John McCain runs for George Bush's third term

George Bush has been closely wed to Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, even in the face of the reverses of the last year, which have seen the general's fortunes plummet as he alienated the entire electorate by sacking the supreme court and ordering a ham-fisted invasion of a militant mosque. Even after Musharraf's party lost heavily in recent parliamentary elections, McCain insisted, "We appreciate the relationship we have with President Musharraf and hope to maintain that." Musharraf's high-handed tactics have turned the whole Pakistani population against him, and he seems set to be much weakened by a new alliance of the democratically elected opposition parties. McCain, like Bush, doesn't want to let go of the dictator.

Bush's signature project has been the war in Iraq, which he has managed like a veteran Las Vegas magician, with a misdirection and legerdemain that can make a whole elephant disappear. Despite nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 30,000 wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, millions displaced internally and abroad, the creation of a new and serious terrorism problem, high fuel costs at home, and the entire lack of any obvious benefit from the whole endeavor to the American people, more than 40 percent of Americans now say the U.S. is making progress in establishing civil order in that country. McCain went to the same David Coppersmith School of Prestidigitation as Bush. He says he is dedicated to nothing less than complete military victory in Iraq and the maintenance of bases in that country for as much as a century, and his audiences do not appear to break out in derisive laughter. The bad news for McCain is that about 63 percent of Americans, a figure that has been fairly steady for the past year, continue to believe launching the war in the first place was a mistake.

Surely lack of health insurance for tens of millions, loss of good jobs, blighted cities like Detroit and New Orleans, and erosion of key civil liberties are a more "transcendent challenge" than the activities of small cultlike groups that are finding it harder and harder to operate on the soil of Middle Eastern and European allies of the U.S. But that's not to say that McCain isn't pushing a domestic agenda as well. McCain does have a domestic agenda. It's George Bush's.

On domestic policy, McCain's nostrums for the bad economy are job training and "tax cuts." As Paul Krugman once pointed out, "tax cuts" were Bush's response to each and every economic problem that arose, however unrealistic they were. Half of all the benefits of Bush's 2003 tax cut went to millionaires, and the sad impact on ordinary Americans of consequent lack of services and the diversion of wealth to the wealthy, has now become amply apparent. The more economically literate Republicans have caught on to Bush's "tax cut" shell game. Ironically, John McCain used to be one of them, declining to sign on to some of Bush's tax cuts. No more.

By "tax cuts," Republicans such as McCain mean lowering specific federal taxes on income and capital gains. This step would harm federal income, which will fall anyway if there is an extended recession, and would mainly benefit Americans in the top income brackets. A federal government with less income will be less able to pay for the services and job training ordinary workers and middle-class people need, especially in bad times. Moreover, in a recession, you want the government to spend more money, not less, which cannot be accomplished by reducing its income. McCain, like Bush, seems firmly stuck in 1929.

Bush championed the North American Free Trade Agreement, criticizing Sens. Clinton and Obama for saying they might pull out of it if Mexico and Canada declined to renegotiate some of its provisions. Bush is now pushing for a free trade agreement with Colombia, arguing it is necessary for "national security."

McCain is just as committed to NAFTA as Bush. Worried about the impact on U.S.-Canadian relations of Democratic attacks on the agreement, he said, "I want to tell our Canadian friends that I will negotiate and conclude free trade agreements and I will not, after entering into solemn agreements, go and say that I will abrogate those agreements." He denounced the Democratic candidates for risking "protectionism," and added, "One of the greatest assets we have in Afghanistan today, frankly, are our Canadian friends." He noted the unpopularity of the Canadian participation in the NATO mission there, which is part of a NATO contingent, given the 78 Canadian soldiers killed so far. He concluded, "We need their continued support in Afghanistan." Some 58 percent of Canadians reject the idea of extending their country's mission in Afghanistan past February 2009.

Both at home and abroad, McCain appears intent on abandoning some of his most deeply cherished personal values, including his commitment to secular values and distaste for religious bigotry, in favor of catering to the great W. coalition of white evangelicals and security-obsessed conservatives. Like Bush, his mantras are war and belligerence abroad, and at home, fear-mongering, "free trade," lower taxes on the wealthy, and "job training" for the increasingly miserable middle classes. If he is elected, it will be "Groundhog Day," the Bill Murray film about a character doomed to live through the same day over and over again. It will be the last eight years that we will suffer through again under a President McCain. Only worse, because we have already eaten so much of our seed corn.