January 29, 2008
Recently, the so-called newspaper of record threw its support at Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Though the New York Times officially endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, an editorial published on Jan. 25 said McCain was the best of the GOP.
Only Al Jazeera’s support for a Republican would be scarier and certainly less predictable.
The Times supports McCain for the same reason it is favorable to Chris Shays, Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee: They’re not conservative.
But this isn’t going to be a rant about Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) or McCain’s numerous failings. This is about how out of touch the elitist Times truly is.
The editorial was made up of cheap shots at Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. It railed against the GOP’s plans for Iraq, positions on the economy, abortion, etc. But more importantly, it was an endorsement by any other name for McCain.
Still, there is a choice to be made, and it is an easy one. McCain is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe. With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field.
The Times' editorial unwittingly highlights the biggest flaws of the McCain campaign - repressing first amendment rights with McCain-Feingold and illegal immigration "reform."
They write that "he has been a staunch advocate of campaign finance reform, working with Senator Russ Feingold, among the most liberal of Democrats, on groundbreaking legislation, just as he worked with Senator Edward Kennedy on immigration reform."
But the most important sentence in the piece: "He risked his presidential bid to uphold fundamental American values in the immigration debate."
Excuse me?
I'm not sure what illegal substance the Times editorial board was on in 2007, but let’s quickly summarize the illegal immigration "reform" fiasco. McCain worked with prominent liberals to push for amnesty. Bush liked it, and so did prominent Republicans because, well, I’m not quite sure.
Democrats loved it because it gave them voters who couldn’t understand the issues.
But the American people hated it. To the point where they stopped hating Iraq for 10 seconds to start grass-roots protests.
So where does the Times get off saying McCain was upholding "fundamental American values"? Maybe the values of illegal immigrants, sure, but Americans? Hardly.
There’s a reason McCain was hated by Republican voters for his amnesty program, and it's not because he was fighting for our values. And who exactly does the Times imagine McCain was fighting against? Who was going to snatch his chance at the presidency away? Evil, disgusting bigots? The stupid people getting all their news from anti-immigration sources? The vast right-wing conspiracy. Not really.
Instead, McCain was fighting against middle America (aka citizens who don't live in Manhattan, Hollywood, the Hamptons or Malibu).
His enemy was a populace who saw the failed amnesty of the '80s and yearned for real solutions.
Clearly, the Times doesn't see this. Its staff looks at a country founded by legal immigrants who assimilated and ultimately loved and respected their new country and deduces that we should allow even more illegal immigrants who have no interest in assimilation and spend more energy rewriting the national anthem and attending anti-U.S. protests than learning English.
Never mind that basic American values include respect, sovereignty and democracy.
The Times thinks it knows what we need more than puny voters, the common people. Never mind that our country was set up on the basis of a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
On a side note, it was interesting that the Times holds so much disdain for Giuliani, who’s only conservative belief is that criminals should remain in jail instead of being granted furloughs.
The Times needs to understand that while elitists probably see illegal immigrants only when it’s time to pay the landscaping bill, real America deals with the issues of illegal immigration all the time.
Only when the Times grasps the concept of America outside of elite circles will I ever have a chance at understanding the paper.
