Lopez finally draws a line in the sand—NOT

A female reader writes:

On Wednesday afternoon, Lopez seemed to suggest that there was, finally, a line which, if McCain crossed it, she would not vote for him:

Rudy Is Keynoting the Convention, which at least, I assume, eliminates one bad scenario: Arnold keynoting, Rudy as veep …. me staying home, and not alone in that ….

Then Lopez must have got some letters, because she clarified what she meant by “staying home”:

When I said earlier I would “stay home,” all I meant was the convention (I’m currently going, but there’s only so much I can take. The convention-speaker lineup was starting to sound so moderate and yesterday—Rudy, Arnold …—I was expecting for Christine Todd Whitman to be the keynoter. But I don’t doubt a consistently non-conservative message coming out of the convention and the ticket (i.e. a pro-choice veep) would ultimately keep some conservatives home in November.

BUT NOT YOU, KATHRYN????!!!!!

LA replies:

Also, note that the thing that she is drawing the line in the sand about and that would get her to say home from the convention (rather than stay home on election day, which was what she initially seemed to be talking about) is an event the possibility of which has just been eliminated: Rudy being picked as veep. So, the only thing she warns McCain will make her stay home from the convention (not stay home on election day) is something she already knows is not going to happen. Meanwhile, she pointedly fails to say that she would stay home from the convention (as distinct from staying home on election day) if Lieberman is the veep, which, of course, is still a very live possibility and the main topic of the discussions for the last several days.

In other words, her position is even wimpier (if that were possible) than it was last week, when, as I showed, she pointedly failed to say that she would refuse to vote for the ticket if McCain chose Lieberman. She has thus graduated from failing to say that she would refuse to vote for the ticket if Lieberman is veep, to failing to say that she would refuse to attend the convention if Lieberman is the veep.

We ought to have some sympathy for McCain, who has to deal with such difficult and demanding conservatives!

On a further point, doesn’t Lopez know that if one chooses not to vote for the GOP presidential nominee, it’s still very important that one vote for a Republican Congress? How can she be so thoughtless as to plant in people’s minds the idea that if they don’t like McCain, they should stay home and not vote at all?

And this weak-minded broad is the online editor of the flagship magazine of American conservatism.

- end of initial entry -

Adela G. writes:

I will never forget or forgive McCain’s remark about building “them” (i.e., the majority of Americans who want the border secured) their expletive fence. Nevertheless, my own feeling that an Obama presidency would be disastrous for our country both internationally and domestically is stronger than ever. It would embolden our enemies who would quite rightly view a white majority nation headed by a black president as being weakened from the inside. Domestically, it would be a nightmare for whites, except for the rich and the radical. At the very least, an Obama presidency would move the country even further to the left and increase the sense of minority entitlement. However bad McCain is for conservatism, I think Obama would be even worse for America.

LA replies:

Obviously I don’t take the position Adela takes, but I have no problem with her taking it. I’ve never criticized people simply for saying that they would support McCain. I’ve always acknowledged that this is a very difficult situation and that many people would feel that Obama is so dangerous that it’s necessary to vote for his opponent.

What I have been criticizing the establishment conservatives for is their gamesmanship and hypocrisy, by which they act as though there is some line in the sand that McCain dare not cross or he will lose their support, when in reality there is no such line, because they will vote for him in any case. If that’s their position, they should just say so, and stop pulling our leg and pretending that there is some conservative bottom line they stand for. Their real position is that there is nothing that McCain can do that will cause them to withhold their vote from him. They know that McCain is a liberal in crucial ways. They know that a central passion of his career is his desire to stick it to conservatives. They know that if he becomes president he will undermine conservatism in massive ways. They know that he wants to end the Republican party as a conservative party. And they know that they will vote for him no matter what. These are the facts. So all I’m saying is, the conservatives should stop pretending otherwise. They should stop pretending that McCain is something other than what he is. They should stop pretending that they have some influence over him whereby they can get him not to betray conservatism. I would still disagree with their support for McCain, and for the surrender of conservatism that I believe such support entails; but I would not suggest that their position was dishonest or dishonorable.

Adela, by contrast with the NRO types, argues honestly. She says that the damage Obama would do to America is greater than the damage he would do to conservatism. She simply says that Obama must be stopped. She doesn’t care about McCain. She’s not imagining that McCain is a good guy or a conservative or that his feet can be held to the fire. Her position is that Obama must be defeated, period.

Adela G. replies:

You write: “Obviously I don’t take the position Adela takes, but I have no problem with her taking it.”

Nor do I have a problem with your stated position. I know McCain is not a conservative and, indeed, has and will continue to undermine conservative principles. But however much he fails—and refuses—to represent conservatism, he still, by the very nature of his being, is representative of the white majority even when he does not represent its thinking on political issues. Obama, by the very nature of his being, cannot do this. A McCain presidency would highlight the differences between liberals and conservatives. An Obama presidency would highlight the differences between minorities and the white majority and signal that the former have, at least temporarily, gained a significant advantage over the latter. In effect, the majority, except for white leftists, would be sidelined in their own country.

My thoughts on this would be the same were a white person running for president in nation with a black majority. I simply don’t see the sense of a person belonging to a racial minority representing a national with a different racial majority. It’s inherently demoralizing to the majority and destabilizing to the nation as a whole.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 21, 2008 01:24 AM | Send