McCain: What the World Will Look Like in 2013

[Darius871]

Doesn't he already do that?

[Asher]

I'm so glad McCain is the republican nominee. If there is another Republican presidency, thank God it's not an evangelical...

[Will9]

Originally posted by Darius871
Doesn't he already do that?

He is the most frequent guest on the show

[Darius871]

My point exactly. Weekly schmeekly.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Asher
I'm so glad McCain is the republican nominee. If there is another Republican presidency, thank God it's not an evangelical...

I agree, McCain is by far one of the more tolerable Republicans.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


I'm all for it as long as the president can fire back similar pointed questions to the princes and princesses of the legislature aka representatives of the people.

Galloway demonstrated that you can quite easily, even when the stage is set-up against you.

[snoopy369]

McCain may well end up being like Nixon ... playing to the republicans long enough to get nominated and elected, but once in office not popular with them because he's not conservative enough.

Let's hope McCain is too smart to get caught monkeying with the dems though

[Ramo]

Speaking of Nixon...

Hypocrisy on Hamas
McCain Was for Talking Before He Was Against It
By James P. Rubin
Friday, May 16, 2008; Page A19

If the recent exchanges between President Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain on Hamas and terrorism are a preview of the general election, we are in for an ugly six months. Despite his reputation in the media as a charming maverick, McCain has shown that he is also happy to use Nixon-style dirty campaign tactics. By charging recently that Hamas is rooting for an Obama victory, McCain tried to use guilt by association to suggest that Obama is weak on national security and won't stand up to terrorist organizations, or that, as Richard Nixon might have put it, Obama is soft on Israel.

President Bush picked up this theme yesterday. Without naming Obama during his speech last night to Israel's Knesset, Bush suggested that Democrats want to "negotiate with terrorists" while Republicans want to fight terrorists.

The Obama campaign was right to criticize the president for his remarks and for engaging in partisan politics while overseas. Many presidents have said things abroad that could be construed as violating this unwritten rule of American politics. But it is hard to remember any president abusing the prestige of his office in as crude a way as Bush did yesterday. Charging your opponents with appeasement and likening them to Neville Chamberlain in the Knesset is a brutal blow. It is bad enough that Republicans use the politics of personal destruction here at home, but to deploy that kind of political weapon at an occasion as solemn as an American president addressing the parliament of a friendly government marks a new low.

McCain, meanwhile, is guilty of hypocrisy. I am a supporter of Hillary Clinton and believe that she was right to say, about McCain's statement on Hamas, "I don't think that anybody should take that seriously." Unfortunately, the Republicans know that some people will. That's why they say such things.

But given his own position on Hamas, McCain is the last politician who should be attacking Obama. Two years ago, just after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, I interviewed McCain for the British network Sky News's "World News Tonight" program. Here is the crucial part of our exchange:

I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

For some Europeans in Davos, Switzerland, where the interview took place, that's a perfectly reasonable answer. But it is an unusual if not unique response for an American politician from either party. And it is most certainly not how the newly conservative presumptive Republican nominee would reply today.

Given that exchange, the new John McCain might say that Hamas should be rooting for the old John McCain to win the presidential election. The old John McCain, it appears, was ready to do business with a Hamas-led government, while both Clinton and Obama have said that Hamas must change its policies toward Israel and terrorism before it can have diplomatic relations with the United States.

Even if McCain had not favored doing business with Hamas two years ago, he had no business smearing Barack Obama. But given his stated position then, it is either the height of hypocrisy or a case of political amnesia for McCain to inject Hamas into the American election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051503306.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

This is one of the reasons why I'm not worried about McCain. Terrible political instincts. First of all, he appropriates the Dear Leader persona by equating the opposition with terrorists. In 2008, and not 2002. Despite McCain having made statements indicating that he was favorably disposed towards negotiating with Hamas in the past, and despite Obama (at least currently) holding the position of negotiating only with Fatah. What this article doesn't mention is that Big 27% decides to reinforce his political attack, helping the Dems (and the remaining 73%) to close ranks around the presumptive nominee. Obama will get himself a few great days of press coverage because of that alone (he's going to make a major speech to rebut these ludicrous allegations). This is comic. Keep it up.

[DinoDoc]

I found the guilt Obama must have been feeling over his position to be amusing given the fact that Bush never even mentioned him. I think he would have been better off agreeing with him rather than trying to bring to mind Shakespeare quotes about "protest too much." Seems to me that he just as easily and more likely was attacking Carter and his defenders.

[Ramo]

Why Carter? Hamas is not the same thing as Iran...

Bush says that diplomacy with Iran constitutes "appeasement." And Obama supports diplomacy with Iran. It'd be a ridiculous stretch to say that Bush wasn't talking about the presumptive Democratic nominee.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
Why Carter? Hamas is not the same thing as Iran...

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208870527361&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Ramo]

I repeat, Hamas is not the same thing as Iran. Carter's statements were about Hamas.

Bush was condemning negotiations with Iran, a position that Obama chose to emphasize prominently in his campaign. Obama is the almost certain target, here. Saying otherwise is absurd.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
Bush was condemning negotiations with Iran, a position that Obama chose to emphasize prominently in his campaign.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/15/america/prexy.php

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Where is Iran singled out or even mentioned?

[Ramo]

Yes.

JERUSALEM, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday decried his critics' calls for negotiations with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as comparable to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler before World War Two.

Bush's comment in a speech to Israel's parliament appeared to be a swipe at Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama, who has advocated meeting leaders of traditional U.S. foes such as Iran and Cuba without preconditions.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKN1524290920080515

Edit: Reading the remarks, it's possible that Bush only meant Hamas. This looks like lazy reporting. But my point stands. Congrats to McCain for sounding more ludicrous than Bush.

[Patroklos]

Considering he was in Isreal, it would seem Hamas would be the logical target.