Posts filed under 'political'
Liveblog of the First Presidential Debate
Q: Do you favor the plan?
Obama: Haven’t seen the wording. I’m optimistic. I saw this coming. Yes, we need a short-term solution, but “we need a 21st century regulatory framework” rather than a theory that regulation is bad. [Jab on the conservative concept of laissez-faire, even though this is not something McCain nor Bush seem to believe in. If we could just shackle those big bad bankers with more rules, they'd behave.]
McCain: Responsibility. Washington = Wall St. Greed is rewarded. In my administration, people will be held accountable.
Obama: Agreed, we need accountability, but NOT just during a crisis. People have been hurting for a while. Jab at John for saying that the “fundamentals of the economy are sound.” Jab that he just now came in to Washington to do something.
McCain: I agree, we have to fix this. Main St. is paying the penalty. Stricter interpretation. Consolidation of regulatory agencies. “I have a fundamental belief in the American worker, we’re still the greatest exporter and producer.” [What century are we in now?]
Q: What are the fundamental differences between your approaches to lead the country out of this crisis?
McCain: Gotta get spending under control. “Republicans came to power to change Washington, and Washington changed us.” [I like that he keeps admitting this.] “Earmarks are gateway drug.” $3 million to study bear reproduction. “I will veto every pork spending bill, I will make them famous, you will know their names.” [Another solid McAnecdote.] Obama has asked for $932mil. Look at Citizens Against Government Waste.
Obama: I suspended any requests for my own state. Lobbyists sometimes propose it, not with me. Earmarks are an $18billion problem. McCain wants $300billion in tax cuts for rich.
McCain: You may have noticed that Obama suspended the requests AFTER starting to run for president, interesting coincidence. That total of $18 billion has tripled in last few years. It’s outta control. I was called the “Sherrif” in the appropriations committee. Obama has proposed several more billion.
Obama: INTERJECTION! I don’t know where he’s getting his numbers. I close loopholes that send jobs overseas. I make sure I pay for every dime I’ve proposed. Absolutely we need earmark reform, but that’s not going to get the middle class back on track. McCain’s tax cuts on capital gains are going to hurt them. [How does that hurt middle class?]
McCain: Let me give and example of what he finds objectionable: We have 35% business tax, the second highest in the world. Ireland has 11%. That’s what makes jobs go overseas. I want every family to have $5000 tax credit for healthcare, double the dividend for kids. I KNOW the worst thing we could do is raise taxes on anyone.
Obama: 95% of you will get tax cuts, everyone less than $250,000/year. He’s right about high biz taxes but there’s loopholes that make it effectively one of the lowest. He won’t close them. Just another example of this notion that the market can always solve everything and with less regulation the better you’ll be.
McCain: I have fought to simplify the tax code to two brackets. Obama has shifted. He did vote to raise taxes for people making as low as $42k.
Obama: McCain supports tax breaks to oil companies [Who we know are evil incarnate. They're really sparring over this item.]
Q: What will you give up in order to pay for this rescue plan?
Obama: It’s hard to anticipate what the budget will be with tax revenues going down from this economic slump. We have to free ourselves from Mideast oil with alternatives. Cars in US not Japan or Korea. [Seriously?] Healthcare has to be fixed. Average deductible went up 30%. China is walking in space, therefore we have to step up education and investment in science, make college affordable, better broadband in rural areas. We can’t shortchange any of these things to compete in the global arena. [So to answer the question about giving up something me mentions all the things we can't give up.]
McCain: “He’s the most liberal senator. It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left.” [This may or may not be true but McCain continues to apply this derogatory label because even liberals are afraid to be called liberal.] I’d stop ethanol subsidies. We have to do away with defense contracts that run out of control, make them fixed cost contracts. I know how to do that. I saved $6.8 billion fighting a bogus DoD contract. I know how to do this, I’ve been doing it for many years. We’ll have to scrub every agency. [Though not $700 billion, it was an actual answer to what he'd cut.]
Q: So neither one of you mentioned anything major?
Obama: I want to make sure we’re investing in energy, but I might give up on individual components. We now give $15 billion to private insurers skimming off Medicare. We have to change this culture. John mentioned me being wildly liberal but this is just opposing Bush’s wildheaded policies. I want to set up a Google for Government to show all the spending. [Can't go wrong with mentioning something popular with the kids like Google and associating it with something as unpopular as government.]
Q: But I’m trying to get you to tell me this: what MAJOR thing is going to be different?
McCain: Spending freeze on everything but veterans, defense, and entitlements.
Obama: Woah, that’s too much. Let’s not be hasty. “Like using a sledgehammer when you need a scalpel.”
McCain: [Jab for Obama not wanting nuclear power out of nowhere! Way off topic!]
Q: I’m obviously not getting through to either of you. Will you acknowledge that this is a major amount of money?
Obama: Yes, it’s big. But taxes cuts for rich won’t help.
