Posts with the tag 'iraq'
Posted below in the extended entry:
On Hurricane Gustav:
We are thankful that the damage in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast was less than many had feared.
I commend the Governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas for their sure-handed response and seamless coordination with the Federal government. I thank all of the wonderful volunteers who stepped forward to help their brothers and sisters in need.
On Senator McCain Being Prepared To Make the Hard Decisions That Fall Solely to the President:
John McCain’s life has prepared him to make those choices. He is ready to lead this Nation.
We live in a dangerous world. And we need a President who understands the lessons of September 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain.
On Senator McCain’s Courage and Vision:
John McCain’s life is a story of service above self.
John is an independent man who thinks for himself. He’s not afraid to tell you when he disagrees. … No matter what the issue, this man is honest and speaks straight from the heart.
Last year, John McCain’s independence and character helped change history. The Democrats had taken control of Congress and were threatening to cut off funds for our troops. In the face of calls for retreat, I ordered a surge of forces into Iraq. Many in Congress said it had no chance of working. Yet one Senator above all had faith in our troops and the importance of their mission – and that was John McCain. Some told him that his early and consistent call for more troops would put his Presidential campaign at risk. He told them he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war. That is the kind of courage and vision we need in our next Commander-in-Chief.
On Americans Choosing the McCain-Palin Ticket:
I am optimistic about our future, because I believe in the goodness and wisdom of the American people. I am optimistic because I have faith in freedom’s power to lift up all of God’s children and lead this world to a future of peace.
And I am optimistic about something else: When the debates have ended, and all the ads have run, and it is time to vote, Americans will look closely at the judgment, the experience, and the policies of the candidates – and they will cast their ballots for the McCain-Palin ticket.
Tags: candidate, change, Democrats, election, experience, iraq, John McCain, judgment, president, RNC08
September 2nd, 2008
Howard Dean lives in a bad sitcom. I’m positive of this. When Dean says or does something absurd, a laugh track must go off. Case in point, the new DNC ad.
Yes, Howard Dean and the DNC are running an ad on a premise that has been repeatedly discredited.
*insert laugh track here*
Tags: DNC, Howard Dean, iraq, John McCain, mccain
April 27th, 2008
Senator McCain opened the blogger call talking about his recent tour of areas of the south that have been left behind economically. This included a stop made in Inez, Kentucky where FDR first announced the War on Poverty. Senator McCain stated the lesson learned is that the local government is far more capable of effecting positive economic change than large federal bureaucracies. He went on to say that he still believes in Reagan’s economic principals of keeping taxes low and cutting spending to increase economic growth; also stating that anyone willing to raise taxes when the economy is struggling doesn’t understand fundamental economic principals. When questioned later about taxes, Senator McCain explained that Senator Obama’s plan to lift the cap on Social Security would affect people making $102,000 and that his plan to increase the capital gains tax would affect 100 million Americans. He repeated his plan to give Americans a summer gas tax holiday, and to temporarily suspend putting oil in the strategic oil reserves in order to provide temporary economic relief. He went on to explain that long-term breaking America’s dependence on foreign oil is the priority.
Several of the blogger’s questions were about Senator Obama and his ties to Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright. The first from Hugh Hewitt asked about Senator Obama comparing Bill Ayers to Senator Coburn. Senator McCain found the comparison offensive as he described Ayers as an unrepentant terrorist and Senator Coburn as well respected doctor who still has an active practice delivering babies. He was also questioned about why he wanted to see the anti-Obama ad featuring Reverend Wright in North Carolina pulled from the air. He explained that it is not the tenor that he wants his campaign to take, and that he voices his opinion as the nominee of the party and sees the ad as offensive to some.
On foreign policy Jennifer Rubin questioned Hamas’ apparent endorsement/desire to see Senator Obama elected president. Senator McCain agreed that he would be Hamas’ worst nightmare and knows that he is not who they want to become president. Also, he was questioned about Iraq and President Maliki’s move into Bazra. He was encouraged to see that the Iraqi army was starting to act independently. He admitted there were some problems with desertions, but was pleased overall with the progress of the army and the signs of success in that region.
Tags: ayers, beaucracy, blogger call, economic growth, fdr, foreign oil, gas prices, Hamas, inez ky, iraq, Obama, reagan, social security, spending cuts, tax cuts, war on poverty, wright
April 25th, 2008
The Campaign of New Hope is lying yet again.
Barack Obama desperately wants to become President of the United States. But because his record in the Illinois State Senate and the United States Senate is as embarrassingly thin as it is radically liberal, he was smart enough to know that the American public would not vote on him based on record.
So Barack Obama created the myth of a “New Kind of Politics.” For almost a full year, Barack Obama talked as little policy as he could, preferring to yell words and phrases like ‘Hope,’ ‘Change’ and ‘Yes We Can!’ all the while promising to end the old-style politics, including partisan bickering, double talk and dirty tricks.
Since then, Barack Obama has lied about just about everything he can, no matter how big or small.
