This was one of the main sound bites coming out of the CNN Republican debate tonight, one he needs to remember. by Gary Wood
(conservative)
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tonight's CNN debate had many periods of poorly managed, poorly run structures. However, a key moment in the debate was when Republican Presidential Front-Runner, Senator John McCain, turned to Ron Paul and declared he was in 100% agreement with him on the issue of out-of-control spending. Although Ron Paul was all but ignored for most of the debate and Governor Huckabee was nearly as shut out it was refreshing to finally hear Senator McCain recognize a major problem with Washington D.C. has been the excessive rate of spending.
Ron Paul has been attempting to get the message out for the entire campaign that those in Washington bear much of the burden for the economic turmoil gripping this country. The root cause of much of the problem is bad policy. Among the policies Dr. Paul has discussed is the vast expansion of the Federal Government which is counter to true Republican Party roots. It is also a key reason the GOP lost in 2006.
John McCain likes to point out his involvement in every major policy decision for the past 20 years. He likes to point to the fact he was a 'foot soldier' for Ronald Reagan. He never once will admit that to be so deeply involved in so many failed policies he then must bear a portion of responsibility for the problems. He mentioned his efforts to address the spending side of the equation failed which is his key reason for having been against the Bush tax cuts he now supports making permanent.
There was a great deal of focus and time invested with Senator McCain and Governor Romney. The most heated period was when the issue of John McCain's claim that Mitt Romney supported a "secret timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq was brought up. Even as Romney vehemently denied it and attempted to point out the false nature of the claim, as supported by many who have studied the quotes McCain uses in his assault, John McCain would not stop the onslaught. It was difficult to count the number of times McCain stammered out "timetables were the buzz word and he said timetable." It reminded me of dealing with my children arguing. The entire exchange solidified the fact Senator McCain is a very entrenched and very skilled politician willing to spin anything to fit his argument against an opponent.
Governor Huckabee attempted to grab time yet even he was shut down in most of his attempts. In the little time Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul were given both men did well. It was all for naught since they were shut down so often. Overall this had to be one of the worst debates I have witnessed in nearly 5 decades. CNN did not control the situation and John McCain and Mitt Romney were more than willing to waste listeners' time arguing over semantics. As Ron Paul pointed out it was just silly.
It was also extremely sad to witness and to think one of these two men, likely John McCain, will emerge as the Republican nominee for the President of the United States. If McCain does win the nomination I do hope he remembers his 100% agreement with Dr. Paul and does not deny his role in the excessive level of spending and Federal government expansion that has aided in creating the burden so many of us face today and will continue to face for decades to come.
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2008 by Gary Wood - Permission to copy with attribution granted.
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McCain- clueless on the economy. For a war that 60% of Americans are against. Pity how low the GOP has sunk. It's going to be Hillary for sure if this guy wins the nomination.
Yeah but the battle lines will stretch across this country, and to quote ole line from one of my favorite movies, "If thats the way America wants it, Well she get it! People just can't read anymore, this election and this country is like whatching a kid chasing a ball getting hit by a car, just get a good seat grab a beverage of choice, and read this, my perdiction, Jeb Bush the first Counseller General of the North American Union, how bout this senerio Pakistan has nukes, one goes missing, Kablammo off it goes in LA Harbor, now LA the Lefty Capital Hollyweird is off limits for 500 years, How will trade reach the mid west and the east coast, Hey I know build ports of entry in Mexico, and drive the goods north,hmmmm Canda has a fabled North west passage, now that the Ice is gone for good, So big of a passage that supertankers fit, its shorter than going the way they are going now. A supercountry then we will have to take Hugo's black gold because he is a commie right,I sure hope you have your Dintymorres and tolietpaper, Because I think critical mass is not that far off. Ron Paul 08
McCain is clearly not ready to lead this country out of debt and do right by the people. However, how is Dr./ Congressman Paul to receive a fair shake? Even CNN is doing the same crap as Fox. Anderson Cooper did the American for the People Paul wrong. It was really an embarassment for CNN.
If Ron Paul doesn't win the nomination then the republican party is screwed. You can already see the democrats are much stronger based on the support in the primaries between the 2 parties. The democrats are getting way more people voting. Take away Ron Paul from the republican side, and it's even worse.
