Another Conservative flees the sinking ship. And Ken Adelman is a super neo-conservative, as in he's personal friends with Rumsfeld and Cheney. He campaigned for Goldwater, served in the Ford and Reagan administrations, and worked under Rumsfeld at the Pentagon in 2001. And he's supporting on Obama, on the premise that John McCain doesn't cut it when it comes to national security. George Packer of the New Yorker shares his exchange with Adelman.
Adelman asks and then answers his own question:
Why so, since my views align a lot more with McCain’s than with Obama’s? And since I truly dread the notion of a Democratic president, Democratic House, and hugely Democratic Senate?
Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment.
When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I’ve concluded that that’s no way a president can act under pressure.
Second is judgment. The most important decision John McCain made in his long campaign was deciding on a running mate.
That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign—Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick.
Ouch. He's absolutely right, but ouch. Now, I know most people on this site don't give a rat's ass about who Adelman endorses other than perhaps taking a small amount of joy in seeing John McCain's natural allies abandoning him in droves. But I couldn't help but note the parallels that his endorsement has with Powell's. Both came from life long republicans, who were both cheerleaders for the war, and both feel that they would feel safer with Barack Obama running the show for the next four years. Yet despite the similarity in their stated reasons, absolutely NOBODY is going to accuse Adelman of basing his decision on race. Rush won't be ranting about Adelman tomorrow, Pat won't be sharing his theories on Hardball tonight; Adelman will either be ignored, or dismissed. The extremely cynical might argue that Adelman has a personal grudge against McCain, or he's pulling some sort of political stunt. But suggesting that Adelman wants to support Obama would be ridiculous, just as it's ridiculous to suggest that that was Powell's reason.
Oh, and picking Palin was perhaps the dumbest thing McCain has ever done politically. I think that pick will be responsible for ruining both their careers.
UPDATE:
In further correspondence with Packer, Adelman adds:
The Republican handling of the war made me value "experience" far less. If Cheney, Rumsfeld & Powell are the epitome of experience, I’ll take the alternative. They’ve given experience a bad name.
Further thought: McCain’s campaign soured me a lot. His hiring of the Bush attack squad, South Carolina 2000, made me view this honorable man as heading a dishonorable effort. And that’s still the case. It’s pretty disgusting, what he’s doing...
Cheney and Rumsfeld were so bad that they ruined experience. That takes some doing. And it's interesting to see that Adelman mirrors Powell's opinion on the type of campaign McCain is waging. McCain is not going to have many friends left when this is over.