McCain: We have to cut spending. I believe we can adjust spending around this amount of money. A healthy economy without raising anyone’s taxes is the best recipe for recovery. Spending restraint has to be a vital part of that. [A solid answer, yet refusing to acknowledge the cost of the war(s) is not spending restraint.]
Obama: “Your president Bush has presided over this orgy of spending.”
McCain: Woah, I’ve not gone with everything he says. I’m a MAVERICK and so is my running-mate.
Q: Iraq, your thoughts…
McCain: We must win. We will win.
Obama: Makes the connection between war and economy. [Thank you! Ron Paul is smiling.]
McCain: “The next president doesn’t have to decide IF we’re going into Iraq, but what to do now that we’re there.” [Good point. Yet, there's still 200 some countries we have yet to decide to invade so it is worth discussing as a case study.]
Obama: I opposed funding an open-ended timetable. Not whether or not to fund troops. McCain thought we were successful in Afghanistan before going to Iraq. In 16 months we should be able to reduce numbers in Iraq and alleviate families. [Do the peace-loving Democrats in Blacksburg realize just how long this will be until he plans to START reducing the numbers?]
McCain: Admiral Mullen and General Petraeus both say that Obama’s plan is unwise. Iraq is THE frontier of the war on terror.
Q: Having resolved Iraq, we’ll move to Afghanistan. More troops there now?
Obama: Yes, this year has been the highest fatalities of US troops. We cannot separate Afghanistan from Iraq. [That's Iran's job on the map.] We have to put the pressure on both. Iraq is NOT the frontier, it’s Afghanistan and Pakistan. Poppy trade has been booming, they’re getting emboldened again.
McCain: I won’t repeat the mistake of leaving after driving out the Russians. We can’t ignore those lessons of history. “If you’re going to aim a gun at someone, you better be prepared to pull the trigger.” I’m not ready to do that to Pakistan but Obama has said that out loud. Bad move. This area has not been governed since Alexander the Great. Same strategy in Iraq is going to have to go in this rough region and we’ll need their cooperation. Recent bombing in Pakistan Marriott is a signal that those people don’t want their government to cooperate with us. We need MORE troops. MORE troops. I know how to do this. I guarantee I wouldn’t publicly talk about attacking Pakistan [like this young tenderfoot over here would.]
Obama: I didn’t say that, I said if Al Qaeda is in our sights over the Pakistan border and Pakistan won’t cooperate, we should hit them. We COULD just allow our troops to be on the defensive or start making some decisions. For ten years we coddled Musharraf and lost legitimacy with the people. In the meantime, they weren’t going after Al Quaeda.
McCain: Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He wasn’t around back then. When Reagan wanted to send troops into Lebanon [during Obama's senior year as an undergrad], I voted against it because I knew it was too small of a number of troops. I supported going into Bosnia to stop genocide against my peers. And Somalia. I have a record of being involved in these big decisions in sending troops into harm’s way. [Prepare for heartfelt moment.] Mother gave me a bracelet of killed marine and I’ve worn it since. She said, “Do everything in your power to make sure my son’s sacrifice was not in vain.” I know what it’s like for an army to feel defeated, but we’ll win this one and not be dishonored. [Deep inside him, I wonder if that's truly what this is about, wanting to compensate for the deep loss he personally experienced from Vietnam.]
Obama: I have a bracelet too. Mom said “Don’t let another mother go through what I’ve gone through.” No soldier dies in vain carrying out their commands. All I’m saying is we’ve taken our eyes off Osama. McCain has not been concerned about Afghanistan, he said “we could just muddle through it.” But I think we have to take it seriously.
McCain: Yeah, but why hasn’t he visited there? I have traveled there and I know what our needs are. [You may be right about what I said about muddling through it, but at least I have the balls to go over there.]
Q: What is the threat from Iran?
McCain: If they get nukes, Israel is threatened. We CANNOT allow a second holocaust. Russians are preventing action in the UN Security Council, I’ve proposed a new league of democratic nations [without Russia] that could impose meaningful sanctions on them and affect their behavior. They ARE pursuing nukes. And they’re supplying IEDs to Iraq. Obama doesn’t even want to declare the Republican Guard of Iran as terrorists!
Obama: Hold on, let me correct something: I DO believe the Republican Guard are terrorists. [And I'm quite happy about the fact that they do not call themselves the Democratic Guard.] They’ve kicked up nuke tech since the deposition of Saddam and we CANNOT tolerate nukes there. We DO need tougher sanctions and will need Russia and China’s cooperation. We’ll need tough direct diplomacy with them and McCain won’t talk to them.
McCain: Don’t get me started on how Obama wants to talk to the bad guys: he said he’ll talk to them without precondition. [Stumbles over pronouncing Ahmadinejad. It's likely that his refusal to talk to him runs so deep that the mere mentioning of his name is a bit too cordial.] Sitting with them will legitimize their illegal behavior. I’ll sit down with anybody with preconditions.
