2008 Presidental Election: Obama v McCain

18 wrote: Does Bush Believe McCain Was Tortured?[/size]

19 Aug 2008 10:54 am



In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

The cross-in-the-dirt story - although deeply fishy to any fair observer - is in the realm of the unprovable. But the actual techniques used on McCain, and the lies they were designed to legitimize, are a matter of historical record. And the government of the United States now practices the very same techniques that the Communist government of North Vietnam once proudly used against American soldiers. When they are used against future John McCains, the victims will know, in a way McCain didn't, that their own government has no moral standing to complain.

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.

These are the prices people pay for power.

Leftwing Blogosphere Disappointed in Obama Saddleback Forum Performance
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
August 17, 2008 - 14:24 ET

So just how bad was Barack Obama's performance at the Saddleback Church faith-based forum last night? To read the cautious mainstream media reports, such as CNN, on the event you would think that Obama was merely "thoughtful" as reported by Michael M. Bates here on NewsBusters today. However, in a few media outlets a much blunter appraisal of Obama's performance can be found such as in the U.K. Telegraph. The very title of their article, "Barack Obama fails to shine alongside John McCain," gives a good idea of writer Alex Spillius' opinion of the event (emphasis mine):

As a regular church-goer comfortable talking about his faith, Mr Obama is ostensibly better placed than most recent Democratic candidates to win over evangelicals.

But his support of abortion, a non-negotiable issue for many conservative Christians, remains a considerable obstacle, and he drew disapproving noises from the 2,800 audience at Saddleback in Lake Forest, California when he gave an evasive response to the question of when human rights begin for a baby.

"Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade," said Mr Obama.

Spillius contrasted what he called an "evasive answer" with John McCain's response:

Mr McCain, who has always been against abortion, in contrast gave a swift response: "At the moment of conception", drawing a loud round of applause.

Perhaps the best measure of Obama's performance can be seen among a group that normally includes his strongest supporters, the leftwing blogosphere. Despite some brave attempts by some in that arena to put a happy face on Obama's appearance at Pastor Rick Warren's forum, even they were forced to express disappointment as you can see in both the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos. The very title of the DU thread, "I won't win cool points for this, but McCain is doing excellent so far, better than Obama," expresses something less than a vote of confidence for Obama. Here are a few examples of just how disappointed the DUers were in Obama last night:

...I honestly can't remember hardly any of Senator Obama's answers to the questions that were asked, while McCain has had at least SOME memorable answers.

I think it was a mistake for Senator Obama to do this forum.

I've been shocked at how well McCain has done compared to what I was expecting. That very well could be it.

I don't know why Obama went there - he comes across as a poor second to our "McZero the hero".

Meanwhile, the Kossacks tried not too convincingly to believe that McCain didn't really win as you can see from this thread title, "Why McCain's 'win' wasn't really a win at the FBF." The author of the thread might be trying to convince the other Kossacks that McCain didn't win but many others weren't buying it as you can see:

McCain beat our a** tonight.

We have been here before. You don't bring Karate to a gun fight. You bring an Uzzi. McCain brought an Uzzi. Obama brought a pocket knife and got ambushed. It's time to stop this crap.

His answer "above my pay grade" will be in an ad tomorrow. He appeared to give non answers to me. And he must have said uh and um a hundred times!

OBAMA GOT CREAMED...NO OTHER WAY TO LOOK at it.

Try as the MSM can to avoid mentioning just how poorly Obama performed last night in comparison with McCain, many on the left, as you can see, are very upfront in expressing their disappointment. You can see an even larger sampling of leftwing depression over Obama's performance at the DUmmie FUnnies.

—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.

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Whatchuwant wrote: Fucking Nader's back in the picture?!?!?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
McCain may have inadvertently proven that he had the questions in advance
John Aravosis (DC) · 8/19/2008 10:05:00 AM ET

Ablog readers Kathy and Dennis write that McCain asked if they could get "back" to the Supreme Court issue when it hadn't come up yet. It had, however, for Obama. Either McCain was confused, or he had been told the Supreme Court was one of the questions and couldn't remember if it had come up yet. Here's the transcript:

WARREN: Let's deal with abortion. I, as a pastor, have to deal with this all the time, every different angle, every different pain, all of the decisions and all of that. Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. Some people, people who believe that life begins at conception, believe that's a holocaust for many people. What point is a baby entitled to human rights?