When it comes to the general election, only Ron Paul has a chance against the other democrats. The war is obviously a huge issue and has been for some time. Ron Paul is the only republican who is right on this issue, and even makes Hillary look like a warmonger. He completely takes the issue from the democrats. Healthcare as well, the democrats bread and butter, they will be arguing with a doctor.
Seems to me with the way the ignoring and censor Ron Paul, the GOP doesn't want to win, they want Hillary.
If you vote for anyone other than Ron Paul, you might as well go vote for a democrat.
McCain will say whatever is necessary. He is not a fiscal conservative and his record proves it. Wake up America! A vote for McCain is a vote for Guns AND Butter.
Mccain feingold, so its admitted it is a waste of time, mccain introduced legislation that has wasted how much time and money, and will continue to waste how much money, to occupy cogresses time with a bill that will go nowhere? Sounds like McCain is willing to waste our govts time like he wastes 30% of his life, talkin about his past from 30 years ago, and forgetting he is presently wasting tax payer moneys...tryin to give our money to illigals now, ive got a message for the govt, keep my rebate check, dont send any out, and i just wont send in how ever much you say you would return to me. That would insure that taxpayer money isnt going to ppl that didnt earn any. Better idea, get rid of income tax all together.
GOP is a lost cause if McCain stays in the race with an endorsement. No war mongering candidate will stand a chance. The GOP is a NeoCon enclave and hence has gotten themselves in a bit of a pickle. Both Paul and Huckster want to dismantal the IRS. Unfortunately, the Huckster has no clue that the Congress never gave a right to the government to tax private people in the first place. It would be highly unlikely that anybody associated with the NeoCon industrial complex will want to open any issue on taxes and expose the biggest fraud in history. Thus the Huckster is in the same boat as Paul as far as the GOP is concerned. McCain came off as an old dufas in the debate spouting off the same meaningless phrase repeatedly. Presidential material? I doubt it. One can only say McCain is about as effective at telling lies as is Bush Jr. The fact is the only candidate, who attempted to focus on issues facing everyday Americans is Ron Paul. As his popularity continues to rise, the NeoConsters will need to throw in Bloomberg to split the vote away from Dr Paul. It seems the race is just getting interesting! RP 2008!
I found this interesting especially after listening to McCain spout off on how strong his integrity and character is.
Especially as a member of the Savings and Loan "Keating Five corruption scandal"
This only cost the american people billions of dollars of their own money!
credited to :
Johann Hari: Don't be fooled by the myth of John McCainThursday, 24 January 2008A lazy, hazy myth has arisen out of the mists of New Hampshire and South Carolina. Across the pan-Atlantic press, the grizzled 71-year-old Vietnam vet, John McCain, is being billed as the Republican liberals can live with. He is "a bipartisan progressive"", "a principled hard liberal", "a decent man" – in the words of liberal newspapers. His fragile new frontrunner status as we go into Super Tuesday is being seen as something to cautiously welcome, a kick to the rotten Republican establishment.But the truth is that McCain is the candidate we should most fear. Not only is he to the right of Bush on a whole range of subjects, he is also the Republican candidate most likely to dispense with Hillary or Barack.McCain is third-generation navy royalty, raised from a young age to be a senior figure in the Armed Forces, like his father and grandfather before him. He was sent to one of the most elite boarding schools in America, then to a naval academy where he ranked 894th out of 899 students in ability. He used nepotism to get ahead: when he was rejected by the National War College, he used his father's contacts with the Secretary of the Navy to make them reconsider. He then swiftly married the heiress to a multi-million dollar fortune. Right up to his twenties, he remained a strikingly violent man, "ready to fight at the drop of a hat", according to his biographer Robert Timberg. This rage seems to be at the core of his personality: describing his own childhood, McCain has written: "At the smallest provocation I would go off into a mad frenzy, and then suddenly crash to the floor unconscious. When I got angry I held my breath until I blacked out."But he claims he was transformed by his experiences in Vietnam – a war he still defends as "noble" and "winnable", if only it had been fought harder. (More than three million Vietnamese died; how much harder could it be?) His plane was shot down on a bombing raid over Hanoi, and he was captured and tortured for five years. To this day, he cannot lift his arms high enough to comb his own hair.On his release, he used his wife's