McCain a Flip-Flopper?

Now that Senator John S. McCain has clinched the Republican nomination, he must overcome an identity crisis. Should he change his history of bipartisan voting to strengthen his Republican kinship ties? Or will his attempts to woo the right-wingers of his party alienate Independents? McCain’s recent flip-flop on torture suggests that he is trying to attract the right-wing Republican vote. That seems to explain why McCain, one of the nation’s staunchest opponents of torture, voted not to pass an anti-torture bill.

This came as a surprise for those who know of McCain’s long battle with the Bush administration and members of his own party to ban the use of torture by the United States. Once a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Senator McCain has led the Senate in calling on the White House to ban torture by words and by action. Torture shouldn’t be a Republican or a Democratic issue, and McCain reassured the public that you didn’t have to espouse torture to be a true Republican.

So why has the senator voted against an anti-torture bill that his colleagues in the Senate passed?

The Intelligence Authorization Bill bans the Central Intelligence Agency from using acts of torture. It calls on the CIA to follow the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations in the treatment of individuals. For Senator McCain, this bill was a seminal opportunity to enact measures he has been advocating for years. The bill explicitly banned waterboarding, and McCain has been one of the strongest voices calling on the White House to ban the practice as torture.

Yet when asked to explain his recent vote, McCain argued, “What we need is not to tie the CIA to the Army Field Manual, but rather to have a good faith interpretation of the statutes that guide what is permissible in the CIA program.” This is interesting since McCain has been pushing anti-torture legislation for the very reason that the CIA has not been acting in “good faith” on their statutes.

Many might find McCain’s decision confusing, but as Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s top national security adviser, stated, “It’s easily explainable and easily understood by the American people.” Yet what the American people will take away from this experience is that McCain’s vote was cast entirely in light of his bid for the Republican nomination. He is uncharacteristically siding with the president on the issue of torture. This dramatic change in position reflects McCain’s attempt to reach out to President George W. Bush’s many enthusiastic far-right supporters; he is unabashedly trying to solidify his Republican base to win the presidency. Sacrificing principle for power is evidently a price Senator McCain is willing to pay.

Indeed, torture isn’t the only issue on which McCain is willing to flip-flop. After criticizing Reverend Jerry Falwell for being an “agent of intolerance,” McCain delivered a commencement speech at the “Moral Majority” leader’s Liberty University, reaching out to religious conservatives. After claiming he “cannot in good conscience support” President Bush’s tax cuts, Senator McCain recently voted to continue some of the tax cuts in the $70 billion Tax Relief Extension Reconciliation Act.

This is disappointing, to say the least. McCain’s flip-flop isn’t analogous to, for example, Martin Luther King Jr. opposing a bill desegregating buses. After all, McCain is running for President and some compromises must be made. However, his willingness to compromise on issues he has been so principled on in the past is jarring.

On Jan. 17, this paper’s staff published an editorial endorsing Senator John McCain for the Republican nomination, praising among other things his “unequivocal” stance on torture. The Harvard Crimson wasn’t alone in admiring McCain’s staunch opposition to torture. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike commended McCain for standing up against the current administration to ban the use of torture in the War on Terror. His courage led members of both parties to admire him as a trustworthy leader. For many, that admiration has changed to disbelief and disappointment.

McCain has made his choice; he is no longer the trustworthy McCain whom Independents can count on to vote on principle even when that means opposing the leadership of his own Republican Party. In addition to sacrificing principle though, McCain might be sacrificing important Independent votes, and his acceptance of President Bush’s endorsement isn’t going to help in that respect. He is counting on the fact that his flip-flop to the far-right will gain him Republican Party support, but this is a dangerous political game for him to play. During this election, Independent votes are predicted to be valuable, and the cost of McCain’s inconsistency—defeat in the general election—might not be worth whatever it is that comes along with President Bush’s endorsement.





Nafees Syed ’10 is a government concentrator in Leverett House.