As yet another blast of “Romney will save us, if we save Romney,” this Hewitt post is unremarkable, but in its assessment of the outcome of the Democratic race and its expression of Obama-fear it is just odd:

It will be very, very difficult to defeat Barack Obama with an old face from inside the Beltway, even one with the heroism and courage that John McCain embodies.

So, if I understand Hewitt’s rationale for opposing McCain, it would better to run a phony against the candidate that the media has declared Authenticity personified than it would be to run an old veteran who supports the war, which he, Hewitt, also supports, against a young man with essentially no relevant experience who opposes it.  For someone who recoils against the “MSM-created McCain resurrection,” he doesn’t seem to be able to see through the MSM-created Obama deification.  If he did, he would know that Obama is the one adversary McCain has a chance of defeating.  It seems as if these folks are allowing both their Clinton-hatred and McCain-loathing to get the better of their judgement (which is not to say that an egregious Romney booster such as Hewitt has very good judgement in the first place).

Coulter on McCain: Ready, set, crazy! 

This is something I don’t quite understand.  I can understand the objections to McCain’s policies, which I definitely share, and I even sympathise with the deep-seated personal dislike of the man that so many have.  But how confused must you be, if you are a pro-torture, pro-war jingo (or is that jingoess in her case?), to say that you would sooner side with Hillary Clinton than John McCain?  This is absolutely batty.  Who would better suit the pro-war crowd than an inflexible, unbalanced and angry old man who has nothing to lose?  I wouldn’t dispute Clinton’s hawkish inclinations, and I think her opposition to Iraq is purely opportunistic and reflects nothing about her foreign policy views, which are interventionist and generally quite dangerous, but if you are a hawk it is inconceivable that you would prefer her to him. 

Via Ross 

Update: Suddenly Hewitt has discovered the importance of rationality in voting!

My apologies for the last few days.  As you would have seen had you checked in the last few days, the site used up its bandwidth allowance for the month and was just re-set a moment ago.  Elsewhere, I have some new posts.  Specifically, at Taki’s Top Drawer I have three new posts on McCain, Huckabee’s foreign policy, and some random thoughts on that apocryphal “better to be ruled by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian” quote we have seen so often in recent months.

Another small piece of evidence that McCain is Dole redux:I went back and found that Dole’s lifetime ACU rating in 1996 was 83, which is actually seven tenths of a point higher than McCain’s lifetime rating but close enough to be a bit uncanny.

Bush has received little attention or thanks for his compassionate reforms. This is less a reflection on him than on the political challenge of compassionate conservatism. The conservative movement gives the president no credit because it views all these priorities — foreign assistance, a federal role in education, the expansion of an entitlement — as heresies, worthy of the stake. ~Michael Gerson

It doesn’t help that these “compassionate reforms” are all monumental failures and/or appalling burdens on the national fisc of dubious value and poor implementation.  Why might no one be congratuating the President on sending unfunded mandates to the states?  Could it be that introducing vast new entitlements–when our current entitlement system is already in serious trouble over the long-term–is an irresponsible, short-sighted gamble with the wealth of future generations for the sake of brief, transitory and already vanished political gain?  No, it must be that there are unimaginative inquisitors who are intent on ripping out Bush’s bleeding heart and throwing it on the pyre.  That must be the only explanation.  What would we do without Gerson to explain these things to us?

He views both meditation on the past and speculation about his legacy with equal suspicion, preferring to live in the urgency of the now. ~Michael Gerson

Who knew that George Bush was already living Obama’s dream?

Mitt Romney’s campaign is based on the wholesale deception of voters. ~John McCain

