McCain Blasts 'Isolationism' of GOP Field

Candidates are abandoning principles of Reagan, he says
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 18, 2011 4:35 PM CDT
McCain Blasts 'Isolationism' of GOP Field
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., doesn't like what he's hearing from the Republican field.   (AP Photo, File)

John McCain does not like what he's hearing from the Republican candidates about getting out of Afghanistan and Libya. "This is isolationism," he tells Christiane Amanpour in an interview taped for tomorrow's This Week. (Politico's Mike Allen provides excerpts at his Playbook.) "There's always been an … isolation strain on the Republican Party .. but now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak." Gadhafi would have massacred his people had we not intervened, said McCain, who invoked Ronald Reagan to make his case.

“He would be saying: That's not the Republican Party of the 20th century, and now the 21st century. That is not the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people for all over the world." (This might signal a larger debate looming on the right: McCain makes precisely the opposite point of Peggy Noonan yesterday, who welcomed the "new sobriety" of the candidates and said it wasn't isolationism but a return to pragmatic Republican principles. She invoked Reagan to make her case.)

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