Two back-to-back Wall Street Journal editorials comparing “McCain’s Apostasies” (Jan. 31) to “Romney’s Convictions” (Feb. 1) rely on a double standard. Why does McCain’s suspicious flip-flop on the Bush tax cuts make him a mere maverick, while Romney’s tougher line on social issues is said to show a lack of conviction?
In the first, McCain is depicted as an admirably stubborn maverick, someone whose decidedly non-Republican legislative history is at least predictable: “Republicans have a pretty good sense of where he might betray them.”
The second editorial strongly implied that Romney has no convictions, but is simply driven by “expediency” and “pandering.” Romney stands accused of changing his message to suit “the audience to which he is speaking at the moment (Think $20 billion in corporate welfare for Michigan auto makers).” On the basis of that one parenthetical anecdote about Michigan auto makers, we are told this “risks a Presidency that would get rolled.”
The trouble is, Romney never proposed any bailout for automakers, much less just those in one state (relatively little of U.S. auto production is in Michigan). That key accusation was lifted uncritically from a McCain radio ad. As FactCheck.org noted, “Romney actually proposed a $16 billion increase in federal research into ‘energy research, fuel technology, materials science, and automotive technology.… Perhaps to McCain’s ears that’s a bail out. But the senator has been a strong proponent of pursuing alternative energies in the past – so strong that he proposed the improbable goal of making the country ‘oil independent’ within five years.”
FactCheck.org offered other examples where “John McCain is attacking Mitt Romney with some out-of-context or misleading statements.” In particular, “McCain is off base in the implications he has been making: Romney never advocated for a particular date for withdrawal or a public date for withdrawal.” Economist Thomas Sowell, among others, has taken McCain to task for such deceptions.
The overall impression from the Journal editorial is that electing Romney “risks a presidency that would get rolled” by Democrats in Congress. That is an ironic conjecture, since McCain has been famously eager to co-sponsor dubious legislation with Democrats – such as McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and McCain-Lieberman.
Senator McCain blocked all the 2001–2003 tax cuts because (1) he wanted more revenue for the Iraq War, and because (2) he vehemently objected to granting the slightest tax relief to “the rich.” The editorial says “Republicans have a pretty good sense of where he [McCain] might betray them.” If so, they should realize that a McCain presidency would surely “get rolled” when Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, if not sooner. McCain would surely regard it is as a sign of honor, leadership and fiscal responsibility to trade higher tax rates on the rich for a large military budget and keeping troops in Iraq.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page has allowed itself to be rolled by one candidate’s bogus attacks against his opponent. The result was unfair and unbalanced.