Obama: I reserve the right to meet with anybody if I feel it’s going to keep America safe. Kissinger just said that we should meet with Iran without preconditions. We can’t say: until you do exactly what I say, I won’t talk to you. It may not work because Iran is rogue, but I want to try. If it doesn’t work, then we have strengthened our ability to impose those sanctions. We cut off talks to North Korea and they quadrupled their nuke count and have sent nukes to Syria. The Bush admin and McCain’s advisers all think this is important.
McCain: Kissinger did NOT say between presidents. Obama doesn’t understand that when you sit down at a table with someone who hates Israel, you legitimize them. The average South Korean is 3 inches taller than the North. [How could anyone talk to a regime who causes their people to be so short?]
Obama: He’s mischaracterizing my statement. I’m saying that we don’t expect to solve every problem before talking. The notion that we would sit and allow him to mouth off over Israel. [Obama has to perpetually explain himself. Is this because he really does make such poor statements or because McCain mercilessly rips them out of context?]
McCain: Kissinger would not say that Presidents should do this.
Q: Russia: Competitor, enemy, or partner?
Obama: Resurgent Russia is a threat. Actions in Georgia were unacceptable. President must be firm with them on 6 point ceasefire. You just can’t act like this. We have to affirm all fledgling democracies in the region from Estonia to Poland to the Ukraine. [It's just Ukraine, not The Ukraine.] Russia has 15k nukes and could make 40k, we have to work with them on loose nukes. You don’t deal with them by staring into their eyes and seeing their soul. [Across the table.]
McCain: I was interested in how naive Obama would be on this one. He doesn’t realize how aggressive they are. “I looked into Putin’s eyes and saw the letters K-G-B.” [So I can talk to him across the table without preconditions.] There’s an oil pipeline through Turkey through Georgia. I’ve spent quite a bit of time there with Saakashvili. [Did you notice how I nailed that name? Did I mention I was there? Did I mention I'm not afraid to travel to global hotspot destinations?] We want to work with the Russians, but have to respect them. Watch Ukraine, this has a lot to do with Crimea, Sevastopol, breakdown with Tymoshenko and Yushchenko. [Did you notice how well I pronounced those names too? Nailed 'em! I'm so on top of this.]
Obama: [Ooo, an even better pronunciation of Saakashvili!] Back in April I warned the administration that Russia was poising to do something. [Again, like with the economy, I predicted the future. Isn't that a handy trait of mine?] Oil is big, in case you haven’t noticed, we got to get off it. We only have 3% of the world’s oil yet we use 25% of it so “we can’t drill ourselves out of the problem.” McCain keeps voting against energy alternatives.
McCain: Nobody in Arizona is against solar. Offshore is not long-term, but a bridge to provide some relief. Obama still opposes nuclear power. [We're saying the exact same thing here but I need to emphasize just how significant this minute difference is in the way Obama words his statements about nuclear.]
Obama: All I said was we have to store waste safely.
McCain: Nobody can be opposed to alternative energy.
Q: What are the chances of another 9/11?
McCain: We’re safer than we were the day after. I suggested the commission to investigate 9/11 but was opposed by the administration. Another way I’ve opposed them. I do that. Bipartisan, across the aisle work. We have to continue to make sure we don’t torture prisoners, work closer with allies, better technology. We have a long way to go. We’ve had the largest reorganization of government since the assembly of the defense dept.
Obama: Yes, we have a long way to go. We haven’t done enough on chemical sites, at ports, at borders. Suitcases. We have billions on missile defense, which I believe in for Iran, but we can’t just do that. We can’t just be focused on Iraq, but Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s important to know that the way we are perceived in the world is crucial, I will restore the respect that we have had in the past. I do give McCain great credit on the torture issue, because it undermines our reputation.
McCain: In the case of missile defense, Obama says it has to be proven first. [Silly silly man wanting to have a proven weapon before using it. Does he not know how urgently we need it?] He still doesn’t understand that if we fail in Iraq, Al Qaeda will come back over there. All our sacrifice will be lost if we have specific dates of withdrawal.
Obama: Over the last 8 years, the administration has been solely focused on Iraq, in the meantime, Osama is still out there. We have weakened our capacity to project power over the world because of this focus. We spend $10 billion a month on it. There’s no country who has EVER lost the economy and maintained their military power. [Awesome point, please John, listen to this!] The next president needs a BROADER strategic vision.
McCain: I’ve been around for all the major international situations. Obama has no experience. The surge, the surge, the surge, he was wrong about the surge. [He may be right about other things, but the surge, the surge.] I will take care of the veterans. I have the ability to make the right reform, prosperity, and peace. [Last two words almost muttered under breath, yes this has been a long day for me, and I'd like to go home.] I don’t need any on the job training, I could start right now.
Obama: When my dad was growing up in Africa, he knew the US was the place that he could come to fulfill his dreams. We can’t say that kids around the world still feel that way about us. That needs to change. [Nice sentiment, but there's really no major change in my foreign policy that will ensure that.]
McCain: When I came home from prison, I saw how mistreated our men were. I know how to heal the wounds of war, I know how to deal with our adversaries, and our friends. [But... I don't really know how to avoid war.]
September 26th, 2008 at 09:39pm
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