World USA 2008 - ZOGBY POLL: MCCAIN 5 POINT LEAD ON OBAMA 0 comments
(AGI) - Washington, 20th August - John McCain has a five-point lead over Barack Obama, says a Zogby poll carried out by Reuters. The Republican candidate for the White House is, say US citizens, better able to manage the economy through the crisis facing the United States at the moment. The poll was conducted at the end of July.
McCain Slams Obama on National Security 0 comments
ORLANDO — Senator John McCain opened up a hard-hitting political attack on Senator Barack Obama’s national security credentials and stepped up his rhetoric against the Russians in Georgia in a speech on Monday aimed at showcasing his ability to be commander-in-chief.
In an address to a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, Mr. McCain criticized what he called Mr. Obama’s “shifting positions’’ on the troop escalation, or surge, in Iraq, and charged that when his rival voted against funding the troops in a single vote in 2007, he had tried to “legislate’’ failure.
“This was back when supporting America’s efforts in Iraq entailed serious political risk,’’ Mr. McCain said. “It was a clarifying moment. It was a moment when political self-interest and the national interest parted ways.’’
Mr. McCain went on: “Instead, Senator Obama commits the greater error of insisting that even in hindsight, he would oppose the surge. Even in retrospect, he would choose the path of retreat and failure for America over the path of success and victory. In short, both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference, the great difference, is that I intend to win it first.’’
Mr. McCain was referring to a vote against troop funding that Mr. Obama cast in 2007 because the legislation did not include a timetable for withdrawal. Mr. Obama has voted for all other war-financing bills since he entered the Senate in 2005.
Moving on to Georgia, Mr. McCain raised questions about Mr. Obama’s ability to handle the crisis. “Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president,’’ Mr. McCain said. “What’s less apparent is the judgment to be commander in chief. And in matters of national security, good judgment will be at a premium in the term of the next president — as we were all reminded ten days ago by events in the nation of Georgia.’’
Mr. McCain renewed his threat to consider throwing Russia out of the G-8 group of leading industrialized democracies and bar it from membership in the World Trade Organization. As president, he said, he would take a tough line.
“In cooperation with our friends and allies in Europe, we will make it clear to Russia’s rulers that acts of violence and intimidation come at a heavy cost,’’ Mr. McCain said. “There will be no place among G-8 nations, or in the W.T.O., for a modern Russia that acts at times like the old Soviet Union. The Cold War is over, the Soviet empire is gone, and neither one is missed.’’
The Obama campaign was quick to respond to the speech before the veterans group, which Mr. Obama is set to address on Tuesday. Bill Burton, a campaign spokesman, issued this statement: “All his bluster, distortions and negative attacks notwithstanding, it is hard to understand how Senator McCain can at once proclaim his support for the sovereign government of Iraq, and then stubbornly defy their expressed support for a timeline to remove our combat brigades from their country. The difference in this race is that John McCain is intent on spending $10 billion a month on an open-ended war, while Barack Obama thinks we should bring this war to a responsible end and invest in our pressing needs here at home.”
What their opinion about... 0 comments
OPINION IN BRIEF
“[John McCain] should ask Obama to join him in a town meeting on lessons from Russia’s aggression. Both candidates favor NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, perhaps Vladimir Putin’s next victim. But does Russia’s behavior cause Obama to rethink reliance on ‘soft power’ —dialogue, disapproval, diplomacy, economic carrots and sticks—which Putin considers almost an oxymoron? Does Russia’s resort to military coercion, and its arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles, cause Obama to revise his resistance to missile defense? Obama, unlike McCain, believes Russia belongs in the G-8. Does Obama think Russia should be admitted to the World Trade Organization? Does Obama consider Putin helpful regarding Iran?... McCain must convince voters that Obama’s complacent confidence in the taming abilities of soft power is the effect of liberalism’s scary sentimentalism about a dangerous thing, human nature, and a fiction, ‘the community of nations.’ McCain is hardly the change many people have been eagerly waiting for, but Putin is part of the change we must confront. Until Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, it seemed that not even the Democratic Party could lose this election. But it might if McCain can make it turn on the question of who is ornery enough to give Putin a convincing, deterring telephone call at 3 a.m.”
LIBERTY
“Whatever the political outcome of Russia’s invasion of Georgia, the incident has reminded American voters that in uncertain times it is dangerous to choose a rookie with no foreign policy experience and a juvenile approach to world affairs over one tempered by war who understands that U.N. resolutions might as well be written in disappearing ink. John McCain knows that peace through strength is what defeated the Soviet Union and that it’s peace through strength that will best preserve free nations and advance their interests.”
THE GIPPER
“Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that’s now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.”
