Speaking *as* a neocon hawk who enjoyed Rand Paul’s filibuster…

…I agree with Allahpundit’s reaction to John McCain’s / Lindsey Graham’s reaction to said filibuster:

You would think Maverick might at least seize the opportunity to note that the guy who beat him five years ago did so in part by campaigning on a lie, but that would mean giving an inch of ground to the isolationists on his own side. So instead he sides with O even though everyone from Reince Priebus to Fox News to the Ron Paul fan base to Jon Stewart is patting Paul on the back, and inexplicably he insists on being nasty about it just in case anyone who enjoyed Paul’s performance hasn’t been completely alienated by McCain yet. Question for my fellow hawks: Is this really the hill to die on vis-a-vis paleocon/libertarian foreign policy? Arguing in favor of a president’s power to fire missiles at an enemy combatant on U.S. soil even if he’s a U.S. citizen and isn’t engaged in terrorism at the time when the FBI could just as easily go in and grab him? If that’s a “wacko bird” position, then a lot of people who agree with it will be left wondering whether the entire mainstream rap on libertarians and paleocons as being “fringe” and “extreme” is a lie. Maverick and Graham need to learn to pick their battles.

John McCain is perfectly welcome to die on this hill, and I do not wish him particular ill – but it’s time that the man start thinking about his plans for his sunset years.  As in, does he really want to spend the remaining years of his life chained to a job where he’s angry all the time?  I can’t imagine that this is helping the Senator’s health any.

Moe Lane

PS: Word of warning for the non-neocons: as the above notes, Senator Paul gave defense hawks a good deal of wiggle room when it came to whether we could honorably support his filibuster.  Don’t get greedy.

18 thoughts on “Speaking *as* a neocon hawk who enjoyed Rand Paul’s filibuster…”

  1. To my fellow neo-cons defending the “gov’t has the right to drone strike kill innocent American citizens in the United States because a terrorist might be having dinner in the cafe next to you” hill is akin to the successful defense of Heraclea. Just take a moment to drink in Holder and Carney’s pain in admitting they really didn’t have that authority.

  2. I question just what audience McCain and Graham are playing for… they sure don’t seem to be playing for the GOP base…
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    Mew

    1. Their audience is the press. They just can’t get enough of them saying what good little GOP’ers they are and why can’t they all be that way. Oddly enough, no matter who won in 2008 we were destined to get a narcissist-in-chief.

      1. True enough, ‘Night.
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        The odd thing is .. the power of the press seems much more fragile, more brittle now than it did in 2008; McCain and Graham are both chasing a falling star, and at the same time their disingenuous blather pulls that star closer and closer to the ground.
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        Mew

        1. Indeed. McGraham* are locked in a death embrace with the discredited press. It’ll be a ball of flames at the end.

          *For the record, I think Johndsay is a good one as well. Tell all your friends you heard it here first.

      2. Yup. Another example of “It’s a shame they can’t both lose.” I said at the time that with McCain vs Obama we were offered the choice between a crap sandwich and a crap sandwich with arsenic and plutonium sprinkles. I held my nose and voted for McCain and Palin because I’m allergic to arsenic and plutonium.

  3. Johnny and the Teeth had dinner with Obama that night; they wanted the news cycle to focus on their statesmanship and access and just how Important And Powerful they are.

    Instead they were exposed as nothings content with being tossed a few scraps from the High Table.

    As for McCain’s sunset years — I believe those began in late 2008.

    1. I put the McCain sunset as 2000 … seriously, the well-spoken well-groomed Maverick couldn’t beat bumble-tongue* Bush 2.0? He should have gone and done the “elder statesman” thing back then, or sucked it up and accepted a Veepdom.
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      As it is, he’s looking more and more like the out of touch fossil from the SNL caricature… and that’s just sad.
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      Mew
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      * Bush 2.0 ran on a domestic agenda and beat the Clinton Machine. Maverick’s race against Hillary in 2008 shows he would have lost to Gore, eh?

      1. I would be more generous. The Old Maverick was definitely passed it in 2002 when he hopped into bed with Russ Feingold to push that wholly unconstitutional law that gave the gov’t authority to tell citizens how they can spend their own money in order to restore his lost honor at having been caught with his hands in Charles Keating’s ill gotten gain cookie jar along with 4 of his Democratic Senator buddies.

  4. I don’t get it either Moe, unless McCain just doesn’t care anymore about re-election and is determined to move the GOP into Paul’s pocket on his way out. *shrug*

  6. I thought the 2008 campaign proved that McCain doesn’t like anyone challenging Obama.

  7. I think Crawford had it most correct McCain lives for the attention of the press and he simply cannot stand the fact that someone could still it from him so quickly and easily. It says something about the lack of value he has with the press and that too says something about him. Although I would go with 2000 for when his sunset years began.

  9. I dunno if I count as an old conservative, or a neocon or whatever.
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    My credentials are that I’m an argumentative jerk, and I’m not afraid of being called brutal or stupid.
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    I have an expansive view of executive power. I think it is right and proper for the Military to do very many things in advancing America’s interests.
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    From what I saw of Rand, he seemed careful of the necessities of the essential core powers of the executive. Perhaps McCain has information I don’t have, which changes things, or perhaps he noticed something that I missed.
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    Or maybe he really didn’t like the suggestion that we should be capturing more people, for intelligence, rather than killing them by drone. He might feel that killing is a substantially cleaner way of handling such.
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    I did feel that Rand was not projecting a great deal of enthusiasm for killing (or murdering) everyone I might want killed, or for torturing everyone I might want tortured. a) I don’t know that I have the stomach, or the true interest, on net, to see all my wants translated into reality. b) McCain is notoriously lacking in support for torture.
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    The only defensible reason for the Obama administration to have failed to respond to Rand in a timely manner is sloppy thinking and a poor understanding of the Executive power. The alternative is laziness in responding to congressional oversight.

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