Frankly, I was under the impression that in a time of a war, a military mind might be a good thing. Silly me, its dangerous.
Harkin goes on to tell us John McCain’s true sins. He comes from a military family.
“it’s one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that’s just how you’re steeped, how you’ve learned, how you’ve grown up.”
I don’t understand why, exactly generations of service to your country is now a bad thing, but I guess it is.
The whole thing seems kind of strange coming from Harkin, a man who spent several years in the Navy himself, but I guess the Democratic Party’s strategy this year is going to be demonizing military service, so Harkin is towing the line, even if it makes no sense. Can someone tell me what this even means?
“But now McCain is running for a higher office. He’s running for commander in chief, and our Constitution says that should be a civilian,” Harkin said. “And in some ways, I think it would be nice if that commander in chief had some military background, but I don’t know if they need a whole lot.”
Harkin should go back to riling Howard Dean up and ranting and raving at funerals. He has nothing of value to add to this election.
The Washington Post printed an article that definitively misrepresented Senator McCain’s stance on Hamas stating that he had previously supported negotiating with Hamas without conditions. This is false, and there are numerous sources showing that a quote taken out of context was used to misrepresent his position.
The context here is crystal clear. McCain envisioned a possible change in Hamas from a terrorist group to a legitimate political party, one that recognized Israel and renounced violence. Under those conditions, McCain said that we could engage them in talks designed to establish peace, and only under those conditions. The Bush administration had the same policy at the time. Neither the US nor John McCain supported meeting with Hamas without preconditions, and they certainly didn’t have policy advisers meeting with them while they conducted terrorist attacks and plotted an armed takeover of Gaza.
The following video is from the exact same day that he made the statements that were used to distort is actual position.
UPDATE: The McCain Campaign has released video from the actual interview with Jamie Rubin. It really shows what a shameless liar Rubin turned out to be,
-Matt DiBari
UPDATE II: To contact Washington Post editor Fred Hiatt and demand a retraction, email hiattf@washpost.com
In yesterday’s blogger call Senator McCain was questioned about his speech outlining his goals for 2013, President Bush’s remarks about appeasement, and Senator Obama’s position on negotiating with Iran. Senator McCain discussed how he would embrace bipartisanship as he has done throughout his career. He talked of working on issues that both sides of the isle can come to an agreement on, and stated that he would most likely have Democrats in his cabinet. When questioned about President Bush’s remarks about appeasement, he said he took the President at his word that the comments weren’t about Senator Obama. He definitively stated his opposition to the president directly talking to Iran. He laid out what Iran would have to do before talks were even considered, such as renouncing their desire to ‘wipe Israel off the map’, stop their nuclear ambitions, abandon sending arms into Iraq, and stop supporting of Hezbollah. He was clearly disturbed by the idea of negotiating with someone who recently called Israel a “stinking corpse”, and questioned what could possibly be said that would result in anything positive. One questioner noted that Senator Obama’s campaign had made different statements about his willingness to talk with Iran than Senator Obama had and asked Senator McCain about these discrepancies. Senator McCain also noted that Senator Obama had stated in Ohio that he would unilaterally renegotiate the NAFTA and then stated he supported free trade in North Carolina, and was troubled by the inconsistencies and contradictions of Senator Obama and his campaign. Finally, Senator McCain was challenged on his speech’s prediction that their would be a significant reduction of troops in Iraq by 2013 being asked if that wasn’t a timeline for withdrawal which he has vehemently opposes. Senator McCain answered that troop levels would be dictated by conditions on the ground, and that the reduction of troops is a realistic goal but not the queue to the enemy as to when troops would leave that a timetable would be.
The ad feels like the a preview for something, and as it turns out, it probably is.
John McCain, looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees “spasmodic” but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen.
The Republican presidential contender also envisions April’s annual angst replaced by a simpler flat tax, illegal immigrants living humanely under a temporary worker program, and political partisanship stemmed by weekly news conferences and British-style question periods with joint meetings of Congress.
In a speech being delivered Thursday, McCain concedes he cannot make the changes alone, but he wants to outline a specific governing style to show the accomplishments it can achieve.
In outlining potential achievements of a first term, the 71-year-old McCain implicitly was suggesting he would seek a second term, an attempt to mute suggestions he would serve only four years after being the oldest president ever to take office for a first term.
In particular, he sees a world in which:
- “The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.”
- The Taliban threat in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced.
- “The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants,” McCain said. “There still has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.”
- A “League of Democracies” has supplanted a failed United Nations to apply sanctions to the Sudanese government and halt genocide in Darfur.
- The United States has had “several years of robust growth,” appropriations bills free of lawmakers’ pet projects known as “earmarks,” public education improved by charter schools, health care improved by expansion of the private market and an energy crisis stemmed through the start of construction on 20 new nuclear reactors.
- Democrats are asked to serve in his administration, he holds weekly news conferences and, like the British prime minister, answers questions publicly from lawmakers.
McCain also pledges to halt a Bush administration practice of enacting laws with accompanying signing statements that exempt the president from having to enforce parts he finds objectionable.
“I will respect the responsibilities the Constitution and the American people have granted Congress,” the senator said, “and will, as I often have in the past, work with anyone of either party to get things done for our country.”
The policy to appear in front of and answer questions from lawmakers is particularly interesting. As Ed Morrissey notes, Senator McCain excels in a townhall style format, and appearing before a joint session of Congress and answering questions from Democratic law makers will help to show the American public that he is more bipartisan than Senator Obama pretends to be.
Apparently the legacy media is still getting its kicks off saying the party hasn’t united behind McCain. They point to messy conventions in Nevada and elsewhere. Methinks this may, in part, be closer to the truth…
The new Republican National Committee ad linking Senator Barack Obama’s policies to those of the worst American President of the last one hundred years.
Ethanol provides an interesting lesson in government subsidies, why they cause problems and why free trade works better. It’s understandable how in the late ’70’s ethanol subsidies started. There was an interest in finding energy alternatives, and the idea of corn based ethanol held promise. Today there is still a desire to find clean energy alternatives, and ethanol still holds promise. Yet these subsidies, even if well intentioned, create more problems than they resolve. Problem number one, subsidizing corn based ethanol creates an obvious focus on corn. However, the promise ethanol now lays in numerous sources such as switch grass, sugar, or a host of other natural products. Pushing corn slows the development of ethanol from these alternate sources. Second, subsidizing corn ethanol creates an unnatural shortage of corn. Hence food prices rise; not only corn based products, but the cost to feed farm animals increases making the price of meat and dairy products increase too. The working class and those already struggling financially are hurt the most as the price of necessities increase.
Finally, the last problem with ethanol subsidies is they are hard to illiminate. Senator McCain made a very gutsy decision to be the only candidate to go into the Iowa primary stating that he opposed ethanol subsidies. Telling farmers that it is no longer good economics to regulate and subsidize corn ethanol is hard, but necessary. Eliminating these subsidies will help with food prices. It will help allow other sources of ethanol to develop, and will even allow the US to purchase cheaper ethanol from other countries such as Brazil who has plenty. Regulation and subsidies are often well intended, but as is the case with ethanol, problems often arise when free trade isn’t practiced.
