Laexile wrote:You cite no sources for what McCain says on torture. He doesn't ever limit his answer to waterboarding. In fact, he hardly mentions it.

September 22, 2006
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April 15, 2008 Start at 2:30

Here he is on Bill O'Reilly. If he were trying to find torture loopholes to pander to Republicans who support torture, he doesn't do it here. Even though O'Reilly lectures him on torture.
June 21, 2008
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He doesn't come out and say what techniques he'd allow. The only time I saw him mention which techniques was when he said repeatedly that he wouldn't allow waterboarding, but ignored the follow up question as to which techniques he'd allow and just repeated that he is against waterboarding. He's has plenty opportunity to say what he would allow, but he refuses to do it. Meanwhile, he's voted for laws that gave Bush the freedom to continue doing what he wanted. If he's against these other enhanced techniques, why didn't he support the Feinstein amendment, which would have spelled out those techniques by following the field manual. And if he didn't want to support Feinstein, he could have introduced a bill of his own spelling out what is OK. But he did none of this. Instead, he's walked the line trying to be all things to all people, abandoning something that should be a core issue with him given his personal history.

I'll try to find a nice video for you, or at least a transcript. Meanwhile, maybe you could explain why he didn't introduce an amendment that spelled out what is ok to use, or an amendment limiting interrogation to what is in the army field manual. Why would he give Bush more power when he knew it was being abused. Like I said, his eyes were wide open.

Here is a link to his statement released in response to the CIA interrogation stuff. He beatifully covers his record, spinning what he did, and ignoring that the MCA he pushed through the Senate deliberately gave Bush the powers needed to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Notice all the yacking about waterboarding and how he conspicuously leaves out any specifics of what he thinks should be allowed. After this statement was released, I saw a reporter ask him what he would allow and he pontificated about how waterboarding was wrong, and then repeated it when they asked the obvious followup question.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1970471/posts

This isn't it, but I thought it was funny...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajm5JTf7jZs&feature=related[/youtube]

Reading the McCain statement he doesn't give the administration any power. He repeatedly criticized the administration. He separates the CIA from the administration. He spells out what he thinks the CIA can do when he says "ensure that the techniques it employs are humane." He wants the CIA to continue "detaining and interrogating terrorists" and feels that the Feinstein ammendment applying the Army Field Manual to the CIA prevents that. He clearly states:

I’d emphasize that the DTA permits the CIA to use different techniques than the military employs, but that it is not intended to permit the CIA to use unduly coercive techniques – indeed, the same act prohibits the use of any cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment.

Thank you for linking the McCain document. I was concerned from what you said that McCain advocated the CIA violating the Geneva Convention. Clearly he doesn't. He thinks the CIA needs a different, but no less humane, set of standards because the CIA is not the Army. You seem to eliminate anything McCain says or writes that contradicts what you think and pick out whatever words that support what you think.

McCain has a problem. He lives in reality. Instead of just going along with the simple "I oppose torture" people he has to try to fashion something he thinks will work. Instead of going along with Webb's GI Bill, he has to make what he thinks is a better one. By doing these things he gives fodder to his opponents to say that he favors torture and opposes GI benefits. It's not true, but people can give the impression it is.

I don't see why that video was funny. I don't see how John McCain is supposed to remember everything he's ever said. He opposed Reagan's Lebanon deployment and wanted to bring the troops home from Somalia. In both cases our troops weren't involved in nation building, engaging an enemy, or in a conflict where withdrawing could have terrible consequences. All of those issues are paramount in Iraq. Again a McCain problem. While his stance is consistent people can make it seem like he's contradicting himself.

What I don't get is that if Obama opposes the occupation why does he keep voting to fund it? The vote was 92 to 6 in favor of unrestricted funding of the wars. It was 416 to 12 in the House. Even if it was just symbolic couldn't Obama have voted against funding the wars?

Monkeyboy wrote:This isn't it, but I thought it was funny...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajm5JTf7jZs&feature=related[/youtube]

I think fitting in with how we were discussing changing circumstances making "flip flopping" OK/understandable, Somalia changing its name to Iraq and moving into the heart of the Middle East makes perhaps a different approach desirable.

