2008: John McCain: Neoconservative? Realist? Neither? Both?

Writing in the LA Times, Paul Richter tries to sort out John McCain’s diverse foreign policy positions, finding it difficult to lump McCain in with other neoconservatives, but similarly finding it near-impossible to label him a realist.  His analysis shows McCain swinging back and forth, concluding that McCain’s “conflicting visions” will likely follow him into the White House. Matt Yglesias thinks that although Richter’s take was interesting, it failed to set the right context–which would have been a comparison to Bush instead of a comparison to the nebulous “neoconservative” term.

Meanwhile, Gerard Baker argues in the Times of London that the rise and fall of the neoconservatives has been overdramatized every which way, as the neocons “were not really far out of line with the historic objectives of US foreign policy.” Baker calls McCain a “fervent” supporter of neoconservative ideas, also saying that despite their withdrawal-oriented rhetoric, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are unlikely to “effect an early departure of US troops and the relapse of Iraqi politics into tyrannical stability.”