Eight years ago, I was a hard-core liberal McCainiac. Here was a Republican saying things no other Republican would say and fighting, Teddy Roosevelt-style, to wrest his party from the hands of the plutocrats who controlled it.

…

Today, he is none of these things. … McCain not only claims not to have altered his views for political convenience, he has preposterously made his alleged refusal to do so the central theme of his campaign.

Yet, somehow, I still feel some pangs of affinity for the old codger. Where Bush is peevish, entitled, and insecure, McCain’s charming, ironic, and self-deprecating. Bush’s path to public life was trading on his father’s name to run a series of business ventures into the ground before being handed a baseball team. McCain’s was an episode of awe-inspiring perseverance*

As opposed to, well

Yes, people put far too much stock in the candidates’ personalities. (I’d vote for an obnoxious, pampered phony who shared my beliefs over a charming war hero who didn’t.)

I’m sure that’s a comfort to whoever else might be running.

It’s understandable that Chait wants to leave the last eight years behind – no matter how quickly you managed to sneak out of your A-list war when the buffet table came crashing to the ground, everyone knows you went as George Bush’s date – but desperation is just not attractive

The Bush presidency is like being married to a sociopath. A McCain presidency would be more like being married to a drug addict — however badly he behaves, he could always sober up.

um. Sure thing, champ.

Which, sadly, is where things move from simple self-delusion to something a bit less factual than that:

The best aspect of a McCain presidency is that, while it would probably follow the policies of George W. Bush, it would put an end to the politics of Karl Rove.

I’m guessing he’s sure of this because McCain has Rove’s entire campaign apparatus working for him he’s up to his ass in lobbyists the Rove ad team at the RNC are funding and producing “independent” smear ads against his opponent McCain is actually moving towards George Bush on the issues Jonathan Chait says so, and he’s (to quote fellow war enthusiast Judith Miller of the Times) always f*cking right. For instance: earlier this month, he triumphantly recalled a prediction from early February

I really need to start blogging my predictions. I’ve been telling people for weeks that Rick Davis’s firing [Davis, parenthetically, wasn’t actually fired] was inevitable. Chris Orr and I were even planning to start an office betting pool on when he’d be gone. It happened even faster than I thought.

Anway, let me now go on the record to say that another McCain staff shake-up is, if not inevitable, very likely. McCain’s staff is just too factionalized to remain stable unless McCain is consistently winning. And Schmidt is a Bush 2004 veteran who lacks the deep emotional ties to the candiate that other McCainiacs have. I predict that at some point, probably just before or just after the convention, there will be a move to “Let McCain be McCain,” and new boss Steve Schmidt will be replaced with either John Weaver or Mike Murphy, to try to recreate the magic of the 2000 campaign.

How’s that working out so far?

The elevation of Steve Schmidt — who worked closely with Karl Rove — at Mr. McCain’s headquarters represented a sharp diminishment of the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been Mr. McCain’s campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago.

The shift was approved by Mr. McCain after several of his aides, including Mr. Schmidt, went to him about 10 days ago and warned him that he was in danger of losing the presidential election unless he revamped his campaign operation, two officials close to the campaign said.

The move of Mr. Schmidt is the latest sign of increasing influence of veterans of Mr. Rove’s shop in the McCain operation. Nicolle Wallace, communications director for Mr. Bush in the 2004 campaign (and in his White House), has joined the campaign as a senior adviser, and will travel with Mr. McCain every other week.

Greg Jenkins, another veteran of Mr. Rove’s operation who is a former Fox News producer and director of presidential advance in the Bush White House, was hired by Mr. Schmidt last week after a series of what Mr. McCain’s advisers acknowledged were poorly executed campaign events.

but at least Karl Rove isn’t directly involved

Mr. Rove, who was Mr. Bush’s senior political adviser until he left the White House last year, was said by Mr. McCain’s advisers to have offered advice in recent days to Mr. Schmidt and others on how to get Mr. McCain’s campaign on track, but has stayed mostly on the periphery. Mr. Rove is aware, his associates said, that his own legacy could be helped should Mr. McCain win the presidency.

but, you know, probably just until Mr. Murphy and Mr. Weaver get there

Republican circles have been awash with rumors for weeks now that Mr. McCain would seek to bring Mike Murphy, a longtime friend and adviser who helped direct his 2000 campaign for the White House, back into the fold. Mr. McCain’s advisers, noting the deep tensions between Mr. Murphy and many of the people in Mr. McCain’s inner circle — including Mr. Davis and Mr. Schmidt — said such a development was highly unlikely.

Similarly, Mr. McCain’s aides said it was unlikely that John Weaver, another longtime McCain friend who left in the midst of the last shake-up, would return. “Not enough bayonets to make me do this,” Mr. Weaver said in an e-mail response to a question.

Whatevs. So not the point.

Beneath his wildly fluctuating ideological positions, McCain is an establishmentarian Republican. Unlike Bush, he cares about elite opinion. He is comfortable sharing power in the traditional postwar style rather than monopolizing it. He might not be another Teddy Roosevelt, but right now another Gerald Ford doesn’t look so bad.

The idea that McCain could establish a reputation as a maverick by standing up to his party on numerous issues, win back his party’s support by abandoning nearly all his heterodoxies, then prevail by portraying himself as an unwavering man of principle is nauseating. Yet somehow the idea of a McCain presidency itself doesn’t terrify me. What can I say? Bush has lowered my standards.

Four more years of Bush/Rove? Candidate’s not an honest man? Ain’t no thing, dude. The reason our “liberal” media has a sneaking tendresse for John McCain is that they’re convinced John McCain wants to have a beer with them.

*tru dat. Imagine what Admiral McCain’s unpopular academically- and behaviorally-challenged son (the grandson of Admiral McCain) had to overcome to get into the naval academy. Someone qualified with no connections, that’s what. Well, I’m sure they managed to find some other way into the Vietnam War.

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