Redstate

When people give the standard "I vote for the man, not the party answer," what is not to like about the man, McCain? He is truly a war hero and patriot (unlike JF Kerry, who the Dems love to trot out as their war hero) and probebly the man of highest integrity in this race.

Sure, he has taken some antithetical positions inside the Conservative movement (I don't need to reiterate them here). The more I look at McCain, the more I want him to be president. He has moderated his views on immigration, and come much closer to mine, and MAYBE he will realize the error of his ways on campaign financing. Mostly, though, he is a down-the-line conservative, and, when our second most appealing candidates to the squishy middle is Rudy, we need to give McCain a second look.

The Liberal's definition of torture: Anything that provides useful information from the enemy

I will not say why the MSM love "the maverick".

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

Although I have little experience with Naval officers I suspect the military ethic has a lot to do with McCain's openness. Military personnel generally aren't encouraged or rewarded for obfuscation*. Communications need to be accurate, crisp and clear. If you're lost, tell me you're lost. If you need supplies, tell me you need supplies without worrying about the ramnifications. Quality organizations don't hide the truth, which is a disservice to all. I still miss that aspect of the service, and wish more civilian organizations could grow the cahones to be open and clear about things. Don't believe me? Try reading a corporate press release.

*Of course McCain probably never worried about his military career, having 2 admirals in the family, assuming that Navy officer promotions have the capability of being as shallow as the Army. Oh and his amazing performance as a POW might help too!

"I can say - not as a patriotic bromide...that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and...the only moral country in the history of the world. - Ayn Rand

Openness and "transparency" are, as Alan Bloom noted more than 20 years ago, the most singluarly important values that universities attempt to impart to their students, so it's really no surprise, although maybe it should be. I quote from the introduction to The Closing of the American Mind:

...This was an entirely new experiment in politics, and with it came a new education. This education has evolved in the last half-century from the education of the democratic man to the education of the democratic personality.

The palpable difference between these two can be easily found in the changed understanding of what it means to be an American. The old view was that, by recognizing and accepting man's natural rights, men found a fundamental basis of unity and sameness. Class, race, religion, national origin or culture all disappear or become dim when bathed in the light of natural rights, which gave men common interests and make them truly brothers. The immigrant had to put behind him the claims of the Old World in favor of a new and easily acquired education. This did not necessarily mean abandoning old daily habits or religions, but it did mean subordinating them to new principles. There was a tendency, if not a necessity, to homogenize nature itself.

The recent education of openness has rejected all that. It pays no attention to the natural rights or the historical origins of our regime, which are now thought to have been essentially flawed and regressive. It is progressive and forward-looking. It does not demand fundamental agreement or the abandonment of old or new beliefs in favor of the natural ones. It is open to all kinds of men, all kinds of life-styles, all ideologies. There is no enemy other than the man who is not open to everything. But when there are no shared goals or vision of the public good, is the social contract any longer possible?

Emphasis mine, and this is perhaps a little more wide-ranging a commentary than your post requires in terms of John McCain's personal style in dealing with reporters. But I have very little doubt that John McCain understands, perhaps implicitly, that for the past 20 years the fundamental political virtue as inculcated by our univeristy system has been "openness" and that in the wake of Bush/Cheney especially, the selfsame media that invented the myth of Darth Vader Cheney will respond better to a Republican Presidential candidate who seems like a helpful librarian for anyone who wants to rummage around in his thoughts. Translated into the terms of politicians running for Senate, he's the anti-Cheney: he's hip! But we already knew that: he appeared as a Hugh Hefner Bipartisan Playboy in one of the most memorable internet cartoon series during the last election.

Of course, there are plenty of arguments to be made that it just means that he's pandering to reporters, who he undoubtedly knows he needs more than they need him. And that he's just even a better performer than Streisand.

Great reporting, Adam.

They don't like Rudy for a complex group of reasons: Rudy really is tougher than McCain on a lot of things, but more importantly my feeling is that a lot of people in the Fifth Estate want to see 9/11 put to rest and the GWOT turned into a forgotten acronym -- for their own reasons, which have been discussed at enormous length here on RedState and elsewhere.

I think a lot of members of the media are hostile to Giuliani because they see him as Bush's heir apparent. I don't think there's been a Presidential administration less popular with journalists than this one has been, including Nixon's. I think a lot of them have basically decided that the highfalutin Giuliani-bashers I talked about a while back are representative of the "correct" and "normative" interpretation of his candidacy -- that Giuliani is only in this race because of 9/11 coattails, and that never would have considered running if New York City hadn't been attacked.