Look.

If John McCain didn't seem to take such great delight in combating conservative members of his own party, there probably wouldn't be much of an issue with him.

In reality, with the exception of a few close encounters of the liberal kind, McCain has been largely conservative. He's definitely there on defense and foreign policy, and he has been there on abortion, though he favors stem cell research. He's as about as conservative as it gets with earmarks and pork barrel speeding, despite the two no votes against Bush tax cuts. If he had used his current line about no spending cuts in the bills to justify the no votes then, instead of the class warfare rhetoric of his esteemed left-leaning colleagues, there wouldn't be an issue there, either.

Maybe it's just that I don't know very many 70-year-olds, but the ones I do know are not very vain. They're on the other side of life, where climbing corporate ladders or scoring points, or proving themselves right isn't really their goal. So, why is it that whenever anyone talks about McCain, his poking a finger in the eye of conservatism is always associated with looking good before his liberal peers?

Doesn't sound much like a battle-tested, prisoner of war to me.

Especially one from the Vietnam era. In general, we've treated our veterans better before and after that war. Thanks to some of those liberal friends of his, who stirred the anti-war sentiment at home and then grew up to be the establishment they railed against, the soldiers, ever the pawns, never the deciders, were reviled and castigated.

While many are not happy with our fighting men and women being in Iraq, the hysteria surrounding the soldiers and their roles has not been the same as it was during the Vietnam War. There, the liberals won out, much to the shame and degradation of a country, and a generation. Make love not war might have been a more benign slogan, maybe even a more powerful one, for everyone, had it not been held up by the jeering, sneering fanatics of spoiled, smug children.

You'd think McCain wouldn't forget that. Or at least, not to the extent that he would turn his back on any supporter, anyone who would remember him as sacrificing for his country. The liberals aren't particularly known for that, despite having their own prominent veterans of that war. Yet, McCain has done so, angrily, with open hostility.

One might shake their head at McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy and McCain-Lieberman, and one might question just what he was thinking in co-sponsoring them, but it's the blatant disregard at times for the conservative cause that makes it sting so. He is one of us and so he should be one of us. There's nothing wrong with speaking your mind. There's nothing wrong with correcting us when we're wrong. But we're not wrong on the essence of campaign finance reform, immigration or global warming. He could stick to his guns by spending more time and energy on government waste and earmarks, rather than helping the left out with some of their pet causes.

So, fighting his own instead of his enemies is one thing.

That leads to his judgment. Fighting your friends, especially when they're right, is just plain stupid. Sponsoring bills that show a disconnect from the will of the American people, or at the very least, a misunderstanding of just how deep conservative principles should go, shows a lack of judgment. He might get the war right, but what about other things? Despite the fact that fighting terrorism is the defining issue of our time, there's plenty of other things that can tank in the process, if proper judgment is not being used.

So, for me, it's less about the bills and the fact they represent liberal thinking than it is the "I know better than you because I got this gut feeling and you better follow or else," mentality.

That sounds like George W. Bush to me.

Last time I checked, he wasn't being as highly regarded as Ronald Reagan, not even among conservatives.

So, we can argue all you want about what's going to be better for the country, a complete left turn with Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, or a less angled lean leftward, but either way, you're heading left.

The argument that allowing Obama or Clinton to get elected, so that the Democrats get blamed for whatever happens is appealing, as long as it is enough to finally convince enough fence sitters and naysayers that conservatism is the way to go, while not irreparably damaging the country. If the country goes down the tubes in the meantime, conservatives will only have themselves to blame.

Death by slow boil, like the frog, doesn't seem as appealing. There's no catalyzing event, no rallying around the standard bearer. If nothing goes particular wrong as the left turn takes place, then change of any kind becomes the enemy.

Besides, many people, including those of our own movement, are at a loss as to what conservatism is, since there have been too many flavors of it resembling liberalism. Compassionate conservatism means more spending and more government waste on programs and policies that people, in their own homes and communities should be taking care of. Personal responsibility has been replaced by the Nanny state.

It is definitely possible to be compassionate and be conservative. You don't apply it on the federal government level, though, and I'm not really all that crazy with it on the state level, either.

So, don't tell me to accept John McCain as he is. Don't tell me his brand of conservatism is good enough. Good enough is Ronald Reagan. Best is someone else yet to come, but unless McCain presides differently than he legislates, it won't be him. And frankly, that would be more damaging for the cause of conservatism than four years of Obama or Hillary.