Laexile wrote:Reading the McCain statement he doesn't give the administration any power. He repeatedly criticized the administration. He separates the CIA from the administration. He spells out what he thinks the CIA can do when he says "ensure that the techniques it employs are humane." He wants the CIA to continue "detaining and interrogating terrorists" and feels that the Feinstein ammendment applying the Army Field Manual to the CIA prevents that. He clearly states:

I’d emphasize that the DTA permits the CIA to use different techniques than the military employs, but that it is not intended to permit the CIA to use unduly coercive techniques – indeed, the same act prohibits the use of any cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment.

?

You missed the entire point. McCain said he was against it, but then endorsed the legislation (he was one of the bill's most critical backers) with it written so that Bush was given all the power to interpret the Geneva Conventions and other laws. That allowed McCain to say that he wanted Bush to follow the Geneva Convention, while at the same time giving Bush the power to completely ignore it. It's a pretty standard political move -- say one thing loudly while quietly doing the opposite.

The provision of the MCA I'm talking about...

Destroying the protections of the Geneva Conventions while pretending to preserve them was accomplished by Section 6(a)(3) of the MCA , which provides:

INTERPRETATION BY THE PRESIDENT - (A) As provided by the Constitution and this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions . . . .

Paragraph (C) provides that such decisions "shall be authoritative" under U.S. law.

And he did the same thing with The Detainee Treatment Act. He championed it as legislation banning torture, but then accepted a White House change that made the law only apply to military forces. That didn't turn out so good as the CIA is accused of doing the torturing.
Why would McCain accept such a change to the DTA when it was such an obvious way around the spirit of the law? It sure didn't look to me like he was trying to stop torture. He folded on something pretty important when faced with WH pressure. And when Bush issued a signing statement saying he had the power to ignore McCain's law, there was barely a peep from Mr Straighttalk. That doesn't sound like a guy battling the WH for anti-torture legislation. It sounds more like appeasement. And if he can't stand up to a WH with approval ratings in an all-time crapper, how can he stand up to the terrorists?

For what it's worth, I don't like Obama's campaign finance switch. It goes against one of his stated core values, as walking the line on torture violates one of McCain's. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:This isn't it, but I thought it was funny...

]

I think fitting in with how we were discussing changing circumstances making "flip flopping" OK/understandable, Somalia changing its name to Iraq and moving into the heart of the Middle East makes perhaps a different approach desirable.

Probably true, but it seems like the idea it could turn into a quagmire was a common thread in the two problems -- a fact McCain recognized in the earlier quote. I do agree that flipflopping is often understandable and even preferred. But the GOP is just reaping what it sowed.

does anyone else get the feeling that if barrack obama were to bail out hilary clinton's campaign debt that it would send a horrendous message going into a potential presidency when fledgling financial institutions, airlines, homeowners, and the american public at large are going to have their hands out, begging the government to bail their bad investments out.


also, what kind of a message would it send for a candidate to finance his primary opponent, who operated for 3 months with no desirable path to the nomination, while drastically overspending their income and creating massive debt that they'd have no hope of repaying unless obama were assassinated, and the party had to turn to her to become their candidate.

Monkeyboy, I'm not sure I get your point. First it seemed like you were saying John McCain was saying he supported torture. Now you're saying that he's saying he's against torture but voted for it. It's called compromise. The White House threatened a veto and Republicans threatened a fillibuster. If it's a choice between no bill and a compromise bill you choose a compromise.

I'm going to try and answer my own question about why, when the central position of the Democrats is ending the Iraq Occupation they all vote for it. Compromise. The bill includes a veteran's package among other things. The Democrats know that Bush will never sign a bill that has a withdrawal timeline, so they compromise. They get something and give something. It's what McCain did and what the Democrats did. What's important to look at is what they'll do when they get in office. Even though he voted for the war this week people believe Obama will withdraw. Because he says so. McCain voted for the torture bill. Yet they don't afford him the same that they afford Obama. Why is it okay for Obama to compromise and not McCain?

Obama's campaign finance switch isn't the same. It's not a compromise vote that anyone who wants to get something done has to make. There was no one voting on this but Obama. It's an about face of a signature issue.

steagles wrote:does anyone else get the feeling that if barrack obama were to bail out hilary clinton's campaign debt that it would send a horrendous message going into a potential presidency when fledgling financial institutions, airlines, homeowners, and the american public at large are going to have their hands out, begging the government to bail their bad investments out.

McCain said that it's not government's responsibility to bail out homeowners when they take a mortgage for a home they can't afford. He believes that while the financial institutions acted irresponsibly people need to own their role in this. Obama seized on this and said that McCain blamed the American public for what's happened to them. He wants to bail out homeowners who took out these loans. Isn't that part of the core beliefs of the Democratic Party? When things go bad for you. Don't worry. The government will take care of you.

