Why they hate McCain

John Podhoretz:

The snowballing anger among conservative opinion leaders toward John McCain — an anger that is not mirrored among Republican rank-and-file, whose approval-disapproval rating for McCain is 72-19, according to the Pew Poll, fifteen points higher than Mitt Romney’s in both categories — suggests they are confusing ideological convictions with political tactics, and infusing a disagreement on how to approach problems with a moral edge it does not deserve.

Whatever John McCain is, he is not a liberal. But he disappoints conservatives because, astonishingly enough, he lacks the Right’s partisan combativeness — which seems surprising, given his background as a warrior and his stiff-necked heroism in staring down his North Vietnamese torturer-jailers. He may be a military man through and through, but he is not a team player, to put it mildly. In partisan terms, he often seems determined not to march in lockstep simply because others expect it of him. That’s why, among other things, he has been so wildly incompetent at using his own perfect pro-life record iin the House and Senate to his own benefit in seeking support from Republicans who share his anti-abortion views. Such a thing would require him to fall in line, and McCain does not fall in line.

These are not words of praise, merely of description. The truth is that this flinty individualism has a profoundly self-destructive aspect to it....

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McCain's most obvious character fault is that he confuses insult with logic. Because he is not very smart he approaches those who disagree with him with intemperate insults rather than a logical argument. He probably does not have half the intellectual fire power of Sen. John Cornyn of Texas but, when Cornyn raised legitimate questions about the proposed immigration bill McCain shut off the debate with a ridiculous insult. It came back to haunt him, not because Sen. Cornyn acted peevishly, but because Sen. Cornyn was right and the public rejected the bill precisely because of the issues raised by Sen. Cornyn. I am sure other Senators have had similar encounters.

This self destructive behavior will, of course, make it difficult for him to deal with congress, but it could be disastrous in dealing with foreigners. I am sure the Democrats are rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of running against him.