Byron writes:
More than any other candidate, McCain has the national security credentials to speak with authority on this kind of stuff, and the assassination comes at just the moment he is rising in the polls because people have decided to give him a second look.
Byron is a dear friend, but in this he makes the same mistake, in my view, as many others: John McCain has not been a voice for growing the United States military and he has not been a voice for strengthening our intelligence agencies. And he has had many years in the Senate to do both. And when it comes to securing the homeland, he has given voice to the ACLU’s list of grievances against our detention and interrogation techniques, supports closing down GITMO, and conferring new-found rights on terrorists we happen to capture. McCain has called for more troops in Iraq for a long time, and in this he was right. But his defects must not be overlooked.