Bailing out businesses is tricky. Republicans don't like it because they believe in survival of the fittest. If you can't run a profitable business, then go out of business. Democrats are unsympathetic to business. Yet, neither party want people to lose their jobs and become unemployed.

In the last two weeks:

1. Obama reversed his position on FISA.
2. Obama reversed his position on campaign finance reform.
3. Changed his position on gun control.
4. Claimed that his staff filled out a form incorrectly and that he really supports the death penalty in some cases.
5. Told Fortune that his "anti-trade rhetoric had gotten overheated." Despite what he said in the primary he will not unilaterally overhaul NAFTA.
6. Obama assured Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari that despite his stance that he'd withdraw all combat troops in 16 months that he wouldn't remove the troops nearly so fast if the Iraqi government felt it'd have a negative impact on Iraq.
7. Changed his position on social security, so that income between $102,000 and $250,000, which he previously wanted to tax, will now be exempt.

I've never seen anyone change so many positions so fast. I'm sure Clinton supporters are upset, as they likely believe that if the voters knew Obama would run this fast away from his previously stated positions she would be the nominee.

If these are Obama's real stances, and his voting record and previous policy statements are not, I'm a lot more comfortable with the policies than I was. I'm not more comfortable with him. If he keeps running to the center I imagine that he'll still get the liberal votes but they won't be happy with him.

On to serious political discussion, McCain apparently believes salt shakers are bad luck, as are hats on beds, tails up coins, and carries like 15 'lucky' items around.

heh?

steagles wrote:does anyone else get the feeling that if barrack obama were to bail out hilary clinton's campaign debt that it would send a horrendous message going into a potential presidency when fledgling financial institutions, airlines, homeowners, and the american public at large are going to have their hands out, begging the government to bail their bad investments out.

Happens all the time, just doesn't get the attention because Barack/Hillary was so high-profile.

steagles wrote:also, what kind of a message would it send for a candidate to finance his primary opponent, who operated for 3 months with no desirable path to the nomination, while drastically overspending their income and creating massive debt that they'd have no hope of repaying unless obama were assassinated, and the party had to turn to her to become their candidate.

Believe it or not, the prolonged Barack/Hillary cage match was actually good for the Democrats because it resulted in more voter registration and got more people "engaged" and interested, especially in the latter states that would have been "insignificant" in the primary process.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Hoya, did you get your hand gun yet?

No, but two people at work have said they're going after work. I'm not sure if they're serious. The people who work in my office who worked for Romney are a lot more serious about this whole 'being rabid conservatives' thing than everyone else is.

Wait, so rabid conservatives supported a guy who as governor of Massachusetts supported gay marriage and socialized medicine? I'm so confused.

Wonder if they'd support someone that supports gay medicine and socialized marriage :?:

On a not making fun of people/reacting to hyperbole with hyperbole/carrying on note from yours truly:

I'm facinated with what may emerge from the Republican Party in the wake of Bush - because if somethign doesn't emerge, we're on our way to a one party state, and I don't believe that vacuum is possible on a national level. Something will have to exist to counter the coming Democratic majority. What will or can come next isn't as clear as it was in the wake of Nixon, when Goldwater and Reagan were running around and giving speeches and guys like Buckley were on TV every week debating ideas with the best of the best on both sides (where today we have idiots like Olberman and O'Reilly were clearly are not)

Aside from guys like Pawlenty and Jindal, it's still hard to get an idea of what could come next, and no one with a national presence has emerged to push it.

Anyway - this might be a start: David Brooks discusses a new book by Douthat and Salam called The Great New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.

This might not go anywhere (and certainly won't this year), but it'll be interesting to track what these guys are suggesting and if and how it will influence the politics of the near future.

I'll read it and I'm sure none of you will be interested in what I think

VoxOrion wrote:I'll read it and I'm sure none of you will be interested in what I think

No, I read Brooks' op-ed and it sounded interesting. I'd be interested if you thought it was worth a read.

What emerges depends on whether the troubles in the Republican Party are primarily caused by mistakes made by Bush/Rove, or if they are instead attributable to wider shifts in the political environment. Part of the reason that Nixon did not permanently damage the Republican party was because Reaganism addressed a crisis in the political environment of which Watergate was a symptom, not a cause. Carter of course had tried, but failed to address it.