This has been, and remains, the crux of the problem with Romney.  Of course, McCain can be charged with deception every time he denies that “comprehensive immigration reform” is amnesty, and the same criticism can be leveled at the other candidates who have suddenly discovered the importance of border security, but with Romney it has always been on an entirely different scale.  It is conceivable that Romney could have legitimately changed his mind on one or two questions, but there have been so many changes (or evolutions, if you prefer) in such a short span of time that depart so radically from the core assumptions of what the man publicly claimed to believe earlier that he simply cannot be trusted.  Where he once would not dare “impose” his values on others in matters of life and sexuality (his dear, departed relative had once been pivotal in his views on abortion, but her fate ceased to bother him when the White House beckoned), he suddenly discerned that it was essential that he do so.  The awakening of his moral conscience occurred in direct relationship to the approach of the 2008 campaign season.  That in itself might not be so bad, were it the only instance of Romney’s re-invention.  Where he once derided the idea of deportation and accepted McCain’s immigration legislation as an acceptable alternative, he has since adopted the pose of a restrictionist true believer.  The man who brought you government-mandated health insurance enforced by the assessment of penalties is the one who now casts himself as more Reaganite than Reagan…all the while promising subsidies to weakened industries.  The proponent of federal gun control laws discovered his inner varmint-slayer.  You assume there will be a certain degree of opportunism and shifting in an election.  To some extent, that is how elections hold politicians more accountable to what voters want to see in government.  But for someone who has gone through a complete political metamorphosis to then adopt the pose of the righteous enforcer of True Conservatism and to accuse his opponents of being willing to say anything to get elected simply amazes me.  What amazes me still more is the willingness of so many people, who can see perfectly clearly the dishonesty of the entire thing, to go along with it. 

On an ascending scale of willful arrogance, there is gall, then there is chutzpah, and then there is whatever Romney is doing.  In fairness, no politician should ever receive very much trust, and what trust is bestowed should always be provisional and easily revoked, but even by the extremely low standards of a cynic who assumes all politicians are out to mislead and abuse the citizenry Romney is unacceptably deceptive.  Any past or present Bush supporter who now wants to complain about the rise of McCain should look first to the absolute fraud many of them were willing to rally behind as the alternative to understand why their anti-McCain candidate did not succeed.  As wrong as McCain is on so many things, for which we anti-Bush conservatives were criticising him all along, the idea that you ought to hold McCain accountable for his deviations from the movement and party lines while embracing a man who had been, as of three years ago, far to McCain’s left on almost everything was and still is preposterous.  This is not about the relative purity of their conservatisms as such, but the ridiculous application of a purist standard for one and an absolutely accommodating, flexible standard for another, especially when the latter only rates as “more conservative” on account of this incredible metamorphosis.  This is one of the reasons why the concerted effort to rally anti-McCain forces has fallen short for the second straight week: the bulk of this effort has no intellectual or moral credibility when the rallying point is Romney’s campaign and the opponents of McCain are simultaneously some of the strongest supporters of George Bush.  Those who wish to label McCain a liar for his past and recent false statements, but who will pretend that Romney’s many new positions are proof of his true convictions, are the same kinds of people (in some cases, literally the same people) who embraced, legitimised and shilled for George Bush, the greatest liar of them all, for seven years.  They are right about McCain, but what they would offer in his place and what they have defended in the past throw into doubt their ability to discern conservative principle and their willingness to confront deception when it is politically disadvantageous for them.

So Giuliani dubbed the GOP the “party of Bush” on the night that McCain won out over Romney 36-31 and the day before Giuliani endorses McCain.  That is unfortunately fitting, as it is only the “party of Bush” that could have ever briefly vaulted someone like Giuliani into major contention or propelled McCain to his frontrunner position (for a second time), since the presence of these two in national roles is almost unthinkable without Mr. Bush, the Iraq war and the ruinous transformation Mr. Bush has wrought in the party.  Why the most plausible anti-McCain candidates have fared poorly is part of my next column, so I will hold off on that point, but I can make this observation: two-thirds of Florida primary voters opted for the candidates deemed unacceptable to one or more factions of the party, while the alleged “full-spectrum conservative” could scarcely cobble together 30% of the vote.  Once again, in a real contest Romney fell short and has shown his limitations as a campaigner.  The party of Bush has discovered its true heir, who represents clear continuity with Mr. Bush on the major policies (and major blunders) of his administration.  Whether he did so consciously or not, Thompson delivered the killing blow to the efforts to stop McCain.  His last-ditch anti-Huckabee salvo cleared the way for McCain, and the way is now clear for him all the way to Minneapolis.  The disastrous “new fusionism” has taken hold of the party and will in all likelihood drag it down to defeat.       

P.S.  It is true that the exit polls show that McCain’s strongest support comes from anti-Bush voters.  Once again, he did best among those who were dissatisfied and angry with the administration.  This represents a deep confusion and sickness in the Republican Party, when even most of the people who are alienated by Mr. Bush seem to have no idea that they have just rallied around someone who give them a more intensified, less sane version of Bushism.

Giuliani must be dropping out.  He just included Ron Paul in the list of other candidates he respects.