The fact of the matter is, any president is unlikely to ruin the country so much that it can't be redeemed. There are too many checks and balances in place. However, enough liberal governing might be enough to wake up the lukewarm conservatives, or those who think they can rely on just one or two of the conservative coalition. It takes all three to have a winning combination, in an election, and in a president.

So, if conservatives are going to get over anything, it's going to be over their primary conservative concern, to vote for the candidate who is the best conservative overall, not for the one who they identify with the most.

I was never keen on voting for someone who reminded me of a fellow employee. I want someone who's smarter than me, who knows how to make decisions, not belly ache and then invite me to drink his problems away.

I also don't want a bully who thinks he knows better. That's been done, from both sides of the aisle.

I own two small weekly newspapers in neighboring rural towns. For the last 10 years, stories of all kinds have been written and published in them, ranging from the mundane to the controversial. Granted, in small towns, we're typically not talking about huge stories like the improprieties of a presidential candidate, but for the residents who live there, stories like this are no small thing.

Since I don't consider us to be a part of the liberal media, being as accurate, fair and sourced as possible is something we attempt to do. I think, by and large, we succeed, but there are times where we don't.

However, if a story on the level of the one printed in the New York Times about Republican presidential presumptive nominee John McCain came into our office, and we couldn't get anyone to talk on the record, and if we couldn't provide evidence either way, we wouldn't run the story. I can't say we've had any story to date regarding a public official having an affair in our towns, but we've had any number of complaints about what bodies of government, like the City Council, or City employees are doing or not doing, which could rival such a story, relatively speaking.

None of those stories have ever been written, let alone published, in our papers.

Alleged this and that works if there is a police report and enough evidence to file it. It doesn't work if an anonymous source says they think there may have possibly been an issue.

Libel laws do protect print media, and from my perspective, of course, it is warranted. We have, now and then, called into question the character of citizens through stories we've ran. In a couple of cases, we were taken to task and found it appropriate to write retractions, or at the very least, we offered an open forum for the person involved to rebut or offer more information over what we ran before it.

It is not an exact science, to be sure, but always we've attributed quotes or opinions to those who say it. We've battled to keep our own viewpoints out of stories, leaving them for editorials, letters to the editor or columns. Again, I don't know if we've been perfect at it, but we've kept to the rules of journalism as we know them, and if we've erred, we've done so out of ignorance rather than malicious intent.

There's been plenty of analysis about why the New York Times would run such a story. Much of it has to do with creating an image of McCain, false as it may be, in the public eye ahead of the general election. It also could be the New Republic story that would cast the NYT newsroom in a bad light. Personally, I find it all unfathomable.

Any newspaper, let alone a prestigious one, regardless of the political bent of their owners, publishers, editors or reporters, has a solemn obligation to report the news as it is, as it happens, untarnished and unspun. The mainstream media has been progressively getting away from such reporting. They like to tell us what to think, and support it with information they want us to hear, instead of letting those involved hang or vindicate themselves with their own words.

While there is plenty to point fingers at the MSM about, there is a general laziness amidst the citizenry, too, which allows this kind of thing to happen. There is a tabloid kind of mentality existing in our society, which is why sensationalism sells. So, as much as I would like to completely blame it on the MSM, the public has some blame to bear in this.

As we know from the recent hearings into the Roger Clemens controversy, Congress doesn't need much to get involved. They tend to go after things where they feel they have backing. While conservatives may jest that Congress has nothing better to do but waste their time with drugs in baseball, there are people who idolize these players and are completely let down when they fall from their pedestals. And then, of course, there are those who live to see our heroes, any hero, fall.

How that ever became news, is beyond me. If Clemens were making life and death decisions involving millions, then whether or not he was taking illicit drugs to enhance the carrying out of those duties would be big news and worthy of an investigation at the highest level. Short of that, it can only be considered salacious and a waste of taxpayer money. Let pro baseball take care of it. If fans are outraged, they can quit going to games or watching it on TV until players, managers, owners and baseball commissioners get the hint.

I've seen a couple of articles where it is surmised that McCain might actually benefit from this story. That it might actually make him bulletproof. I concur. If this is the worst skeleton that left-leaning reporters can dig up on him, then his integrity is safe. He's had enough of a fight with conservatives within his own party just to get out of the primary. They've done a great job of vetting him. While the election to date has been more about style than substance, the general will shift, and McCain, fortunately, has plenty he can go on the attack with, be it Senator Barack Obama or Senator Hillary Clinton.

If there is any more to the story, then we will undoubtedly hear it. If not, it will fade as the crush of stories from the election continue to unfold, and the only one hurt will be the New York Times.