Good McCain, Bad Maverick

Today is another Democrat news day with the big primaries in Indiana and North Carolina but McCain is trying to sneak into the news cycle with a speech on judges.

As a McCain skeptic (to be charitable) this is probably as good as it gets for me with McCain.

“Senators Obama and Clinton have very different ideas from my own. They are both lawyers themselves, and don’t seem to mind at all when fundamental questions of social policy are preemptively decided by judges instead of by the people and their elected representatives”

…He calls Roberts and Alito models for the kind of judges he’d nominate, and rips Clinton and Obama for having voted against both!

“Somehow, by Senator Obama’s standard, even Judge Roberts didn’t measure up. And neither did Justice Samuel Alito. Apparently, nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers, and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it — and they see it only in each other.”

While McCain expresses respect for the federal bench his disdain for activist judges as arrogant and dangerous is most pointed.

“Some federal judges operate by fiat, shrugging off generations of legal wisdom and precedent while expecting their own opinions to go unquestioned. Only their favorite precedents are to be considered “settled law,” and everything else is fair game.”

Now for bad Maverick.

McCain announced today that he will address La Raza, a liberal-leaning Latino group, in July. Politico's Jonathan Martin suggests that McCain is "trying to show that he's not George W. Bush by going into the lion's den and taking hostile, unscripted questions from adversarial groups." The McCain campaign says the candidate is scheduling the stop "as part of his commitment to talking with all Americans."

A couple of things….

First, is La Raza really a ‘hostile’ group for McCain? Last year the group honored McCain’s good friend and partner on immigration issues Lindsay Graham. Why exactly would McCain or anyone think this isn’t going to be a friendly crowd for him?

The bigger issue is why is McCain going to speak to La Raza? Michelle Malkin has the rundown on why this isn’t such a great idea.

posted by DrewM. at 11:23 AM

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