MCCAIN: At the moment of conception. (APPLAUSE). I have a 25- year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate. And as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president. And this presidency will have pro-life policies. That's my commitment. That's my commitment to you.

WARREN: OK, we don't have to beleaguer on that one. Define marriage.

MCCAIN: A union -- a union between man and woman, between one man and one woman. That's my definition of marriage.

Could I -- are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court Justices or should I mention --

WARREN: We will get to that.

MCCAIN: OK. All right. OK.

WARREN: You're jumping ahead...

Yes he is. But the only way to jump ahead is to know what's ahead. Then again, John McCain was a POW, so how dare we suspect him of cheating. Oh that's right, he cheated on his wife. But I'm sure he wouldn't cheat on a debate question. Wife, sure. Debate question? For McCain, that would be immoral.

Boygabriel wrote: Not only was he wrong about whether we should invade Iraq, all of his major predictions about how Iraq would go were false too.

He said it would be quick and easy.
He said it wouldn't take a lot of troops.
He said there wouldn't be a major occupation.

US, Iraq have draft to pull US troops out

Aug 21, 12:47 PM (ET)
By MATTHEW LEE and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq and the U.S. have reached preliminary agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraqi cities by next June, six years into the increasingly unpopular war, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The negotiations over a withdrawal timetable follow long insistence by President Bush that setting any schedule for U.S. troops to leave would be dangerous. The draft agreement with Iraq would link troop reductions to achievement of certain security milestones, although the details have not been made public.
Time has become ever more important in discussions between U.S. and Iraqi officials with Bush heading into its final months and the presidential candidates tussling daily over how and when they would move to end the war.
Democrat Barack Obama has said he would begin pulling troops out immediately upon taking office and have all combat forces out within 16 months. Republican John McCain has said the situation in Iraq will dictate any pullout schedule, not a timetable set up without consideration of how the war is going.
Rice and Zebari, appearing together at a news conference, asserted that the proposed deal reflects growing confidence in the ability of Iraqi forces to secure the country. A final agreement would require endorsement of the proposed deal by top Iraqi leaders and the Iraqi parliament.
Zebari said the draft would be presented to top leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Some members of al-Maliki's Cabinet are known to oppose some aspects.
"What we have accomplished in this agreement is the most advanced version of any" such deal between the United States and other countries where U.S. forces are based, Zebari told reporters, "because the U.S. negotiators indeed showed a great deal of flexibility and understanding."
Rice spoke optimistically of completing a deal but stressed that it still needs top-level Iraqi approval.
"We think it's a good agreement," she said. "We recognize that the government still has to review this agreement ... and we'll await that process, and then it obviously has to go to the Council of Representatives." She was referring to the Iraqi parliament; the Bush administration does not plan to submit the deal to Congress for approval.
The Iraqis have demanded specific timelines for the departure of American forces, and initially the Bush administration resisted.
"We have agreed that some goals, some aspirational timetables for how that might unfold, are well worth having in such an agreement," Rice told reporters after meeting with Iraqi officials, including the prime minister. The two sides had come together on a draft agreement earlier this week and Rice made an unannounced visit to Baghdad to press officials there to endorse it.
Zebari, asked about fears expressed by neighboring countries over such a pact, said in Arabic: "This decision (agreement) is a sovereign one and Iran and other neighboring countries have the right to ask for clarifications. ... There are clear articles (that) say that Iraq will not be used as a launching pad for any aggressive acts against neighboring countries and we already did clarify this."
A key part of the U.S.-Iraqi draft agreement envisions the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq's cities by next June 30, according to Iraqi and American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposed deal's details have not been publicly announced. A related issue is setting additional timelines for troop withdrawals, including a date by which all U.S. forces would be gone.
Said Zebari: "This agreement determines the principle provisions, requirements, to regulate the temporary presence and the time horizon, the mission of the U.S. forces."
U.S. military forces went into in Iraq in early 2003 and overthrew President Saddam Hussein and the war is now in its sixth year. There have been more than 4,100 U.S. deaths there and countless losses among Iraqis. The war looms as a key issue in the campaign in the United States to elect a successor to Bush, with McCain accusing Obama of advocating too precipitate a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country.
"We're not sitting here talking about an agreement to try to get out of a bad situation," Rice said, asserting that the draft "builds on the success we have had in the last year. This agreement is based on success."
Followers of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr criticized Rice's visit and repeated their opposition to the security agreement. Sadr's followers control 30 of the 275 seats in parliament.[/url]

Carnivore wrote: Actually, screw both of these guys. Check this out!