The McCain illusion.(Correction, Please!)

ITEM: U.S. President George W. Bush, reported Reuters on February 10, "told conservative members of his Republican Party that White House hopeful Sen. John McCain needed to do some work to win them over but he was a 'true conservative.'" The president "also warned Republicans that they would not find a perfect candidate. 'You'll never find that person,' Bush said."

ITEM: Newsweek's February 18 story on John McCain, emblazoned on the cover with "There Will Be Blood: Why the Right Hates McCain," was entitled "So Much for a Warm Welcome." Throughout, the piece attacked conservatives who find fault with McCain's positions and votes. "As McCain draws closer to the GOP nomination, many leaders of the conservative movement have gone into convulsions," said the magazine. McCain "is 'unwilling to bow and kiss the ring' of his antagonists, says one adviser" cited by Newsweek. John McCain "may, in fact," contended the magazine, "have a better sense of America's shifting political mood than his detractors."

CORRECTION: Neither President Bush nor Newsweek can be considered, by any reasonable measure, to be either stalwart conservatives or reliably supportive of conservative positions. So when they agree that John McCain is a true conservative who has his pulse on what is best for the country--and lay into those on the right who disagree--that should be a very large red flag.

McCain's overall legislative record frequently makes him the favored Republican by left-leaning newspaper editors and Democrats everywhere. The Boston Globe and New York Times would not toss an endorsement to an authentic conservative GOP leader, but they threw out one for McCain. The Times, for example, has been enamored of McCain's love affair with the global-warming issue and his pro-illegal immigrant stance. This is what the Times means when it gushes over how he has "a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation."

Yes, he has often worked with Democrats--against conservative principles. He would prefer to play this down while garnering Republican votes but it is true. McCain brandished the same class-warfare rhetoric as did his partner, Senator Teddy Kennedy (D-Mass.), in their mutual effort to oppose the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. (McCain was one of only two Republicans to oppose the tax cuts in 2001 and one of three in 2003.) He and Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) pushed through a vicious assault on political free speech in the name of campaign reform (more on this later). And McCain and Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) attempted to choke the free market with legislation against greenhouse gases that carried an estimated price tag of $76 billion annually, which might finish off our ailing economy. He cosponsored with Kennedy and another liberal Democrat, former trial lawyer John Edwards, the so-called Patients' Bill of Rights. This legislation, as the Club for Growth has pointed out, "allowed the government to impose a set of onerous mandates on insurance coverage instead of allowing individuals to make their own decisions about healthcare plans in the marketplace."

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The Washington Post, Newsweek's leftwing sister publication, was quick to deem McCain as the presumptive Republican candidate. The Post is delighted that so many of McCain's positions are parallel to liberal Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.