He was humble. Bipartisan. A nice guy, liked by partisans on both sides of the aisle. An instinctual moderate who'd constrain America's foreign policy ambitions and ably manage our finances. He was George W. Bush, and despite what the press said, he was none of those things. Rather, the truest understanding of Bush's candidacy came from those who had read his policy plans. The shockingly regressive tax cuts, the dismissive attitude towards international treaties, the inattention to our unraveling health care system, the denial of our energy problems -- it was all there. The press assured us that those plans were just election-year pandering. Turned out they were his governing agenda. Similarly, John McCain, we're told, is a moderate. A nice guy. Respected on both sides of the aisle. Conscious of the limits of American power and the constraints of our fiscal situation. His plans? That hugely regressive tax cut, radical dismantling of the health care system, appetite for endless war? Oh, you know how elections go. Bullshit. McCain has a record and a platform, and it's time the two got some attention alongside his personal story and charm. So this week is McCain week at TAP. Every day, we're leading off with a look at a different facet of McCain's platform. We began yesterday by posting our cover story this month, in which Matt Yglesias explores McCain's militarist approach to foreign policy. McCain, writes Matt, "is the foremost proponent of an imperial conception of America's role in the world since Teddy Roosevelt, the most persuasive advocate of 'national greatness' in practical politics, and the most loyal adherent of neoconservative ideas in Congress. And possibly the next president of the United States." In other words, he's Bush for people who thought the problem with the Bush era was a foreign policy marked by insufficient imperialist ambition. Read the whole thing.
