The American Spectator

/blockquote> br> Chait calls the roll of these betrayals: McCain collaborates with John Edwards and Ted Kennedy on a patients’ bill of rights. McCain works with Chuck Schumer on legislation allowing the reimportation of prescription drugs. McCain and John Kerry advocate a rise in CAFE standards. McCain and Joe Liebermann devise a cap and trade carbon emissions protocol. McCain voted against drilling in ANWR.

Chait is a liberal. He does not give the weight to Sen. McCain’s other betrayals that conservatives do: McCain-Feingold limiting political speech and the McCain-Kennedy attempt to ram through blanket amnesty for illegals. He does not consider McCain’s rounding up of the Gang of Fourteen to block the imminent nuclear option that would have given judicial nominees approval on a straight majority vote.

Of late, McCain has tried to woo conservatives by insisting that he will support making permanent the Bush tax cuts. “This is a tricky dance for a straight-talker,” Chait notes wryly, “since he voted against those tax cuts in the first place.” McCain also maintains that he has never voted for a tax increase.

In these and other issues, as has become plain in the late-stage campaign, McCain will just plain lie. We should not be surprised at this, nor at the results of his lies. Just remember the last eight years, when, at every point when the Republican Party looked like it was going to engineer some kind of win, McCain stepped in and screwed the pooch.

I DON’T THINK I’m alone down here in the dumps. On February 10, the Tacoma News-Tribune published an unusually dispassionate and objective account of the Purdy County Republican caucuses.

p>A voter named Jim Cave, 42, said McCain wasn’t his first, second, or third choice, but that he would vote for him in the general election. However: br> /p> blockquote>”I’d like to remind him where the Republican Party is — and that’s to the right of him,” Cave said. br> br> His statement was quickly followed by an “amen to that” from across the table… br> br> Lee Johnson, 53, of Purdy, came for (Ron) Paul and left for Paul. br>