fortune to run to as a Republican senator. He was a standard-issue Reaganite corporate Republican – until the Keating Five corruption scandal consumed him. In 1987, it was revealed that McCain, along with four other senators, had taken huge campaign donations from a fraudster called Charles Keating. In return they pressured government regulators not to look too hard into Keating's affairs, allowing him to commit even more fraud. McCain later admitted: "I did it for no other reason than I valued [Keating's] support."McCain took the only course that could possibly preserve his reputation: he turned the scandal into a debate about the political system, rather than his own personal corruption. He said it showed how "we need to drive the special interests out of Washington", and became a high-profile campaigner for campaign finance reform. But privately, his behaviour hasn't changed much. For example, in 2000 he lobbied federal regulators hard on behalf of a major campaign contributor, Paxson Communications, in an act the regulators spluttered was "highly unusual". He has never won an election without outspending his opponent.But McCain has distinguished himself most as an über-hawk on foreign policy. To give a brief smorgasbord of his views: at a recent rally, he sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann". He says North Korea should be threatened with "extinction".McCain has mostly opposed using US power for humanitarian goals, jeering at proposals to intervene in Rwanda or Bosnia – but he is very keen to use it for great power imperialism. He learnt this philosophy from his father and his granddad Slew, who fought in the Philippine wars at the turn of the 20th century, where he was part of a mission to crush the local resistance to the US invasion. They did it by forcing the entire population from their homes at gunpoint into "protection zones", and gunning down anybody over the age of ten who was found outside them. Today, McCain dreamily describes this as "an exotic adventure" which his grandfather "generally enjoyed".Then McCain's father, John, led the US invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, at a time when there was a conflict on the Caribbean island. On one side, there were forces loyal to Juan Bosch, the democratically elected left-wing President who was committed to land redistribution and helping the poor. On the other side, there were forces who had overthrown the elected government and looked nostalgically to the playboy tyranny of Rafael Trujillo. John McCain Snr intervened to ensure the supporters of the democratic government were crushed, bragging that it taught the natives "how to behave themselves". He saw this as part of a wider mission, where the US would take over Britain's role as a "world empire". These beliefs drive McCain today. He brags he would be happy for US troops to remain in Iraq for 100 years, and declares: "I'm not at all embarrassed of my friendship with Henry Kissinger; I'm proud of it." His most thorough biographer – and recent supporter – Matt Welch concludes: "McCain's programme for fighting foreign wars would be the most openly militaristic and interventionist platform in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt... [it] is considerably more hawkish than anything George Bush has ever practised." With him as president, we could expect much more aggressive destabilisation of Venezuela and Bolivia – and more.So why do so many nice liberals have a weak spot for McCain? Well, to his credit, he doesn't hate immigrants: he proposed a programme to legalise the 12 million undocumented workers in the US. He sincerely opposes torture, as a survivor of it himself. He has apologised for denying global warming and now advocates a cap on greenhouse gas emissions – but only if China and India can also be locked into the system. He is somewhat uncomfortable with the religious right (while supporting a ban on abortion and gay marriage). It is a sign of how far to the right the Republican Party has drifted that these are considered signs of liberalism, rather than basic humanity.Yet these sprinklings of sanity – onto a very extreme programme – are enough for a superficial, glib press to present McCain as "bipartisan" and "centrist". Will this be enough to put white hair into the White House? At the moment, he has considerably higher positive ratings than Hillary Clinton, and beats her in some match-up polls. If we don't start warning that the Real McCain is not the Real McCoy, we might sleepwalk into four more years of Republicanism.
KZ,
Thanks for the post on
Johann Hari: Don't be fooled by the myth of John McCain.
I will be passing this on. I listened to Buckanan's assessment of McCain on Joe Scarborough after the Florida debate, and he was spot on.
You can find that on YouTube.
Unlike Ron Paul, though, Saddam McCain has the problem of explaining how he plans to wage a 100 years' war in Iraq, plus "more wars" to come, while cutting federal government spending.
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