WT:

“I’ve been getting a lot heat from listeners for defending McCain, even though I acknowledge the many disagreements I’ve had with him. I’ve been getting a constant barrage from my audience. It’s getting really heated,” Bill Bennett said yesterday. “I admire the heck out of John McCain and disagree with him on at least half a dozen serious matters,” Mr. Bennett said. “He is a war hero, he has been consistently pro-life, he put his campaign in hostage to the success of the surge in Iraq, he’s been a consistent hawk on pork-barrel spending, and can win in November.” But the former drug czar and education secretary said the intensity of the anti-McCain calls to his radio program show he does not have the support of his party’s conservative base. “What rankles me the most is his tendency to criticize our side first. Why bash us, why not bash Hillary Clinton? He’s got to have some of the fire that Democrats have for Republicans, but we don’t see it,” he said. “If he is the nominee, he’s got to fix things with the base of the party, because you can’t have a convention with these kinds of feelings.”