Fund Responds, Sticks With Story.
By Leon H Wolf Posted in 2008 | John Fund | John McCain | Samuel Alito — Comments (51) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Tomorrow is the biggest and most important single-state Republican primary in the Republican field: a winner-take-all contest for Florida's delegates. John McCain is locked in a struggle to the death with Mitt Romney and a quickly-fading Rudy Giuliani. And right now, it seems that the race as a whole may come down to a single phrase tucked away in a place of relative unimportance (the 11th paragraph) in a John Fund article, to wit:
More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."
It seems likely from the structure of Mr. Fund's article that he did not realize how this statement would explode like a bombshell with the conservative base. After the acrimonious fight over Miers, and the equally acrimonious confirmation fight over Alito, it is safe to say that the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court is regarded by many voting conservatives as the most significant conservative victory of the last three or four years. If John McCain had repudiated the decision to nominate Alito because he was visibly conservative, he would have intentionally planted a dynamite charge in the weakest portion of his own base - conservatives who had recently talked themselves into rolling the dice on his judicial nominations - and detonated the charge. It would have shown an absolute deafness towards the central concern of the voters McCain is trying hardest at this moment to court.
Someone in the McCain camp understood, and the campaign (led by the candidate) quickly issued blanket denials, leading some (including myself) to question John Fund's anonymous sources. I called upon Fund to respond, and he has: he is sticking with his story and claims that he has multiple sources to back it up. He is adamant that the sources said that McCain "might" not have appointed Alito (as opposed to "would" not have appointed Alito, a nuance I missed in my earlier piece), but this effectively amounts to the same thing in conservatives' minds. Further, on a blogger conference call, McCain seemed to walk back a bit from his earlier denial.
If Fund does in fact come forward with sources who can substantiate this conversation, I think this remark finishes John McCain in the long run. It is a perfect soundbite made for commericals, and as I said, it hits McCain where he is most vulnerable with conservatives. Further, for him to have made such a remark with a crucial Florida primary right around the corner would speak to the fact that even with a zillion advisers constantly around him, he really just does not understand the issues that are of importance to conservatives, and he is not willing to meet us on our terms.
You all know that I'm a Romney guy, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. I'm still willing to give McCain the benefit of the doubt on what was said, but if Fund turns out to have been right, I will have great difficulty supporting him even in the general, for whatever that is worth.
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Fund Responds, Sticks With Story. 51 Comments (0 topical, 51 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Fund is not Chris Matthews.
McCain does make some nervous about his willingness to compromise with democrats to get along.
In terms of the Romney example, it would depend in part on the journalist, and in part on an assessment of Romney's willingness to fight with democrats. He definitely did engage the Mass legislature in a lot of combat.
I'd have the entire body of his work leading up to that time to judge by. And if Romney responded "Well, I don't recall saying that but...", it would add some weight to it. If, on the other hand, he said "There's no way in Hades I'd ever have said that", then it wouldn't.
Consistency check for you. Would you also tell Fund he can't use this? It's a fairly pro-McCain quote.
"John has to begin a new phase of his campaign," says one prominent Republican in Congress who is backing Mr. McCain. "He has to decide if he wants to be a leader of the conservative movement that he says he joined after Ronald Reagan inspired him to enter politics in 1982. If he does that, he can be accepted. If he doesn't, he will have to settle for a shotgun marriage with conservatives."
In any case, this will all come out one way or the other in the next few days.
He better come forth with those sources, or his credibility will be shredded.
Futhermore, they better mean what he implies they mean in context. If he merely said that he'd rather nominate someone like Roberts then Alito given the fact that the Dems control the Senate, he was merely talking strategy, and good strategy at that.
John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"
I have sent Fund an email asking many of these questions, and I hope he responds either to me or to someone else who's asking these questions.
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The Red Sox Republican: Burkeanism, Baseball, and Sundries.
it only strengthens my resolve against McCain. I have my doubts though against anyone who still uses anonymous sources. Let's hear from the sources Lund!
I have to admit that I'm totally against McCain anyway...for all the obvious reasons.
Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."
Just when I thought my choices couldn't get much worse, . . . . I'm definitely leaning for Huckabee over McCain now, and I might even join Leon and go with Romney--at least he panders to me.
But he's still not saying exactly what the quote was, where, when and who was it told to him.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWNkNzI4ZWQ3MWNhODIxMmVhOWRlNGN...
A lame dirty trick, IMO.
I'm no fan of anon sources, but the very fact that Mr. HotHead would walk back on his denial instead of going in for the kill speaks volumes to me.
McCain doesn't give a tinkers dam about conservatives or conservatism. He cares infinitely more about CFR, about Senate comity and about a path to citizenship for 12 million new Democratic voters than about the conservative base of his "own" party.
Elect McCain and you'd better have a good pair of safety glasses. He won't be able to wait to stick his thumb in your eye again. And again. And again.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
that Fund says he has "3 sources, the date and the place". I'm not sure how much more solid you want something to be before it's reported. He also says the quote is not as damaging as people are making it out to be, which I fully believe.
What he says means nothing if not verified, and we have no way of verifying his confidential sources... I'm sure that you've seen just how reliable anonymous sources have been in the past...
Hey, I have 3 sources that says Fund is wrong...who are you going to believe?
Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."
Er, the guy whose reputation is shot, whose livelihood will be at risk if he's lying?
Not a tough choice there, is it?
On the other hand a relatively anonymous poster on redstate can just create another relatively anonymous account. So as I said, it isn't really tough to pick who I'd believe.
If an anonymous poster started making factual allegations not verifiable anywhere in the public record or anywhere else, no one would listen to them. Generally posters don't do factual journalism, they just give their opinion. The anonymity can be abused and often it, but there are also good reasons for sometimes being anonymous (as when James Madison wrote as Publius). But at any rate, you don't need to know the identity of a poster to know how to judge his opinion. You do need to know the identity of someone who makes factual allegation about what public figures said at a private meeting, if you want to know whether to believe it or not.
Fortunately for you, I am not anonymous... I have no problem with you knowing who I am... I post with my first initial and last name, so you can figure out just who I am...go for it... I really don't care if you know who you are talking to...how about you? S. Key...
Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."
I don't care if he claims he has 100 sources. I want him to name at least one source and describe exactly what was said in context. Until he's done that, he's not acting like a professional journalist.
that I've been able to discern about McCain in years of watching him is that when he says something he says it early and he sticks to it until the pressure coming the other way is overwhelming.
If he had it out for Alito - or if he had even a modicum of disdain for him - we would have known about it a couple of years ago. He would've said so early and often.
He didn't.
And now you believe this quote from two or more secret sources? Even when McCain has bever before even given a hint of discomfort with Alito?
Dislike McCain for things that he has clearly supported (campaign finance reform) or opposed (torture), but let's not let this reporter's anonymous resources persuade us that McCain's strong record of supporting conservative judges is anything less than that.
Is that he also supported Breyer and Ginsburg, and so far as I know, every other judge Clinton nominated. So, his record w/r/t "supporting" judges/justices tells us literally nothing about the kind of judge he would actually nominate. And the quoted portion gets to that question, which is why it's bothersome to so many people.
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The Red Sox Republican: Burkeanism, Baseball, and Sundries.
between voting in favor of a judicial nominee and going to the mat for the nominee. McCain spoke in favor of Alito and defended his nomintion - in addition to voting for him and touting that vote.
How does all of that square with Fund's "quote"?
When asked by Byron York about it today, McCain again praised Alito profusely: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Yjc5NmYxZWZkZjY0NzQxNGNhYWFiOTV...
I completely understand that you support Romney and that you'd like to promote this as something that could clinch it for your candidate.
But I ask you and everyone else at RS to look at Fund with the very same skeptical eye that we use to analyze all other contributors to the MSM.
it's one thing to speak in favor of, defend, and approve the nomination of another President's choice. It's quite another thing to place a name in nomination.
Any statements that give us a look into a candidate's thought process of whom he might nominate are fair game. I hope Fund can release the pertinent facts of who said what, when and where.
