Give Credit Where Credit is Due.

As can be plainly seen on the sidebar of my blog, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a fan of John McCain. While he is right with regard to most of the major issues of defense and the prosecution of the war on radical Islam (save for wanting to close down Club Gitmo), he has been wrong on so many domestic issues, from his “Gang of 14″ megalomaniacal episode to his penchant for amnesty for illegals a-la McCain-Kennedy, to his full frontal assault on the First Amendment with the advent of McCain-Feingold.

While his overtures at CPAC may be considered a start to healing the rift with movement conservatives, much is yet required in the way of action before movement conservatives will trust that he will indeed carry the conservative mantle to the White House on January 20, 2009.

Yet, credit must be given where credit is due. For instance, McCain’s opposition to the big government behemoth created by the Bush administration (one of my few areas of disagreement with the President), otherwise known as the prescription drug benefit for seniors.

Today, Tom DeLay, who more than one time I defended to the hilt, attacked McCain for not being liberal enough:

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay criticized likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain - and by extension some of the more conservative members of Congress - by calling McCain’s 2003 vote against the Medicare prescription drug plan a non-conservative vote.

DeLay made his remarks in an interview with Cybercast News Service at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

While in Congress, DeLay had helped quashed a rebellion by House conservatives, who tried to defeat the prescription plan then being promoted by President Bush.

“I’m very proud of the Medicare bill,” DeLay told Cybercast News Service. “… We took a welfare state program and applied conservative principles to it.” Listen to Audio

Asked if McCain’s vote against the Medicare expansion bill was un-conservative, DeLay responded, “Yes, it was, as a matter of fact. It was taking the easy way out.”

Mr. DeLay, just which conservative principles were applied to the Medicare Prescription Drug bill? You can’t take the greatest expansion of a government program in the recent history of these United States and call it “conservative” any more than you can take a pig, put lipstick on it, and call it Bo Derek. Calling the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit “conservative” is not only balls-on intellectually dishonest, but in fact requires a suspension of disbelief so enormous as to make it an exercise in futility.

There are plenty of bones to pick with John McCain.

This isn’t one of them.