Journalist Jonathan Chait did a re-examination (unfortunately, registration is required to read this content online) of Sen. John McCain in the Feb. 27th issue of The New Republic. In it he recalled an interview that Mr. McCain gave Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. Mr. McCain told WSJ that he was in the process of drifting rightward in his various positions.
It occurred to Mr. Chait that he’d heard similar things from Mr. McCain before. Sure enough, when he checked, McCain had indeed told him in 2000 that his politics was evolving, this time leftward. When he asked why the change so late in his career, Mr. McCain gave a jaw-dropping answer that should have led to outright condemnation but instead is the sort of thing he says to journalists which leads them to sing his praises as a straight shooter.
“In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t pay nearly the attention to those issues in the past. I was probably a ‘supply-sider’ based on the fact that I really didn’t jump into the issue.”
Mr. Chait: At the time, this was one of the most endearing things I had ever heard a politician say. He was candidly confessing his own failure, and he left me feeling that he was bound to move closer to my viewpoint as he studied the issue more carefully. But seeing McCain offer up almost the same line to Moore—and getting the same gratified reaction—was jolting.
By making himself available to anyone with a notebook or microphone, Mr. McCain endeared himself to journalists and they willingly acted as his mouthpiece time after time. He got the benefit of the doubt and had journalists coming up for excuses for him. He is the maverick who bucks Republican orthodoxies, the conventional wisdom goes.
Except that all McCain is and has always been is a right-wing politician. The media needs to stop covering for him.
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