McCain's so obsessed with winning that he's become a liar.
A retired police officer/Marine emailed me after Florida's Republican primary: "this could be the first time I vote for a Democrat, I cannot in good conscious vote for McCain, he will destroy the Republican party. I will vote for the Democrat if McCain gets the nomination, let the Dems bring themselves down."
Fred Thompson may not have wanted to be President badly enough.
But that's not a character flaw.
John McCain wants it so badly that he's taken to lying.
To win Florida's Republican primary, McCain lied about Mitt Romney's position on the war in Iraq.
It worked.
Now McCain is lying about his real attitude toward United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.
Wall Street Journal's John Fund understated when he recently wrote: "recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because 'he wore his conservatism on his sleeve.'"
McCain really said, privately, that he would NOT nominate a person like Justice Alito.
The truth about that is out, and McCain is furious about that...and lying.
LifeNews.com:
"John McCain was the subject of recent criticism on the Internet when he supposedly said he liked how Chief Justice John Roberts has served on the Supreme Court but not Justice Samuel Alito. McCain reportedly told Wall Street Journal writer John Fund that he would support nominees who were like Roberts, but not Alito."
"McCain sat down with CBN News senior correspondent David Brody on Monday to make it clear where he stands on the issue of judges.
"He first pointed out that he voted for both Roberts and Alito, whom pro-life advocates see as votes three and four on the high court in overturning Roe v. Wade."He first pointed out that he voted for both Roberts and Alito, whom pro-life advocates see as votes three and four on the high court in overturning Roe v. Wade."He first pointed out that he voted for both Roberts and Alito, whom pro-life advocates see as votes three and four on the high court in overturning Roe v. Wade."He first pointed out that he voted for both Roberts and Alito, whom pro-life advocates see as votes three and four on the high court in overturning Roe v. Wade.
"'I'm so proud of Justice Alito. I'm so proud of playing a role in getting his nomination through the United States Senate, he and Justice Roberts,' McCain told CBN.
"'And I've said many times that my nominees as President will be people like Roberts and Alito,' McCain added. 'They're the role model for what we're going to do when I am President of the United States because I have the greatest admiration for him and Chief Justice Roberts.'
"McCain pointed out that there could be two or three judicial picks for the Supreme Court during the next four years. McCain said he was proud of working with pro-life Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl on shepherding President Bush's picks through the Senate.
"'I will only appoint or nominate judges who have a clear record - not statements, but a clear record of strictly interpreting the Constitution of the United States,' McCain promised CBN News.
"'We all know there's been legislating from the bench that has harmed, or I think, threatened some of the fundamentals of the constitutional role of the judiciary,' he concluded."
BUT, what McCain told CBN News CONTRADICTED what he had said privately and McCain already showed that he'd lie to win.
Jim Geraghty suggested that if McCain had really said what he reportedly said privately, it would have been made public immediately:
"[I]f a potential GOP presidential nominee said that he was kind of iffy on Alito, one of the few true clear-cut victories for conservatism in recent years, wouldn't you think that by the time McCain finished the following sentence, everyone in the audience would have already typed into their Blackberries, 'U WON'T BELIEVE WHAT McC JUST SAID' and begun preparing their furious denunciations? Wouldn't the conservatives who heard it be knocking people over in order to get in front of a camera to rip McCain for saying that? Or was this some odd crowd of conservatives who thought Alito was crassly vocal in his conservatism?'"
A Bench Memo at National Review Online swiftly rebutted, as follows:
"This requires an answer.
"1. If the meeting was (as described) small and private, it was not the kind of forum with any 'audience' who would type into their Blackberrys. Moreover, comments at most such meetings are 'off the record': participants agree specifically not to run out and tell the media what was said. And if the participants were conservatives, I would expect them to be men and women who would honor such a commitment. THAT is why we have not heard about it in the press.
"2. Conservatives who care about nominations of judges who practice judicial restraint are, constitutionally, restrained people themselves. They do not trample each other to get in front of TV cameras. You are thinking of some other crowd. I would expect that folks who heard McCain say such a thing would be deeply disappointed, but not terribly surprised. I would further expect them to express dismay among themselves, but not run to the media about it.
"3. Most important, the one thing certain in all this is that you will not find a single 'conservative' who is in any way educated on the matter of the Constitution and the courts who thinks Justice Alito is 'crassly vocal' about political matters or anything else. He is a 'judge's judge': fastidiously impartial, rational, intellectual, and apolitical. Personally, he is a restrained and modest man — all the more admirable given his prodigious intellect and legal talents. It is regrettable that such a hypothetical regarding Justice Alito would even be suggested on NRO."
Mr. Fund was right: "the problem that many conservatives have with John McCain..... is the nagging feeling that after all of his years of chummily bonding with liberal reporters and garnering favorable media coverage from them that the Arizona senator is embarrassed to be seen as too much of a conservative."
Worse, McCain's so obsessed with winning that he's become a liar.
Would McCain really antagonize The New York Times and nominate for the United States Supreme Court persons anathema to the likes of Ted Kennedy (of McCain-Kennedy notoriety) or Russ Feingold (of McCain-Kennedy notoriety)?
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.