FOR THE RECORD
“The prevailing wisdom 18 months or so ago was that invading Iraq had been, in retrospect, a disastrous blunder. It had led to appalling sectarian fratricide and an ever-climbing body count. Iraqi democracy was deemed a naive pipe dream. Worst of all, it was said, the fighting in Iraq wasn’t advancing the global struggle against Islamist terrorism; by rallying a new generation of jihadists, it was actually impeding it. Opponents of the war clamored loudly for pulling the plug... But what if we had known then what we know now? We know now that the overhauled counterinsurgency strategy devised by General David Petraeus—the ‘surge’ —would prove spectacularly successful, driving Al Qaeda in Iraq from its strongholds, and killing thousands of its fighters, supporters, and leaders. We know now that US losses in Iraq would plummet to the lowest levels of the war, with just five Americans killed in combat in July 2008, compared with 66 fatalities in the same month a year ago—and with 137 in November 2004. We know now that the sectarian bloodletting would be dramatically reduced, with numerous Sunni tribal leaders abandoning their former Al Qaeda allies, and Shi’ite radical Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army being thoroughly routed by the Iraqi military. We know now that by the summer of 2008, the Iraqi government would meet all but three of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress to demonstrate security, economic progress, and political reconciliation. And we know now that, far from being undermined by the campaign in Iraq, the wider war against Islamist violence would show significant progress, with terrorism outside Iraq’s borders having ‘in fact gone way down over the past five years,’ as Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria noted in May—and with popular support for jihadist organizations plummeting across the Muslim world. So what does hindsight counsel today? That Iraq is a pointless quagmire—or that it is a costly but winnable war, in which patience, tenacity, and smarts have a good chance of succeeding?”
FAMILY
“The reaction of the American Left to John Edwards’s sex scandal is nothing short of flabbergasting. Since when is sex outside of marriage a disqualifier for merely speaking at a political convention? Since when is having sexual relations with that woman in your office anything wrong? Since when do we judge? The difference here seems to be that Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. So only fatal disease makes the bonds of marriage sacred? Although the last thing I want to look to be doing is making excuses for adultery—what he did was wrong—the John Edwards incident begs Americans to look in the mirror. If we think what John Edwards did with Rielle Hunter is wrong, why do we think it’s wrong? Because marriage is at the foundation of our society and we should do what we can to protect every last one? Or simply because having fun while your wife is fighting a fatal disease is a lousy thing to do? I don’t know how we can condemn John Edwards when Americans have been known to cheer for cheaters in movies, watch celebs do it all the time as a form of perverse entertainment, and even insist we’re not sure what exactly ‘marriage’ means.”
CULTURE
“Barack Obama, as Shelby Steele has written, departs from the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton brand of politics in that he is far more sophisticated and subtle in how to play on white guilt and how to intimidate. That’s new. But the liberal content and agenda is not new, and this, blacks continue to buy en masse. The points conservatives have been hammering home for the last 20 years have not been for naught. There is increasing awareness among blacks how family breakdown is driving the social problems of the community. This is not lost on Obama. His speeches paying credence to the importance and relevance of personal responsibility are well received among blacks, but also play well to the whites he wishes to reach. But the program behind the words remains comfortably lodged on the far left. Big government answers for everything, redistribution of wealth, use of law as a tool for politics, liberal abortion policies, and legitimization of the gay agenda. The relevant question is... will black politics—black uniform support for liberals—ever change?”
SELECT READER COMMENTS
“I couldn’t agree more with David Limbaugh’s take on the race issue. I’m a white male and I wouldn’t vote for Obama in a hundred years. Not because of his race, but rather for his socialist and anti-American agenda.” —Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
“It is painfully clear that racism is alive and well in America. Unfortunately, Liberals use race, gender, class and religion as tools to further segregate our society, all the while convincing minorities that they are discriminated against. Besides, what ever would people like Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, et al, do for a living if minorities were no longer oppressed?” —Houston, Texas
“During the primary races, on two different occasions, I watched the ‘Meet the Press’ panel discuss the race issue in this election. They, without exception, spoke of the surveys that confirmed that ‘angry white men’ would never vote for Obama and that there was still such severe racial prejudice is this country that a black man could not be elected president. When asked why 97 percent of blacks voted for Obama, this was explained away as ‘black pride.’ A white vote against Obama is prejudice; a black vote for Obama is black pride. These bright intellectuals will not consider that a white vote against Obama might be based on policy differences.” —Hillsborough, California
Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn’t in a ‘Cone of Silence’ 1 comments
ORLANDO, Fla. — Senator John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California.
Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life.”
The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied.
Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said on Sunday night that Mr. McCain had not heard the broadcast of the event while in his motorcade and heard none of the questions.
“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.
Before an audience of more than 2,000 people at the church, the candidates answered questions about policy and social issues.
Mr. Warren, the pastor of Saddleback, had assured the audience while he was interviewing Mr. Obama that “we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence” and that he could not hear the questions.
After Mr. Obama’s interview, he was joined briefly by Mr. McCain, and the candidates shook hands and embraced.
Mr. Warren started by asking Mr. McCain, “Now, my first question: Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?”
Mr. McCain deadpanned, “I was trying to hear through the wall.”
Interviewed Sunday on CNN, Mr. Warren seemed surprised to learn that Mr. McCain was not in the building during the Obama interview.
