Senator John McCain: A man of principle

If you’ve been following this site for any amount of time, you know we’re huge admirers of John McCain. Let's go over the laundry list of achievements: voting against the Bush tax cuts, co-authoring the Campaign Finance Reform Act, co-authoring the Rube Goldberg Amnesty Bill and leading the Gang of 14 which were effective in blocking many of Bush’s nominations for vacant spots in the Federal courts. Now, what's not to like? Believe it or not, though, all that really pales in comparison to why it is we truly admire the man: its that he’s just so dammed principled.

You want proof? Andrew McCarthy of NRO recounts here , Maverick’s battle in the courts against the pro-life group, Wisconsin Right to Life. What was their crime? Back in ’04 when Bush was trying to get his nominations to Federal benches, he was being blocked by Senate Democrats and chief among those was McCain’s cloakroom buddy Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. Feingold was up for re-election when WRTL had the unmitigated gall to run issues ads in Wisconsin urging people to put some pressure on the Senator to allow for a yes or no vote on Bush’s nominations.

Yes, dear readers…. free speech was afoot.

Enter Maverick: not content to just sit on the sidelines and ride this one out as he really didn’t have a horse in this race, Maverick couldn’t stand to see a pro-life group actually exercise their 1st amendment rights thereby running afoul his legislative crown jewel and the re-election efforts of his Senate chum, so he sprang into action and filed an amicus brief against WRTL when their case came before the Supreme Court.

That’s right - McCain did that knowing full well it would cheese-off both pro-life social conservatives and those few True Believers up in the hills that hold this quaint notion that the Constitution, particularly the 1st amendment may still have some applicability today. Why would he risk alienating the very people he may need to win the general election in November? Ha-haaaa….. you just don’t know the Senator very well now, do you?

Those are just the sort of risks one has to take when one stands on principle as does Senator John McCain.

So we salute you, Senator, for your unswerving and unyielding dedication to…. principle.

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(This post is dedicated to B-Daddy, who on the eve of Super Tuesday, has found himself stranded in Malaise-ya)