I’m actually a bit psyched that Liberal is so gung-ho in his enthusiasm for Obama. Liberal does not gives his support to a candidate lightly or easily, and he has been entirely consistent about his positions in the presidential campaign from the beginning.
And I agree with his OP, entirely. If I were GOP, I’d be pretty darn disappointed in the aging wreck of candidate the Repubs have this year.
However, can’t we roll these little attacks into the “Fork McCain” thread? Or something like it?
Also, John Mace doesn’t deserve to be lumped into the McCain “GOP über alles” dittohead collection. His opinions are far more thoughtful and nuanced than the others on the list.
I always thought the ‘No politics on foreign soil’ meant that one politician shouldn’t badmouth another to the foreigners. IE, America should present a unified front, politically, to the rest of the world. Which is a little outdated, since everything and anything is immediately blasted world wide via the Internet.
When talking to American reports via phone, email, etc, I don’t really see how it’s relevant where you are at.
Maybe I’m naive, but I’d guess the first is what McCain was talking about when he made his pledge.
So this is what it’s like when somebody gets religion. Endless proselytizing, rabid dedication, unwavering faith that they are right and everybody else is wrong…I’d never witnessed it firsthand, not like this. Hell, anti-smokers aren’t even this zealous.
But Lib (and you know you’re one of my favorites around here even though I often disagree with things you post), Bill is a lying sack of shit many orders of magnitude above McCain.
Who the fuck are you? Uncork your head from your ass and read Sinaijon’s post for a clearer explanation if you don’t want to continue looking like a dumbass. Or then again, don’t. Your douchey comments are not my problem.
I just want to add, Liberal, that while I strongly support Obama and even more strongly do *not * support McCain in this election, I have noticed that you’ve gone a tad overboard on the threads, and I see how that might squick a few people out.
Oh, and John Mace is a guy who really likes to argue and generally takes centrist devil’s advocate position on whatever question is being debated. While he appears to certainly be considerably to *my * right, he is by no means a Shodan, Mr. Moto, Starving Artist, Clothahump, or Weird Dave (or others who just aren’t coming to mind at the moment). He strikes me more as someone who would like to be the **tomndebb ** of politics on the board, trying to present a nuanced and balanced position, as **Knorf ** said. Again, for my taste he leans a bit too far to the right, and I suspect he sometimes takes the fun of devil’s advocacy a little further than his actual opinions would take him, although I certainly could be wrong. But he is not a knee-jerker, or if he is, he is a right-centrist knee-jerker, not an extreme right knee-jerker. I’m not even certain for whom he intends to vote.
I’m sorry, and there are valid reasons to be disturbed by McCain with this, but to say in Mexico, “I am disappointed at the suggestion that the United States should unilaterally reopen NAFTA,” is not an out-of-bounds criticism of Obama in the least. He’s talking about NAFTA, which is a subject important to the region in which he’s speaking. Should he not talk about NAFTA at all? That article was terribly written.
You don’t know that. The story was filed in Mexico but I can’t find any evidence that the interview did not take place on a plane in the air.
But even if McCain failed to keep his pledge in these cases, I would still wonder how you could be so upset. There’s probably going to be a lot more dubious flip flops and “clarificatioins” on both sides. Always has been and always will be.
Trust me, pal-o-mine, ONE thread on that is one too many, and I’m speaking as the uncrowned KING of modalities. I asked a friend to critique a story and learned that, within 1488 words, I had used “could” 23 times and “would” fifteen. She was so shocked and nauseated she didn’t even get on me when was I stomping upon and raping the corpse of the passive voice.
Did McCain actually say anything against Obama in public? As I’m sure you know, the proscription against playing politics abroad means to foreign audiences. If McCain was speaking to American reporters from a plane, or by phone, or otherwise away from the Mexican people, then it really doesn’t matter, and politicians of all stripes do this all the time.
What you’re not supposed to do is give partisan political speeches in front of foreign audiences. Did McCain do that?
I just read the comments in the second link, and a commenter says this:
So… If the commenter is correct, it would appear that McCain did not utter these comments to the Mexican public or Mexican officials. So what’s your damned problem? Are you saying that if McCain gives a phone interview to MSNBC, he can criticize Obama if he’s sitting in a hotel room in the U.S., but not if he’s sitting in a hotel room in Mexico? Or what?
My poodle is a principled beast, thank you, with an independent mind.
Also, this is the best expression of American Politics I can see, right here. Happy fourth, everyone!
“Politics stops at the waters edge,” used to actually mean something during the cold war. It was invoked often and occasionally even respected.
McCain understands its appeal among certain voters and was smart enough to use it. And he knew that when he performed an immediate 180, the media would not call him on it.
Making such a promise may have been unwise, poorly planned, or simple preening. But that McCain went back on his word seems clear: he certainly criticized Obama in a public manner while in a foreign country.
You’re reading that differently than I did. When you say you won’t publicly criticize someone on foreign soil, I take that to mean you won’t criticize someone to a foreign public. McCain did not do so. He made his comments to American reporters for American consumption. It’s just not the same thing at all.
Bush criticizing Democrats in front of an Israeli crowd in Israel is publicly criticizing on foreign soil. McCain speaking to an American reporter by phone or in a private meeting in an airplane is not.
Headline from WAPO’s blog: Politics Stops at Water’s Edge, but Not Above It: “The moment Sen. John McCain touches down on foreign soil, he says, he will not criticize his Democratic rival for the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama. In international airspace, though? Well, that’s a different matter.”
So McCain is thinks it’s ok to attack Obama en route to Colombia, but mums the word once he touches down.
(Does anybody think this whole issue is kind of silly? I mean I can see forming a united front against the Soviet Union or even irrational jihadists but Colombia??? FARC may kidnap an American national now and then, but somehow this all seems overblown.)
Assuming that the rule does make sense though, I agree that Bush’s violation was far more egregious.
Interestingly, there’s precious little mention of the tight lobbying ties one of his aides has for Colombia oil/gas interests – this in a country where deals are cut among armed groups and big businessman as a manner of course. Indeed, this WAPO head scratcher wonders why oh why would McCain even visit such a country during the campaign, without even alluding to a rather obvious explanation.
No, this isn’t politics stopping at the water’s edge. It’s an old-fashioned news blackout.
That was a poor choice of words, as I don’t have special knowledge of the McCain campaign’s internal workings.
McCain reports that he wanted to talk to President Uribe about trade and energy concerns. Among his aides, Charlie Black earned $1.6 million as a lobbyist for Occidental Petroleum in Colombia, and fundraiser Peter Madigan also earned dinero as a Colombian-oriented lobbyist. Surely such facts might provide a little context to the trip, no?
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