Did you catch this? This speech by McCain, given some 3 months ago, got plenty of attention at the time.
It was widely seen as a way to distance McCain from the Bush administration's supposed "unilateralism." That was bad enough, as the fact remains that President Bush hasn't been nearly as unilateral as his critics make out.
But let's also focus on something else--Senator McCain also said this, according to the article:
"In a wide-ranging speech on foreign policy, Senator John McCain sought Wednesday to distance himself from the unilateralism that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration, saying Americans must, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, show “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” “We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to,” Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, said in remarks here to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. “We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact.”
I hope Sen. McCain is just saying this, and doesn't completely mean it. No, there's nothing wrong with building alliances. But at the same time, he's wrong when he implies that our foreign policy should be based in any way on world opinion. Conservatism, properly understood, must mean that, when it comes to world opinion, we'll listen to it. But we'll only take others' advice if, through reflection, analysis, and thought, we decide it's worth taking. I think there's a notion out there that says if significant numbers of people around the world believe our foreign policy to be wrong, then it must be wrong. But that's not true. What majorities say in polls does not necessarily lead you to the truth. Senator McCain needs to remember that.
