Double Talk McCain

As we discussed here before, John McCain is the opposite of a straight-talker. He'll say one thing today, then he'll say the opposite tomorrow. Sometimes he'll answer a question with an internally contradictory answer. Sometimes he'll dodge the question. You thought John Kerry was a flip-flopper? Give me a break. John McCain is a real flip-flopper.

Recently, McCain has been flopping back and forth on Bush's warrantless wiretapping scheme. Time's Ana Marie Cox tries to pin down McCain's position, but fails even after asking McCain to clarify himself:

The most generous interpretation of his position is that warrantless wiretapping MIGHT have been illegal when Bush did it, but that it should be legal in the future. From a civil libertarian point of view, that's pretty much the worst possible position for someone to hold: i.e., not only will we NOT determine if the government overstepped its bounds in the past, but we will broaden its authority in the future, which implies a kind of ever-expanding approach to government power.

Yet McCain insists his position hasn't changed. When I spoke to him last week (in an interview that was mostly on a totally different topic), he claimed, "I haven’t deviated in the slightest …. As I’ve said before, there’s a delicate balance protecting rights and national security." He blamed the stalling of new FISA legislation on partisan gridlock and argued, "I’m not trying to give anyone blanket immunity for anything, I’m saying we need sit down and review the issue with the interests of our national security first in mind." But then he also said that what came out of the Senate was totally fine, implying negotiation (or at least compromise) was unnecessary: "I don’t think Jay Rockefeller or any of the Senate Democrats that agreed to [the FISA legislation] would have agreed to something that was unfair." I guess that depends on whether you think "blanket immunity" (which was in fact part of the Senate bill) is fair.

And when I asked him about conservative commenters who have applauded what they see as a shift towards embracing the Bush view on executive branch powers, he said, "I haven’t changed my position on that at all," and that he still pledges, "I will never use a signing statement."

Now, I admit that my understanding of FISA is pretty pro-am, and that it's also possible that McCain's absence from the Senate means he's not up to speed on the latest kinds of compromises that are being discussed, but, honestly, I can't make sense of what he's actually believes among all of these statements. For every straightforward declaration, there's a weirdly squishy backstep.

"Squishy backstep", aka double-talk express, aka flip-flopping, aka lying about his positions, aka total confusion about where he stands. However you interpret this, it doesn't look good for old man McCain. This is not smart politics.