I don't think we're dealing with a political upheaval as severe as we faced in the 70s. We do have some significant economic shifts going on, and addressing those will of course be the priority we face going forward. But in terms of national security, despite serious mis-steps by the Bush administration and hysterical fear mongering on the part of some conservatives we're probably more secure than we've been through most ofthe 20th century. And there's nothing even close to the kinds of social upheavals faced in 60s.

I still think there's a significant ideological shift going on, as discussed at length in my blog, that is I think populism is resurgent, but it really lacks any intellectual heft at this point.

What Brooks describes sounds a little like 1992 Clintonism, by the way.

VoxOrion wrote:On a not making fun of people/reacting to hyperbole with hyperbole/carrying on note from yours truly:

I'm facinated with what may emerge from the Republican Party in the wake of Bush - because if somethign doesn't emerge, we're on our way to a one party state, and I don't believe that vacuum is possible on a national level. Something will have to exist to counter the coming Democratic majority. What will or can come next isn't as clear as it was in the wake of Nixon, when Goldwater and Reagan were running around and giving speeches and guys like Buckley were on TV every week debating ideas with the best of the best on both sides (where today we have idiots like Olberman and O'Reilly were clearly are not)

Ahhhhh!!!! A one party state!!!! Ahhhh!!!!

As recently as December 2007 Rasmussen showed America as 36.3% Democrat/34.2% Republican/29.5% Other. By May of this year that jumped to 41.7% Democrat/31.6% Republican/26.6% Other. Some of this is due to Bush's unpopularity. Some of this is largely due to a Democratic race people wanted to vote in that had a lot of open primaries.

In November 2004 the difference was Dems +1.6%. By election day 2006 it was Dems +6.2%. Then the Democrats took control of Congress. That dropped it to the 2.1% above. Regardless of who wins the election I think the difference will be at most 5-6% by this time next year. The GOP is about where they were a year ago. Democratic gains are coming largely from independents. People are dissatisfied with both parties. Unless something remarkable happens independents will probably be 35% by late 2009/early 2010.

The Democrats' popularity comes largely from the Republicans' unpopularity. It seems their platform again this year is "We're not Republicans." It worked for them in 2006. Eventually you have to stand for something, not against something. Especially if they win.

If the GOP were truly at the end that might result in a stronger second party, not a weaker one. The Federalists begat the National Republicans who begat the Whigs who begat the Republican Party. Each time the parties split into multiple factions, but one emerged as a strong one. The Whigs and Republicans won Presidential elections in their second go around.

Laexile wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:On a not making fun of people/reacting to hyperbole with hyperbole/carrying on note from yours truly:

I'm facinated with what may emerge from the Republican Party in the wake of Bush - because if somethign doesn't emerge, we're on our way to a one party state, and I don't believe that vacuum is possible on a national level. Something will have to exist to counter the coming Democratic majority. What will or can come next isn't as clear as it was in the wake of Nixon, when Goldwater and Reagan were running around and giving speeches and guys like Buckley were on TV every week debating ideas with the best of the best on both sides (where today we have idiots like Olberman and O'Reilly were clearly are not)

Ahhhhh!!!! A one party state!!!! Ahhhh!!!!

As recently as December 2007 Rasmussen showed America as 36.3% Democrat/34.2% Republican/29.5% Other. By May of this year that jumped to 41.7% Democrat/31.6% Republican/26.6% Other. Some of this is due to Bush's unpopularity. Some of this is largely due to a Democratic race people wanted to vote in that had a lot of open primaries.

In November 2004 the difference was Dems +1.6%. By election day 2006 it was Dems +6.2%. Then the Democrats took control of Congress. That dropped it to the 2.1% above. Regardless of who wins the election I think the difference will be at most 5-6% by this time next year. The GOP is about where they were a year ago. Democratic gains are coming largely from independents. People are dissatisfied with both parties. Unless something remarkable happens independents will probably be 35% by late 2009/early 2010.

The Democrats' popularity comes largely from the Republicans' unpopularity. It seems their platform again this year is "We're not Republicans." It worked for them in 2006. Eventually you have to stand for something, not against something. Especially if they win.

If the GOP were truly at the end that might result in a stronger second party, not a weaker one. The Federalists begat the National Republicans who begat the Whigs who begat the Republican Party. Each time the parties split into multiple factions, but one emerged as a strong one. The Whigs and Republicans won Presidential elections in their second go around.