I am just saying that Fund is sticking with it. *IF* it turns out to be true, that's going to (deservedly) be the nail in the coffin for McCain, especially given his initial reaction to it.
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The Red Sox Republican: Burkeanism, Baseball, and Sundries.
Well, McCain has said on several occasions that he would absolutely nominate judges in the Roberts and Alito mold - he has even joked that he would like to clone them.
I hope John Fund isn't reading this because he may quote me - an anonymous source - as saying that John McCain supports human cloning. :-)
Then why are we assuming what type of judge he would or would not nominate...?
Not technically directing this at you...
if there's one thing that I've been able to discern about McCain in years of watching him is that when he says something he says it early and he sticks to it until the pressure coming the other way is overwhelming.
That was a flat out denial and it was easily disproved by MSNBC since he was denying making statements that were already on record. Was the pressure overwhelming there?
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Believe me I want to support him and trust him. I am a vet and his history pulls at me but I can't get past things like McCain/Fiengold, McCain/Lieberman etc etc. And more recently, all the back and forth about his honesty just adds to my questions about what he really believes. He has over and over told us he heard our voices about Immigration and Amnesty, he's going to secure the borders etc and make us happy. Yet he brings Juan Hernandez into his inner circle as his Hispanic Outreach Counselor. Now you all may yell that that is not proof he won't stand behind his current take on Immigration but I'm telling you this, Juan Hernandez would NEVER have joined McCain if McCain where serious about secure borders. Hernandez would have nothing to do with him if McCain hadn't calmed Juan's fears that McCain had switched over to the dark side. Right now McCain is spinning Americas outcry about immigration to be that we support his reform package but we just don't believe the government will do what it says. That's not it by a long shot and he keeps deluding himself and his supporters. I want to know what I'm getting when I vote for my candidate, I'm tired of having to guess.
FredHeads for Mitt!
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Sorry, I guess I should have stressed more that I meant it as a compare/contrast to the story about judges in that does he really intend to follow through with his commitments to us or is this all just election posturing. He says he will appoint judges like Alito but then some thing like the Fund comment(or Juan Hernandez on immigration) comes along and it makes you wonder. Pardon the post etiquette problems, been a member awhile but don't post much. Will strive to improve...=)
FredHeads for Mitt!
Fund isn't some living-room blogger. He's a respected, known reporter who's done good work in the past. There's no reason NOT to believe him at the moment. When he says he's got three different sources, a date, and a location, that sounds pretty certain to me. He's not stupid enough just to make something like that up, which can end careers. On the other hand, given all of McCain's flips & flops & half-truths & lies, we have no reason to trust him on this.
Given that McCain and Lindsay Graham killed Haynes's nomination, you have to question their committment to a conservative federal judiciary.
So, the Fund story certainly makes sense. McCain probably likes having it both ways: Being a "maverick" in the eyes of the media. Being a "conservative" in the eyes of Republican primary voters.
I don't doubt that Fund, like he says, has 3 sources that were at some meeting and heard McCain say something about Alito and conservatism and maybe even a shirtsleeve. But as I've been pointing out, the problem is not just anonymity but the (closely connected) failure to give the specific context and to cite verifiable facts. This prevents all of us from knowing exactly what McCain said. Fund unjustifiably created suspicions based on vague hearsay. I don't care if he's a respected reporter or works for the WSJ; respected reporters don't get a license to do this. Journalists should allow us to do what Reagan wanted to do with the Soviet Union's nuclear arms: "Trust but verify."
With regard to McCain's alleged failure to deny Fund's claims, it's interesting to note the immediate follow-up question asked by Jim Geraghty (this is on NRO, the Campaign Spot):
[Geraghty]: Is it possible for a Supreme Court Justice nominee to wear his politics on his sleeve?
McCain: Well, mmm... There may be. They're there to interpret the Constitution, and the question is, does this justice have a record, does this nominee have a clear record of strict interpretation of the Constitution. We know we can't ask about pending cases. The beauty of Alito and Roberts was they had a clear record.
