a quick one this morning

I'm FINALLY getting around to blogging about McCain's speech at CPAC last week.

Not that you need me to tell you that he did well there. Or even that you need ANYBODY to tell you that he did well there. By now, if you're truly interested in the advancement of conservative principles, as are most people who've even HEARD of CPAC, then you've come to realize that there's no way we can sit idly by why a Clinton or Obama administration sets this country back YEARS and years, potentially in a devastating manner. McCain is our candidate now, end of story.

But on to the speech: it was all-in-all okay, maybe not the stuff of Lincoln or Reagan but definitely not a snorer. It did have one key moment, I thought, right at the start of the thing:

I am proud to be a conservative, and I make that claim because I share with you that most basic of conservative principles: that liberty is a right conferred by our Creator, not by governments, and that the proper object of justice and the rule of law in our country is not to aggregate power to the state but to protect the liberty and property of its citizens

I have been stewing over this line for a week now, and I like it more and more every time I hear it. Now I'm not going to do the legwork to see if he has always legislated in the manner which this quote points to, but I gotta tell ya': as President, if he would GOVERN according to this basic principle, then I would be happy.

And I think this sets up some key lines of demarcation with the eventual Democratic nominee, both of which can't wait to give the state more control of our lives.

Score one for McCain.