More proof of the Kristol Critique. McCain was on Fox News. He talked a big game about the problems he has with Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. He still wants to re-litigate the Iraq war and give Hagel a hard time for opposing the troop surge in 2006.
Yet most telling was what he said to Chris Wallace's question about filibustering the nominee. While McCain said he was seriously thinking of not voting for him he ruled out filibustering him, noting that this would be unprecedented in U.S. history. So 51 votes-or even 50 with Biden's vote may be sufficient.
Similarly on the sequester he talked a lot about the cataclysmic effects of letting the sequester hit military spending. While he said that the President must be willing to negotiate it's interesting what he didn't say: that he'd be willing to let them hit. Indeed, he didn't even shut the door on having tax revenues as part of the deal.
“Republicans and Democrats are responsible for this new cliff and I’ll take responsibility for it for the Republicans,” McCain said of the spending cuts. “But we’ve got to avoid it. We’ve got to stop it.”
Averting the cuts “requires bipartisanship,” McCain added. “Will I look at revenue closers? Maybe so. But we’ve already just raised taxes. Why do we have to raise taxes again?”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mccain-says-maybe-to-taxes-to-avert-sequester/2013/02/10/c7007b28-73ba-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html?wprss=rss_politics
The more you hear about all the alarmism about the military cuts the less plausible it gets that the Republicans can simply allow it to happen. While we often hear about how the many of the GOP Reps are in very safe conservative districts, the one thing that wouldn't play well there is deep military cuts as many of the districts depend on military contracts. If as some Republicans have said-like Lindsay Graham-these sequester cuts will embolden Iran and raise membership at Al Qaeda training camps, can you really refuse to avoid them just so Chevron can keep its tax credits?
He also sounded like he's prepared to vote on major immigration reform-and is one of the Republican Senators who have worked on a bill. At the end of the interview he said 'elections have consequences-unfortunately.'
Chris Wallace came back with 'Well, you would know.'
Then there was Cantor on Meet the Press. While he continues to make it sound as he did at that speech he gave to the AEI last week, that the GOP just has a rebranding problem, he also now supports the Dream Act saying that the children of illegal immigrants should be able to be citizens-he's still resisting a path to citizenship for adults-and of course it leaves the problem of what happens to a teenager who's parents are second class citizens. However, it's quite a sea change for Cantor nevertheless.
He is a tea party favorite in the House-he was who sunk Boehner's past attempts at a "grand bargain.". Again, as we've observed in previous posts legalisation these days doesn't need a majority of House Republican support now that the Hastert Rule is done.
In the interview, David Gregory also pointed out that Cantor's state of Virginia will be the hardest hit in the event of the military cuts. Yet again underscoring the difficulty in allowing the sequester cuts much less using them as "leverage."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-sequester-latest-gop-paper-elephant.html
Said it before and I'll say it again: the future's so bright, we're going to have to wear shades! The President also knows he's in a strong position which is why he plans to give a very strong State of the Union speech tomorrow night.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/02/state-of-the-union-preparing-for-battle-156637.html
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