McCain: Defender of the Free Speech Rights of his Right-Wing Rabid Radio Detractors

I was just about to bring up something great about McCain's credentials as a conservative and a man of decency that seems to have escaped the general attention of conservative audiences. But Medved just beat me to it.

Let’s say you’re attacking someone every day, criticizing some perceived enemy in a tone that is bitter, highly personal, spiteful and relentless. Now imagine, for the sake of argument, that at the very climax of your over-the-top abuse, the object of your assaults makes a point to defend your right to continue to slime him.

Wouldn’t it be appropriate to interrupt your derision for a few moments at least, to acknowledge the other guy’s courage and integrity—and to salute his support for the First Amendment?

Why, then, no acknowledgement by the most prominent conservative talkers on the radio of John McCain’s principled – and appropriate – efforts to block Democrats who seek to reinstitute the awful Fairness Doctrine?

. . . THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE WOULD BE A DEVASTATING ASSAULT ON FREE SPEECH; McCAIN-FEINGOLD, FOR ALL ITS FAULTS, WAS NOT . . . It matters far more, in other words, that McCain continues to battle the Fairness Doctrine (that would seriously damage political debate in the media) than that he cosponsored a silly and ineffective piece of legislation (that left vigorous debate vigorously intact).

John McCain Gets It - on Jobs, Taxes and Freedom

John McCain spoke on Saturday to Americans for Prosperity in Livonia, Michigan

His prepared remarks were excellent - but his delivery was extraordinary.

He even seeks out questions from his critics.


There are things Democrats, and even some Republicans, don't seem to get.

John McCain gets it.

John McCain gets the connection between regulation and jobs. He gets the connection between taxes and spending and jobs. He gets the connection between taxes and freedom and jobs and reforming health care.

And he gets the connections between trade and jobs and foreign policy.

"Tough times breed fear, my friends, and we are hearing the fear-mongers say that Michigan cannot compete on global markets. Those voices ignore the lesson of history that any nation that turns to protectionism hurts itself in the end. We need to continue to lower barriers to trade because ninety-five percent of the world's customers live outside the United States. We need to have competitive manufacturing through lower health care costs, lower taxes, and opening new markets. Our future prosperity depends on our competitiveness.

* * * * * * * * * *

It would be a mistake to view economic relations with China in isolation. I am concerned that China through its piracy of US intellectual property is also building itself into a military superpower that has already developed the capability to shoot down satellites. We will only be successful in getting China to meet its international economic obligations by engaging it on the full range of issues involved in our relations -- from suppression of personal and religious freedoms, to relations with North Korea and Iran, to its rising influence in Africa -- which will determine whether China will emerge as a responsible or irresponsible world power. I have the experience in these areas that will also serve to ensure that American workers -- the most productive worker in the world -- will be even more competitive.

* * * * * * * * * *

Our country's dangerous dependence on foreign oil threatens both our national security and our environment, not to mention the terribly injurious effect high oil prices has on our economy. The transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars of American wealth to the Middle East helps sustain the conditions on which terrorists prey. Some of the most oil-rich nations are the most stagnant societies on earth. As long as petro-dollars flow freely to them those regimes have little incentive to open their politics and economies so that all their people may benefit from their countries' natural wealth.

John McCain wants to retrain workers for lost jobs. Instead of creating a new program, with more spending, McCain's program is fundamentally conservative, reminiscent of the welfare reform of 1996:

"Right now we have a dozen different programs for displaced workers and others out of a job. Our unemployment insurance program was designed to assist workers through a few tough months during an economic downturn until their old jobs came back. We need programs that work in the world we live in today.

If I'm elected President, I'll work with Congress and the states to overhaul unemployment insurance and make it a program for retraining, relocating and assisting workers who have lost a job that's not coming back to find a job that won't go away. We need to better connect training with business knowledge and needs. As I talk to business people and education experts I hear again and again that community colleges do a great job of providing the right skills to workers and the right workers for firms. We should take greater advantage of this record of success. And we can trust workers to choose. We need to transform rigid training programs to approaches that can be used to meet the bills, pay for training, and get back to work."

Kemp - John McCain will Empower America

I've been a fan of Jack Kemp for as long as I've known about the guy. That he and Bob Dole lost in 1996 is one of the great missed opportunities of the last century. Jack Kemp is a compassionate conservative in the best sense - one who has long been an advocate of empowering the poor through expanding - not diminishing - economic freedom.

Now Jack Kemp has come out in support of John McCain. Read the press release here.

On NRO, Larry Kudlow had this to say:

Kemp would join former Sen. Phil Gramm as key McCain economic advisors. As I noted in an earlier post, Phil Gramm is the quintessential free-market advocate. He spent a career in the House and Senate limiting government spending, taxing, and regulating.

Both Kemp and Gramm are strong free-trade supporters. Gramm was also the original sponsor of the Reagan tax-and-spending cuts back in 1981 in the Gramm-Latta bill reported out of the House. That bill incorporated Jack Kemp’s original proposal to slash personal tax rates by 30 percent across the board.

how many politicians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Even one is too many for me.

As a conservationist, I do as much as I can to reduce, reuse and recycle.
But if I like my light bulbs heat emitting and soft on the eyes, why should my options be limited by the government?
Go ahead, put a tax on it, make me pay a few more cents for it - but for the sake of my poor astigmatic eyes, on the gentle soul of Thomas Alva Edison, don't make the incandescent light bulb illegal! (M. Malkin also laments this not-so-bright idea.)
While I'm particularly dispirited by this attack on mood lighting by our legislature, the energy bill that overwhelmingly passed both houses of congress and received the Prez's signature has myriad problems - some of them listed here.