John McCain says ... well ... nothing

"Blah blah blah activist judges blah blah blah legislating from the bench," sez John McCain. And, naturally, the conservatives eat it up. "Strong stuff," Charlie Sykes calls it. So is chicken manure.

The doddering septuagenarian presidential hopeful delivered what's being described as a "major speech" yesterday, reiterating all of the code words and secret handshakes that make conservatives vibrate with anti-Bill of Rights delight.

That none of them know what any of the words and handshakes actually mean is no obstacle to reliable conservatives like Tony Perkins of the "Family" Research Council rambling on approvingly by way of his deep seated terror of homosexuals and women's rights.

It was also an opportunity for McCain to criticize his two rivals, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, for exercising their constitutionally mandated prerogative to withhold consent from the confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of Samuel Alito (all but three Democratic Senators voted "Nay" to the Reaganite careerist).

"Apparently nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it — and they see it only in each other," expressed the straight talkin' McCain.

But within hours, Senator McCain had announced the formation of a "Justice Advisory Committee," comprised of, well, an elite group of lawyers and law professors* who think they know conservative activist judges when they see them — in each other. And also Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, because every committee needs its in-house lackey buffoon.

Trouble is, conservative mega-super-duper-hero Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was a law professor for 13 years, and in fact was a law professor when Ronald Reagan appointed him to the D.C. Court of Appeals in 1982. At an "elite" school: the University of Chicago.

And Robert Bork, the martyred conservative poster child who self-borked his own nomination by Reagan with his notoriously cramped reading of the First Amendment, has been an elite law school law professor since Jesus lost his sandals. Closer to home, conservatives look to yet another law professor to formulate their own views of the judiciary for them, Marquette's Rick Esenberg.

Conservatives have short memories too, because when McCain says he'll appoint judges "in the mold of Alito" (Eeew — what is that, a pizza?), they forget that a couple of other people who do their thinking for them, John Fund and Robert Novak, reported in January that McCain had described Samuel Alito as "too conservative."

It will also be convenient to forget — as many a septuagenarian would — that John McCain was one of the leaders of the so-called Gang of 14 Democrats and RINOs, which conservatives harshly criticized at the time as simply a cartel of elitist, liberal Senators dedicated to blocking George W. Bush's own federal judicial nominees.

There's a photo of McCain gang-tackling Bush on this very blog.

The Straight Talk Express, it would appear, has long since flown the coop, last seen flipping and flopping madly from here 'til November.

* But not Douglas Kmiec, I reckon.