I don’t know how many major American politicians have died on Independence Day. The most famous examples, of course, are Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who both died on July 4th, within a few hours of each other, half a century after the signing. But whatever the number is, there’s now one more. Here are some more thoughts on the man, written in February, in the context of a review of a biography that came out several months ago.

I was never a big fan–while I think that the complaints about the affirmative action campaign ad were overblown, I do agree with John Hood’s assessment:

…by mixing a defense of property rights with less-savory references to “Negro agitators,” out-of-state provocateurs, and Martin Luther King’s subversive friends, Helms and other Southern commentators ended up weakening the very limited-government principles they espoused, with unfortunate and lasting consequences for American liberty. To make a truly persuasive libertarian case against federal regulation of private business decisions, it would have been necessary to marry every criticism of government overreaching with calls for the South’s social and moral transformation and clear denunciations of racist business owners. Given that the segregation syndrome was largely the work of decades of intrusive laws and electoral abuses by state and local governments, there was at least a plausible conservative case to be made not just for federal intervention, but also for anti-discrimination laws to dismantle white supremacy and remedy the social and economic consequences of past state coercion.

Yes.

But he was also, by all accounts a kind and personable man, and a tireless fighter for human freedom as well, as the Solzhenitsyn story reveals. As one of those who helped win the Cold War, that part of his legacy shouldn’t be overlooked by those who can only blindly (and probably unfairly, given all the caricatures) perceive a racist.

…and civil rights:

The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, upholding the Second Amendment right of individuals to own firearms, should finally lay to rest the widespread myth that the defining difference between liberal and conservative justices is that the former support “individual rights” and “civil liberties,” while the latter routinely defer to government assertions of authority. The Heller dissent presents the remarkable spectacle of four liberal Supreme Court justices tying themselves into an intellectual knot to narrow the protections the Bill of Rights provides.

I think that this is also an excellent example of how confusing and misleading, and useless really, the two labels are.

From Powerline:

So Kerry’s military experience was better than McCain’s because after serving for four months in Vietnam, he returned to the U.S. and falsely accused his fellow servicemen of being war criminals. I think it’s time for Wesley Clark to be ushered quietly off the stage.

Well, he was certainly quietly ushered out of Europe.

But it would appear that the man has neither brains nor shame.

I should add that I don’t think that what he said on Face the Nation was reprehensible. I didn’t hear it as denigrating McCain’s service so much as simply pointing out that it didn’t necessarily give him the experience needed to be president, which is a reasonable position. It would be even more reasonable if it weren’t a straw man, since as far as I know no one, including McCain himself has ever claimed that it did.

But it was a stupid thing to say, considering the experience level of his own candidate.

[Afternoon update]

Heh.

Obama wants to get us out of Iraq, but he can’t even get us out of Vietnam.

I think that what’s happening is a result of the Democrats delusions about “swift boating.” They think that John Kerry lost because people denigrated his military record, so they’re hoping that they can neutralize McCain the same way.

And it might work if there were any parallels to the situation other than that both spent time in Vietnam during the war.

But unfortunately for the donkeys, McCain didn’t:

1. Serve the shortest tour of duty on record by getting three minor injuries, none of which resulted in any hospitalization or time off duty
2. Tell tall tales about being in Cambodia at Christmas time in 1968, with Nixon as president
3. Have numerous fellow prisoners come forward and say that his stories were nonsense
4. Have those same prisoners contribute to a book documenting that what McCain said was nonsense
5. Come back and testify before Congress, on hearsay evidence from suspect sources, that his fellow servicemen were wanton, vicious war criminals
6. Keep his service records hidden while pretending that he hadn’t
7. Make his service the prime justification for his candidacy

But other than all that, all of this denigration of his service just might work.

There’s a lot more over at Instapundit.

Patrick Ruffini says they’re the key to a McCain win.

I wonder how much a Bradley effect (people telling pollsters they’ll vote for a black man when they don’t behave that way in the booth) is going on in the polls? In any event, pre-convention polls don’t have much value.

[Late morning update]

If Patrick is right, this would be a good pick–Kasich for Veep.