Well, there's more than that. In many states, the Republican party apparatus is in disarray. That's certainly the case in Arkansas, it sounds like it's the case in NJ, CA, among others. The minor league system is in some trouble.

VoxOrion wrote:On a not making fun of people/reacting to hyperbole with hyperbole/carrying on note from yours truly:

I'm facinated with what may emerge from the Republican Party in the wake of Bush - because if somethign doesn't emerge, we're on our way to a one party state, and I don't believe that vacuum is possible on a national level. Something will have to exist to counter the coming Democratic majority. What will or can come next isn't as clear as it was in the wake of Nixon, when Goldwater and Reagan were running around and giving speeches and guys like Buckley were on TV every week debating ideas with the best of the best on both sides (where today we have idiots like Olberman and O'Reilly were clearly are not)

Aside from guys like Pawlenty and Jindal, it's still hard to get an idea of what could come next, and no one with a national presence has emerged to push it.

Anyway - this might be a start: David Brooks discusses a new book by Douthat and Salam called The Great New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.

This might not go anywhere (and certainly won't this year), but it'll be interesting to track what these guys are suggesting and if and how it will influence the politics of the near future.

I'll read it and I'm sure none of you will be interested in what I think

There won't be a one-party state, because there's simply no way that the Democrats won't actively or passively (e.g. be in office when things inevitably go wrong) screw up enough to prevent a Republican renaissance. That schmuck Dem AG in Ohio will be the first of many.

In the bigger picture, at the risk of stumbling into some offensive historical hyperbole again... both parties remake themselves as political and external circumstances demand, win power, more or less implement their agenda, and then stagnate to an absurd degree and get their comeuppance. (All of this has happened before, and...)

It happened in the '60s to the Democrats. They'd won for so long that the most externally blind and self-indulgent faction within the party assumed there was nothing they couldn't do. Even allowing that there was real idealism at play, the combination of arrogance and tone-deafness was truly astonishing--to the point that the New Left really was "America-hating" in style if not in substance, chanting "NLF is Gonna Win!" at rallies and such. It took them between 25 and 40 years to get straight, depending on how much credit you want to give Bill Clinton (and how much faith you have in Barack Obama, both to win and to live up to his rhetoric); ultimately the key was to acknowledge the other side at least sorta had a point, and to be agnostic rather than Jesuitical about means (expanding health care, say, through politically palatable measures rather than government-imposed mandates).

There's a theory, one I agree with, that 9/11 extended the Republican period of dominance beyond what it naturally would have been. The 2000 election wasn't conclusive in terms of what the electorate wanted; the presidential election you know about, but the Democrats won a bunch of Senate seats (reversing some of the '94 cycle) and the House IIRC was dead even. Bush wasn't off to a good start in 2001, and absent terrorism probably would have lost in '04. Tom DeLay's Congress had no principle other than self-perpetuation. They presided over an economic expansion that didn't do much of anything for the bottom 80 percent of the country. And like the Democrats through the last 20 years of their long congressional majority, they got corrupt--and got caught.

The "Party of Sam's Club" theorists seem to me like they're onto something (I remember reading that article in the Weekly Standard when it first came out and thinking as much). As a political response to Democratic ascendancy, I think their program is inevitable. It also potentially resolves the conundrum at the heart of the Republican coalition: that "traditional family values" are really tough to sustain for the non-rich in a system of totally unfettered capitalism; see the divorce and out of wedlock birth rates in the "red states" and among lower-income working Americans generally.

But I don't think they're anywhere near convincing enough prominent Republicans yet. There were forerunners of the Democratic reformation as early as Gary Hart in '84, but it took two more bad losses and the emergence of Bill Clinton to get them a big enough microphone.

Laexile wrote:Monkeyboy, I'm not sure I get your point. First it seemed like you were saying John McCain was saying he supported torture. Now you're saying that he's saying he's against torture but voted for it. It's called compromise. The White House threatened a veto and Republicans threatened a fillibuster. If it's a choice between no bill and a compromise bill you choose a compromise.
.

I don't want my future president to compromise on torture, and the old John McCain wouldn't have compromised on torture. I really don't have anything else to say. I've reported his two-faced actions in regard to torture, reviewing what he did in regards to the MCA and the DTA and all the other stuff. If you want to call blasting a practice in public and then quietly insuring its existence behind the scenes compromise, then that's fine. I'm not going to change your mind, but hopefully I showed a few other people that McCain's tough on torture talk is just that, talk.