Perhaps the worst of Obama’s lies, and something we have covered repeatedly on this blog, is his insistence that John McCain wants a one hundred year war in Iraq. McCain supporters have been crying foul for months now, but the fact checkers and mainstream press have finally started calling him out on it.
The Obama Campaign needed to respond, so they did what they do best,
Lie.
David Axelrod went onto “Morning Joe” today to respond to accusations such as “rank falsehood” on Obama’s part.
“Senator Obama hasn’t said that Senator McCain said we would be at war for 100 years.
Really David?
Somewhere along the line the Campaign of New Politics has become a forty year old Simon and Garfunkle concert.
Lie-la-Lie, Lie-la-Lie-Lie…..
UPDATE: According to Red State Obama himself is continuing this line of deception. From his appearance on Today.
MEREDITH VIEIRA: “Senator, both you and Senator Clinton have said Senator McCain favors 100 more years of war in Iraq. On Sunday in The New York Times, Frank Rich wrote, ‘really, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of themselves for libeling John McCain.’ That in fact he never said he wanted a 100 more years of war, he just felt American troops should be a long-term presence, the way they are in Japan and South Korea. So are you willing to admit that you’ve distorted his statements?”
SEN. OBAMA: “No. That’s not accurate, Meredith. We can pull up the quotes on Youtube. What John McCain was saying was, that he was happy to have a potential long-term occupation in Iraq. Happy may be overstating it — he is willing to have a long-term occupation of Iraq, as long as 100 years, in fact he said 10,000 years, however long it took.” (Barack Obama, NBC’s “Today,” 4/8/08)
Can we pull up the quotes on Youtube? YES WE CAN!
I always wanted to say that.
Tags: Barack Obama, change, election, foreign policy, hope, iraq, iraq war, John McCain, liberal, mccain, Obama, politics, president
April 7th, 2008
Well, no.
But if The Leader of the New Hope is going to at least be consistent with his lies and distortions, I expect a riveting speech on how Colin Kahl promises an endless war.
The theme of the Obama campaign seems to be that the candidate will give his speeches and present a world of hope and change and unicorns and rainbows. Then his advisers will either point out privately that Obama has no idea what he’s doing, or assure people that Barack is lying to the American people. Again.
But remember folks, Barack represents hope and change and new politics.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Tags: Barack Obama, hope, iraq, iraq war, John McCain, mccain, politics
April 4th, 2008
For someone that is allegedly a blatant opportunist, Roxana Tiron at The Hill has an article discussing how John McCain refuses to use Jimmy and Jack McCain’s military service for political gain. One of the more common attacks on the current Bush Administration is that the prominent members of the Administration have not served in the military and do not have children that serve.
That is not a line of attack that the Democrats can use this November (although, with Obama and Dean’s disdain for the facts, they might try) on John McCain. However, Senator McCain does not want to use his children as political pawns in this election, not does he want to endanger them and the men that serve with them.
“He feels very uncomfortable. He does not want Jimmy and his comrades to be put at any risk,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain’s closest ally and friend in the Senate.
“I know that John McCain is very proud of his son’s service and he talked to me about it many times, but he is certainly not going to exploit it for political purposes,” Collins said.
So no, Mr. Dean, John McCain is not a blatant opportunist. If you are so desperate to find someone worthy of that tag, perhaps you should look in the mirror.
Tags: Democrats, election, Howard Dean, iraq, Jack McCain, Jimmy McCain, John McCain, mccain, Obama
April 3rd, 2008
The Fact Checker at Washington Post has finally weighed in on The Leader of the New Politics’ repeated distortions of John McCain’s comments on the Iraq War.
At one time or another, both Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have said that the presumptive Republican nominee is willing to fight a 100-year war in Iraq. When challenged about this claim on Monday, Obama referred journalists to the YouTube version of the Derry Townhall meeting. But the YouTube clip does not back up his case.
The Pinocchio Test
A more honest line of attack for the Democrats against McCain would be his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, whether or not he has a clear strategy for winning the war, and the feasibility of a long-term occupation of a Muslim country by the United States. Instead of attacking him on these grounds, they have twisted his words, by claiming that he “wants” to fight a 100-year war.
I’ve said it before, but for the Candidate of Hope and the New Politics, Barack Obama certainly resorts to old style political deception an awful lot.
UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Lots of others are also calling out Obama for distorting McCain’s words.
The New York Times:
He offered those as possible timelines, but only hypothetically, to make his points that terrorism had rendered the region unstable and that he would support a continued troop presence if warranted. But the timetables, flippantly tossed out, have been condensed into sound bites by his Democratic opponents, turned into fund-raising appeals and mashed into YouTube parodies.
Many of the sound bites mischaracterize and distort what was said in Mr. McCain’s six-minute exchange on Jan. 3
The Associated Press
No, John McCain is not proposing a 100-year war in Iraq.
The future Republican presidential nominee and the Democrats vying to run against him in the fall are engaged in a debate of sorts over how long U.S. troops should stay in Iraq and under what circumstances.
