McCain Concerned About ‘Isolationist’ Republicans, Asks What Would Reagan Say?
It was all over the Sunday morning talking head shows this weekend, the grave concern over this “isolationist” streak being heard in the Republican debates, and in Washington in general.
So much so that two of the three biggest mouthpieces for military intervention, unnecessary bloodshed and untold wasted trillions of dollars spoke out strongly on television.
First, On Meet the Press, South Carolina warmonger Lindsey Graham who told Congressional opposition to the Libya war to “sort of shut up and not empower Ghadafi.”
His comrade, Arizona Senator John “Bomb, Bomb Iran” McCain on This Week criticized the contestants in the Republican debate in New Hampshire last Monday saying, “This is isolationism. There has always been an isolation strain — isolationist strain on the Republican Party, Pat Buchanan-wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak.”
Of course, the crusty neocon loves to throw around the misnomer “isolationist” when things aren’t going his way. As the CATO Institute’s Doug Bandow pointed out, “Samuel Johnson said patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Today the epithet “isolationist” is the last refuge of the warmonger.”
In fact, using the term “isolationist” describes not one of the contenders on that stage last Monday night. Isolationism defined is “National policy of avoiding political or economic entanglements with other countries”. Is anyone saying that?
Mr. McCain went on to say, “I wonder what Ronald Reagan would be saying today?”
I always love to hear so-called Reagan conservatives bring up the late president in the name of a hawkish foreign policy. You hear it from McCain, you hear it from Hannity, you hear it from Levin, however they are all very mistaken about Reagan’s supposed hawkishness.
In fact, they constantly get Reagan backwards claiming he was some great fiscal conservative, which he certainly was not, and he was some great neocon hawk, which again, he certainly was not.
Reagan, they seem to forget, was the most cautious President in decades as far as bombing other countries, putting boots on the ground, etc. He was more cautious than GW Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, and of course Bush Jr. and Obama. Look at the history, Reagan had a much more restrained foreign policy than any of these men.
What would Ronald Reagan say? Ronald Reagan in my estimate would whole-heartedly disagree with the bloodlust of John McCain and Lindsey Graham.