McCain: GOP Must Work With Obama.
John McCain has resumed his role as the Maverick of the GOP with a Fox News interview that is bound to enrage the wingnuts:
Bill O'Reilly and others have already fulminated over the appointment of Panetta, claiming that America is in danger thanks to his appointment. Bill's greatest complaint appears to be that, by appointing Panetta, Obama is promising that the US will stop the practice of torture."There are not many times in history," he said, "that a president has come to office with as many challenges as the president-elect does and that's incumbent then upon all of us to try and do all we can to work with him."
Appearing on Fox News for one of the few times since losing the election, McCain offered a supportive assessments of the president-elect's agenda. He acknowledged the need to pass a stimulus, but said he would reserve judgment until he saw the final package.
"All I can say to you is that I want to see the stimulus package I want to see what it does, I want to see what kind of provision it has in it," he told Neil Cavuto. "I think the president-elect is going to marshal public opinion. Right now his approval ratings and hopes of the American people are very high," he later added.
He also called Obama's national security team "excellent," and saved special praise for CIA Director nominee Leon Panetta.
"I think that Leon Panetta is highly qualified, and in all due respect I think it is not bad from time to time to have somebody from outside of the intelligence community but with strong managerial experience as Chief of Staff of the White House, to be head of one of these agencies. I think there is some good balance there."
It seems astonishing that a commentator would publicly argue that torture is necessary, but we are used to such rantings from O'Reilly.
Now it seems that even McCain can't remain on board as the Republican juggernaut trundles even further towards the insane radical right.
And there are few more insane that Ann Coulter:
"I don't think the Republicans should be taking advice from John McCain," Coulter said. "I don't really know much about what is going on right now because this came out Tuesday, so I don't know the details of the stimulus plan. But I think it is pretty clear from the last election the voters want Republicans to be Republicans."Get that? Ann's saying that the Republicans lost the last election because they are not right wing enough. I argued shortly after the election that they would go down this route, and they have not disappointed.
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2 comments:
When McCain decides something is going to get passed, he gets it passed. It is one of the things that scared me most about him. He will compromise anything if he thinks he has a good chance of getting something bigger out of the deal. He even voted for that recent torture bill.
I think Republicans will be very cooperative with Obama, at least in the short term. The democrats are going to be the problem. They will be high on their power as the majority, and will use it as a bludgeon to try and wrest power from the executive. Obama will find allies in the republicans.
Obama will find allies in the republicans.
That's an interesting take on things. It'll be fascinating seeing if that works out. I'm more skeptical than you are.
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