I can't help but wonder. . .

. . .just what it is that McCain's critics want in response to their criticisms. As best I can tell, it seems to be nothing less than utter obsequiousness. Whatever it is, it certainly doesn't include any kind of disagreement.

For example, when the folks who demand to be catered to start complaining about McCain-Feingold, you are definitely not allowed to point out that they had no problem with a certain other candidate's heresies in the same area, even though those heresies were more brazen. That would be divisive.

The same apparently goes for the issues I mentioned in my earlier post -- tax cuts and class warfare rhetoric. If you deign to mention a certain other candidate's weaknesses in those areas. . .why, that's just petty and small. Obviously, it's McCain's duty to genuflect before the gatekeepers. To ask those gatekeepers to reexamine their own positions and how they line up with conservative orthodoxy is nothing short of blasphemy.

I've been a conservative all my adult life. My views have always placed me in the libertarian right quadrant of the political spectrum. I don't know exactly what changed along the way, but it certainly wasn't my views. Politically, I'm still right where I was when I started this blog. But, one thing I do know is that it wasn't until very recently that I ever felt as if the conservative press had become a self-appointed Stasi, demanding to see my papers at every turn.