That’s a genuine point of contention. But Hillary Rodham Clinton and especially Barack Obama have distilled McCain’s position into sound bite oversimplifications, suggesting he foresees a war without end in anyone’s lifetime.
FactCheck.org had debunked this back in February, but that hasnt’ stopped Obama or Hillary from deliberately lying for their own political means.
Tags: Barack Obama, candidate, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, iraq, iraq war, John McCain, liberal lies, Obama, politics
April 2nd, 2008
In other news, the sun rises in the east.
Pew Research Center released a report yesterday on media coverage and the Iraq war. As Hot Air notes, the drop in media coverage seems to have begun in earnest right after David Petraeus’ report to Congress.
Nowhere was the drop-off in coverage more acute than with the policy debate thread. In January 2007, with the media anticipating a fierce battle over Iraq purse strings between Congress and the White House, the Iraq policy debate alone generated 17% of the coverage. In the first three weeks of March 2008, with no prospect of any significant changes in U.S. policy until at least the November election, that thread is down to 2%.
Pew suggests that along with the 2008 election coverage, the media just flat out couldn’t be bothered to report good news coming from Iraq.
But there is another key reason why the war has virtually disappeared from the headlines and talk shows these days — and that’s the situation inside Iraq itself. The reduction in violence on the ground that began late last year has coincided with a significant decrease in coverage from the war zone as well.
Through the first half of 2007, about half the stories from Iraq examined in a PEJ study were about the continuing drumbeat of daily violence. From July through October, that number fell to a little more than one-third. In November, stories filed from Iraq began to take greater notice of the surge’s success in reducing violence, even as the volume of coverage tapered off, evidence perhaps of the old adage that no news is good news. (So far in 2008, events on the ground in Iraq are accounting for only 2% of the newshole, although any sustained uptick in violence there could once again lead to an increase in coverage.)
The excuse offered in the report is that journalists find it too dangerous to move around and report on the economic and political situation in Iraq. But as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out, that problem could be solved if the journalists would embed with the troops.
Of course, they did that at the beginning of the war and the media outlets decided the coverage wasn’t negative enough.
It would be funny if it wasn’t true.
Tags: iraq, John McCain, media, Media Bias
March 27th, 2008
While it appears that the in-fighting and overall calamity of the Democratic party will continue for the upcoming days and weeks, our candidate made a surprise trip to Baghdad, Iraq (his original plans did not include Baghdad).
Here is another sign of leadership and honor, that is in stark contrast to the Democratic side-show that is now in town.
Tags: Democrats, iraq, John McCain, mccain
March 16th, 2008
Despite the rants of some conservative radio commentators, the appeal that Senator McCain has to Independents isn’t that ‘he’s a liberal’, it’s that he’s principled. He gets things done. One reason I think conservative radio has become so mad isn’t because they disagree with him on issues, it’s because he has repeatedly stated that he won’t bash or belittle his political opponents. This is conservative radio’s forte, and Senator McCain’s approach may be seen as a threat. However, to many Independents it’s music to our ears. There are plenty of people left, right, and center that are simply sick of the bickering. There’s plenty to discuss and debate with out lowering the level of discourse to that of a junior high argument. The other aspect that angers some conservatives is that he not only opposed them on certain positions, but he headed up the legislation for those contrary views. As an Independent I see this as a positive. He knows how to reach across the isle, and he’s a worker. He doesn’t just sit on his hands and say ‘well they don’t completely agree with me therefore I’ll do nothing’. Good Senators have to compromise otherwise there’s gridlock, and Senator McCain is a good Senator. There’s also an appeal to this because it shows that his loyalty to his beliefs and the American people takes precedence to party loyalty. Some party people may not like that, but that is sorely needed in politics right now.
Now the reason I think he’ll win the race in November is issues and content. First Iraq and foreign policy: he knows more about war and foreign policy issues than any other candidate by miles. He was right about Iraq and staked his career on his support of the surge when it was very unpopular to do so. He knows the political players around the world, he’s been there he’s talked to many of them, and he simply knows his stuff. The Democrats really can’t hold a candle to him in this area. Even though the supposition is that the Iraq War is unpopular therefore the Democrats win, if people come to this election with an open mind he wins those open-minded people in a landslide. Second, he has an excellent human rights record. He addressed the situation with the monks in Burma, the genocide in Darfur, protection of children from online predators, opposed torture, and whenever an issue of human rights comes up Senator McCain is there front and center. This is an area I hope the campaign plays up more, because conventional thinking may give Democrats the edge on human rights, but the conventional wisdom is wrong. Finally, there’s experience. (I’ll skip health care and taxes for the sake of brevity.) Senator McCain is simply far more qualified to be president. He’s applying for the hardest job on earth, and it’s not an entry-level position. Experience matters, and he’s the guy who has it. He’s one of the most qualified candidates that the country has seen in years, and I look forward to the debates.
From: Purple People Vote
Tags: experience, foreign policy, independent, iraq, mccain, moderate, principle, radio
March 3rd, 2008
