Hitchens Joins All-Star Roster of Anti-McCain "Smart" Republicans

Noted Bush-supporting former Trotskyite Christopher Hitchens has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president! In Slate today, the beloved British alcoholic raves about how Obama isn't a sad old man, like McCain, or an offensive joke, like Sarah Palin. Hitch, like a Nader voter, declares that there are no substantial differences between the candidates, but McCain's temperament is too unstable, and Obama's is much more reassuring. This is basically the argument of a number of noted conservative intellectuals who have, in recent weeks, either endorsed Obama, resigned themselves to an Obama presidency, or simply unendorsed McCain. As the intellectual conservatives abandoned Bush, now they find themselves abandoning the GOP.

Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan was once a very prominent, very influential conservative. As recently as last year, even as he largely abandoned Bush, he was still complimenting McCain. Now, not so much.

Times columnist David Brooks scarcely deserves to be called an intellectual, but as we're using that term strictly to mean "East Coast elitists who write about politics professionally" he'll have to do. This "I'm disappointed in McCain but he'll be a good president" column was but a prelude to Brooks' statement during an interview that Obama was a perceptive intellectual surrounded by impressive people and Sarah Palin is a cancer.

Christopher Buckley was hardly a doctrinaire conservative. As a satirical novelist and a smart-ass, one imagines he's not too pleased with the rise of creationist rubes in his beloved GOP (his dad made that fucking bed, obvs, but that's neither here nor there). And Chris claims he wrote in George H.W. Bush in 2004 rather than vote for the son. But that's far different from explicitly endorsing a Democrat, as he did last week. Once again: Obama's temperament and obvious intelligence sealed the deal.

Charles Krauthammer is basically a reliable party hack, always willing to subvert his own intelligence for the good of the party. But the once-influential psychiatrist can't help but see that his movement is not served by the buffoonery of the McCain campaign. He wrote this mild quasi-endorsement of Obama this month:

Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition — do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.

And, also at The Atlantic, Ross Douthat, who wrote a book about how Republicans can save themselves, finds himself bewildered by McCain's campaign and unimpressed with the Ayers bullshit and Sarah Palin.

So. Is all that a trend? In the way that the closing of the New York Sun was indicative of the slow death of a movement if not necessarily caused by that death, we think we're seeing the further erosion of the always uneasy GOP pact between libertarian true believers, Christan fundamentalist true believers, nationalists, "just keep my taxes low" rich assholes, and the crowd that just likes to hitch their wagons to winners. A reorganization is on the way. Then most of these listed commentators will probably hop back on the bandwagon.

Also this is how we were originally planning on reporting the Hitch endorsement:

All the Sad Young Journalists Who Used to Love John McCain

On the whole, the journalists who've TURNED AGAINST their former boyfriend John McCain are some of our least favorite journalists in the nation, embodying as they do everything insular and adolescent about the Washington Press Corps. They loved John McCain when he could convince them that he was only bullshitting to the voters, not to them. Now, he won't speak to them! And hey, he's lying about shit, too, but whatever. Today, another media person handed McCain back his class ring and ran home, weeping. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, explain yourself!

I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.

Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story — that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

But now, John McCain lies. And it's not like 2000, when John McCain lied about loving the confederate flag and then apologized for lying, because back then he'd wink to Richard Cohen every time he did it, so Rich knew it was just a thing he had to do, this lying.

Anyway, Rich, your column went over great with Joe Klein, who is pretty much just like you except he writes for Time.

So that's two useless moderate bearded columnists off the straight talk express! Who's next?

Wait, David Brooks? No, wait, he just doesn't like Sarah Palin anymore. Because she's not a comfortable entrenched establishment conservative like David Brooks, but rather a scary culture war populist idiot, like Bush.

And, of course, Andrew Sullivan—once a gay Catholic right-winger (well, honestly, still those things in his head) who wanted to kill all the Muslims and accused liberal journalists of being in league with the terrorists right after 9/11—never wastes an opportunity to point out that John McCain has lost his respect (we're sure that keeps the senator up at night).

Of course we're being unfair in only listing people we never liked. (JK Andrew, you've grown on us.) Ana Marie Cox likes McCain—for that openness and access that Rich Cohen pretends not to care about!—but she has been critical of his campaign, lately (though she scored a late-August interview with the candidate—just before the Palin selection!) And Jon Stewart had McCain on his Daily Show more often than any other guest. But during the RNC the show produced what is maybe the most damning and mean indictment of the man's entire biography we've ever seen.

To sum up: in 2000 John McCain learned that making friends with the media does not win elections, and this year he may yet learn that pissing them off has no consequences.