Here McCain is assuming that wearing conservatism on his sleeve is a good thing. I think this suggests that apart from knowing the identity of the sources, we need to know the exact context of the shirtsleeve quote before inferring that McCain is backing away from his long, detailed record of firm support for Alito, Roberts, Scalia and judges like them. He says he wants to clone them. That's about as strong as political promises get; even if you distrust him, it would be very hard for McCain to go back on it. Remember that Republicans in the Senate will have a say in this. If McCain surprises us and appoints another Harriet Miers--which I don't think is likely--he's not going to look good having these quotes waved in his face for several weeks during an uphill confirmation battle.
I mean, if I had to pick between a conservative constructionist and an amoral, legalistic constructionist, I'd go with the amoral one. He'd make the same rulings with less opposition.
Of course, politics isn't about the content of a quote so much as the context and the media spin. Just .02.
Founder and contributor to The Minority Report and Editor for The Hinzsight Report
And he did not say what is being claimed he said.
He did not say that McCain said he would not appoint an Alito.
He said some sources claimed he would not.
Fund clarified it by pointing out that McCain has voted for every conservative to have been nominated.
He also made it clear that he thought McCain was talking tactics, not philosophy.
There is a lot about McCain I do not like. I do not think I will support him in the Texas primary.
But I like a lot less the Hewittization of the internet into a bunch of Romney infomercials.
What did he say exactly if not that he might not appoint someone like Alito because he wears his conservatism on his sleeve? Sure he was talking tactics, but does that make it any better? Do we want another stealth nominee like Souter? That's a very dangerous game to play and even if you make out alright, it guarantees you aren't going to get the best man for the job, since the best candidates aren't going to spend their entire careers lying low and being careful to not make their opinions known.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
There's a long record of McCain supporting Alito AND Roberts. He usually refers to them together as exemplary choices for the bench. We have links upon links upon links which support this. But here we are, one day prior to a history-changing primary, and we have a report from Fund who quotes anonymous sources from some private gathering. We don't know if those sources are on the up and up, or whether they're McCain-haters with clear-cut anti-McCain agendas like Mark Levin or Spiral. Given the timing of this report, we probably won't get to the bottom of this until after the votes are counted. So because of this, I believe that Fund's reportage should be seriously discounted until we know a lot more. I appreciate your sense of fairness, but I think it's premature to make any sort of judgment about this episode until the dust settles.
1. McCain, 2. Thompson, 3. Giuliani, 4. Romney
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/665onp...
Romney hasn't always been our "our" side either. I can't get over how quick Romney supporter are to proclaim him "the real conservative in the race". He's a flip flopper, liberally bent and he plays by the Clinton rules - say what works when the polls tell you what to say. He should be out in Detroit selling cars, not leading our country.
Although if you listen enough to Fox News you will think he's the second coming. He gets more coverage there than Sean Hannity. They seem to conveniently forget his past liberal ways at the same time hammering the other candidates for anything they've said or done that was minutely centrist or liberal.
or is it the point?
We are being Hewittized, until everything has to be filtered through the Romney pov.
McCain, in a third hand story that is counter to everything he has done in a long career, is now suddenly untrustworthy on judges.
But Romney, who has never appointed a conservative Judge in his life is suddenly trustworthy without question.
Everyone gets their own say. Nobody makes you read all the pro-Romney or anti-McCain ones, heh. I sure skip a whole lot of the primary season diaries myself.
Mitt Romney is not the topic here. Feel free to post your own diary, or visit the latest Open Thread, to talk about him.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Then McCain's denial is the last word. No scientist could get away with saying he has evidence that proves his hypothesis, but it has to be hidden.
We need to stop this practice in journalism.
Suppose a journalist writes tomorrow: "Mitt Romney told a group of moderates he would appoint justices like Sandra Day O'Connor." Then, when queried about his sources, he says: "Trust me. I have multiple sources." What reason would you have to believe him? Why would it even be worth it to repeat his claim?
This is from the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists:
"Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability." http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
This isn't Watergate; there's no justification for Fund to report this story in the unverifiable, context-free way he did.