McCain: I Have A Dream

To be fair, McCain's talk today accentuated the positive. While espousing predictable conservative notions, he didn't really attack Democrats or liberals. To an extent, he may really believe the non-partisan or anti-partisan rhetoric he used today, if only because he believes in presidential rather than partisan leadership. While the section on the war got the headlines, and earned quick criticism for failing even to hint how he would accomplish all he promises, McCain was more substantive on the domestic side as far as improving trade, reforming education and reducing wasteful spending were concerned. This didn't read like the speech of someone who was going to make war and foreign policy the main points of his campaign. At the same time, his optimism on the war is so unfounded as to be disturbing, and anytime he brings up that "league of democracies" idea, promoting an ideological alliance independent of the UN with regime change around the world as its likely agenda, I find myself thinking that it might well be more important to vote against this man as effectively as possible than to vote for anyone else.

In any event, the speech is worth examining to get a fair sense of what McCain seems to be about these days without getting it filtered through me. Those likely to be maddened by the foreign-policy section up front may as well jump to one of the latter pages of the NY Times version of the text.