The conservative case for McCain

Jeff Jacoby:

IT IS NOT news that much of the conservative base bitterly opposes John McCain and is appalled that the man they consider a Republican apostate could soon be the GOP's presidential nominee. From talk radio to the blogosphere to the conservative press, many on the right are outraged that what Mitt Romney last week called "the House that Reagan Built" - the modern Republican Party - might anoint as its standard-bearer the candidate who by their lights is the least likely to follow in the Gipper's footsteps.

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The conservative case against McCain is clear enough; I made it myself in some of these columns when he first ran for president eight years ago. The issues that have earned McCain the label of "maverick" - campaign-finance restrictions, global warming, the Bush tax cuts, immigration, judicial filibusters - are precisely what stick in the craw of the GOP conservative base.

But this year, the conservative case for McCain is vastly more compelling.

On the surpassing national-security issues of the day - confronting the threat from radical Islam and winning the war in Iraq - no one is more stalwart. Even McCain's fiercest critics, such as conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, will say so. "The world's bad guys," Hewitt writes, "would never for a moment think he would blink in any showdown, or hesitate to strike back at any enemy with the audacity to try again to cripple the US through terror."

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The best way to discredit liberalism is to win the war. Liberalism has reverted to its anti war hysteria where Democrat candidates compete on how fast they can order a retreat and make the false claim that they can end the war through retreat. The fact is that the enemy was a war with us long before 9-11 made it clear and returning to those days when we pretend they are not will not change their will or convince them that their cause is hopeless.

If we win this war we discredit the idea that every insurgency is a quagmire and that we should never even threaten the use of force in a meaningful way. Democrats and the liberals want to go back to the defensive and to bluff adversaries with non serious threats of the sue of force if they mention it at all. If we win, our adversaries around the world will know that we can defeat them not only in conventional warfare, but also in insurgency warfare. This will make their alternative to a negotiated agreement with the US less attractive and make US policy more effective.

If we win this war, Democrats and liberals will be discredited for generations.