Obama, McCain at Saddleback faith forum give debate preview 0 comments
In their first back-to-back appearance as presidential nominees -- at a forum aimed at evangelicals -- Barack Obama said Saturday his greatest moral failure was his selfishness, while John McCain said it was his first marriage.
The rivals were led through mostly identical questions by Pastor Rick Warren, who presides over the mammoth Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Obama went first, while McCain was sequestered so he would not know the specific question. While not a debate -- there will be three -- the Saturday session showed that Obama's penchant for nuance will face McCain's tendency for directness.
The Obama campaign has been making a major play for faith-based voters -- he has been to Saddleback before -- who in past presidential elections trended Republican or stayed at home.
On the hot-button issue of abortion -- Warren knew going in that Obama supports abortion rights and McCain does not -- Warren asked when a baby is entitled to human rights. Obama said, "Answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade," while McCain said, to applause, "At the moment of conception."
Highlights:
• • On the moral failure question, Obama related his youthful experimentation with drugs and alcohol and said that reflected "a certain selfishness on my part ... I was so obsessed with me ... I could not focus on other people."
McCain paused a moment and said, "The failure of my first marriage." McCain has talked and written about his divorce. In 2002, he told CNN's Larry King, "I was responsible for the breakup of my first marriage, due to my immature and very bad behavior."
• • Obama said he would not have appointed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- the second black on the nation's highest court.
"I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas," Obama said in response to a question about which justice he would not have appointed. "I don't think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation."
Obama -- who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago -- also said he would not have picked Justice Antonin Scalia "because he and I just disagree."
McCain said he would not have named two picked by Democratic presidents -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer -- and, more important to McCain's quest to solidify his conservative base, two tapped by Republicans, John Paul Stevens and David Souter.
Conservatives consider the appointment of Souter, who turned out to be moderate on the court, a "mistake."
US rivals try to woo Christians 0 comments
US presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama have been trying to woo Christian voters at a televised religious forum in California.
The two men shared a stage for the first time since securing nomination.
Speaking first, Mr Obama defended his support for abortion and same-sex civil unions, but said marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
Republican John McCain affirmed he was pro-life and that he strongly supported preserving the status of marriage.
The forum, hosted by US pastor Rick Warren, was the senators' last joint appearance before their official nomination as the candidates for November's presidential election at their respective party conventions in a few weeks.
Three debates are scheduled to take place after the Democrat and Republican conventions.
Moral failure
Mr Warren is best known for building Saddleback Church into a 20,000-member "mega-church" in Lake Forest, southern California, and for writing The Purpose-Driven Life.
At the beginning of the first hour-long interview, Mr Obama told the pastor that America's greatest moral failure was its insufficient help to the disadvantaged.
The Democratic candidate noted that the Bible had quoted Jesus as saying: "Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me."
He said the maxim should apply to victims of poverty, sexism and racism.
Mr Obama also reaffirmed his belief that marriage should only be a "union between a man and a woman", although he also defended his support for same-sex civil unions and for the granting of similar rights to same-sex partners.
If he were president, he said he would not support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage because the issue was one for state governments to decide.
On abortion, Mr Obama stressed he remained pro-choice and that he believed in the "Roe vs Wade" Supreme Court ruling supporting it.
However, he did say that he would seek to reduce the number of late-term abortions and unwanted pregnancies.
'Pro-life president'
Mr McCain was asked similar questions by Mr Warren. When asked about America's greatest moral shortcoming, he responded by saying that its citizens had failed to "devote ourselves to causes greater than our self-interests".
Appearing to criticise President George W Bush, Mr McCain said that after 11 September 2001 there should have been a push to encourage people to join the army, Peace Corps and other voluntary organisations, rather than an official call to "go shopping".
When asked about his stance on abortion, the Republican candidate declared he opposed abortion "from the moment of conception".
"I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies. That's my commitment to you," he said to applause.
Mr McCain also said he supported preserving "the unique status of marriage between a man and a woman" and that he was against the decision taken in some states to allow same-sex marriages.
"That doesn't mean people can't enter into legal agreements. That doesn't mean that they don't have the right of all citizens," he said.
Conservative Christians form about one-quarter of the US electorate. They largely support the Republican Party, but have not shown great enthusiasm for Mr McCain.
He identifies himself as Baptist and has made a strong appeal to social conservatives and evangelical Christians during his campaign.
But he rarely discusses his faith. Earlier this year he said: "I'm unashamed and unembarrassed about my deep faith in God. But I do not obviously try to impose my views on others."
The Illinois senator, a Christian, has made a point of discussing his religion on the campaign trail and has been courting religious voters with a presence on Christian radio and blogs, and other events.
OBAMA vs. McCAIN 0 comments
I've been remiss in checking out the RCP poll averages, so here's today's chart. Basically, it shows Obama ahead of McCain by 5 points, the same as usual, but that seemed kind of boring to me. So, since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd embellish the picture a bit. Enjoy!
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