Waning McCain

John McIntyre, RCP blog:

But McCain has only so many more sticks he can shove into conservative eyes before he really starts to hurt his chances for the GOP nomination.

Definite damage has been done on this issue. National security has been his bedrock issue with conservatives, who still question his campaign finance stance. How many times has he given political cover to Democrats? How can we trust him to put the country's interests before his own?

Here's an earlier piece by David Frum on McCain and the military commissions, and the WSJ editorial yesterday, via RCP.

UPDATE: Via Instapundit, Right Wing News:

Exactly what protections are our troops being provided by the Geneva Convention? No enemy we've ever fought or are fighting has abided by it. So, in real world terms, the Geneva Convention provides no protection for our troops whatsoever. If we completely withdrew from the Geneva Convention tomorrow, it would have no impact at all on how our troops are treated.

Granted, the Geneva Convention could be of use in the unlikely event that we were to get into a war with Belgium, Italy, Spain or some other Western European nation. However, isn't the argument we're hearing from Europeans and American liberals that we should treat the terrorists we've captured by the rules of the Geneva Convention (as a matter of fact, better than the rules require) despite the fact that they haven't signed onto the treaty? Since that's the case, why wouldn't the same rules apply to any signatories of the treaty that we fought with? Even if, theoretically, we were doing something as evil as kicking their captured soldiers into industrial paper shredders for fun, shouldn't they give our soldiers every benefit the Geneva Convention requires?

UPDATE: GOP Bloggers: McCain Weakened America