There are some quotes and stances by the Dem candidates from the debate this past week that are simply shocking to me. Also shocking is how little air time and play these comments are getting from the media. In my mind, they pretty much disqualify the offenders from ever holding the office of President of the United States. You can decide for yourselves. The chief offenders were John Edwards and Barack Obama.
First Edwards. Brian Williams asked that the candidates raise their hands if they believe there was such as thing as a “global war on terror.” Edwards joined Kucinich and Gravel (two of the most ridiculous politicians in the history of this country) in keeping his hand by his side. Let me say that again for you: John Edwards does not believe there is a global war on terror. Frightening, isn’t it? Clinton, Obama, and Richardson all raised their hands, showing they at least understood that simple, fundamental, and undeniable truth.
But speaking of Obama, Barack showed on two different occasions why he is completely and totally unfit to be the Commander in Chief. Let me ask you a quick question: Who are America’s three greatest allies in this world? Right off the top of your head, you probably said some combination of Israel, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, South Korea, India, or Pakistan, right? Maybe you said Poland? Denmark? Mexico? One of dozens of other countries who are our allies?
Obama fielded this same question and responded thusly:
1) European Union/NATO (yes, he actually used the two interchangeably throughout his answer)
2) Japan
3) That’s about it, really. China isn’t really an ally or an enemy.
Wow. The EU/NATO as an ally. Care to name any countries in those alliances there, Barack? Or do you just throw out acronyms and names of federations you don’t really understand? And who thinks of the EU as our greatest ally?
And after naming Japan as our second ally, you can’t come up with any other countries in the entire world, and so throw out China and then explain they’re not really an ally or an enemy? Who is this guy, and why do people think he deserves to be President?!?
That’s not all Obama said, though. Let me ask you another question: what would you do if two American cities were destroyed by nuclear weapons and we had intelligence showing beyond a shadow of a doubt al Qaeda was behind the attacks?
I can pretty much guess what your answers are. There’s really only one or two correct answers to this question. This is how Obama answered it:
1) Make sure we have a proper emergency response system in place – unlike we had during Katrina.
2) Make sure our intelligence is good intelligence so we could “potentially” take “some action”
3) Talk to the international community about the situation.
4) Strengthen our relationships with other countries.
Seriously? Really? Thanks for playing, Barack. We’ve got some nice parting gifts for you backstage. The correct answer to the question is, “Bomb the #@$% out of them.” We would have also accepted, “Turn their training camps and hide outs into parking lots” or “Utterly and completely destroy them and then dance on the graves of their decaying corpses as they rot in hell.” According to Obama, though, if two America cities got nuked, he wouldn’t do anything about it!
How do you say, “Thank you sir, may I have another?” in Farsi?
And finally, I’d like to go back to John Edwards to end this piece. Again, let me ask you – who do you consider to be your moral leader? I’d bet you can come up with an answer pretty quickly – whether that be “God,” “My parents,” “My family,” or something to that effect.
John Edwards, during the most uncomfortable part of the debate, paused for nearly 20 seconds before answering, “I don’t think I could identify one person that I consider to be my moral leader.” He then cites his “Lord”, his wife, and his father.
These are the people who want to be President of our United States of America, folks. And they showed some of their true colors at the first debate last week. Let’s hope some folks sat up and took notice.
April 28th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
[...] post by HeavyM and software by Elliott [...]
April 28th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
lunatics
April 28th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
I have to admit, I’ve been incredibly surprised by recent assertions that Clinton or Obama won the MSNBC debate. I’m not sure they directly addressed and intelligently answered any of the questions they were fielded. Every single candidate, in fact, on the entire stage, with the exception of Mike Gravel, could have just as well been a robot programmed to recite a list of cut-and-dry talking points that only vaguely had to do with the questions they were being asked. I at least thought Obama was a sharp thinker and good speaker, but he came out looking as machinelike as the rest of them. I think Gravel was the only one who gave real, heartfelt answers that pointedly and directly answered the questions he was given. Granted, Gravel is a bit kooky and seems to let his emotions get the better of his stage performance, but I think he was the only one who was actually interested in having a real conversation.
For example:
*Richardson is asked if he would vote to fund the troops if he were in Congress. Richardson’s answer completely avoids the precarious issue of funding v. supporting the war and he simply states that if he were President, he would withdraw all troops within the calendar year. That has nothing to do with Congress funding the troops. Where did the question go…?
*Dodd is asked if it’s realistic to think all troops could be out of Iraq within a year. Dodd answers with some rambling statement about how the U.S. needs bold, experienced new leadership, then he says that he’s proud of his legislation…and without explaining why he thinks his legislation is realistic, goes on to chide the Bush administration for avoiding diplomacy. What…??? It sounds like he just got nervous and spouted some completely arbitrary talking points he randomly thought of at the moment.
*Obama is asked what he thinks a true “mission complete” status in Iraq would look like. Obama answers by talkikng about how cool he thinks it is that Congress passed legislation to end the war. He never even touches the issue of what a “mission complete” status in Iraq would look like. He didn’t even address the question.
*Biden is asked to reassure voters that has the discipline necessary to perform on a global stage, given his history of damning verbal gaffes. He simply states: “Yes.” That’s it. …Moving on…
*Did Clinton ever really clearly state how exactly she would pay for her universal health care plan? As far as I could tell, she just spouted as many health care-related talking points as possible without actually addressing the actual course of action she would take on paying for a universal program.
*The “Biggest mistake in the last 4 years” portion of the debate–hilarious. Gravel gives some weird spacey answer that has nothing to do with anything. Kucinich names some minor thing he did back as Mayor of Cleveland in the 70′s–the question was about the LAST FOUR YEARS. Biden gives some crap cop-out answer about the Bush administration. Edwards and Dodd say: voting for the war…once again…the question was about the last FOUR years. I don’t think any of the candidates answered the “What did you learn from that mistake that makes you a better candidate” part of the question either.
*Richardson doesn’t actually ever say whether or not he agrees with normalizing relations with Castro’s Cuba.
I didn’t actually think Edwards’ pause on the “moral leader” question was that bad. I think “Lord,” “wife,” and “father” are good answers. I too probably couldn’t think of just one primary moral leader in my life.
I was also pretty surprised by Kucinich’s speaking abilities, regardless of how out in left field his ideas are.
Here’s what I personally thought were the most shocking and/or ridiculous quotes by our Democrat friends:
*Gravel: “[U.S. soldiers in Iraq] are dying in vain.”
*Obama responds to the Partial Birth Abortion issue by asking if women have the right to make the decision. He completely ignores the greater issue of whether a child that is in the process of being birthed, and, in some cases, is largely out of the womb, has the right to live. When another human being is brought into the picture, it’s not just a question of whether women have the right to choose whether or not to let their child live.
*Kucinich states that his SCOTUS appointees would have to reflect his thinking. Given where Kucinich’s views fall on the ideological perspective…well…wow. Just, wow.
*Just a funny one: Biden is asked what the federal government could have done better to prevent the VT shootings. He says “Two things,” then goes on to list 1). Not let the assault weapons ban lapse, 2). Close the gun-show loophole, 3). Let schools feel more free to deal with troubled students and take them off campus if necessary. Count much?
*The health care portion of the debate is simply frightening. Socialism, anyone?
*Richardson says he could solve the entire Iraq problem diplomatically within his first day in office as President. Heh. Heh heh.
*Biden claims that North Korea, an isolated backwater impoverished country with a crossdressing little leader, and a handful of silly excuses for nuclear bombs with no way to propel them more than a few miles is a bigger threat to the United States than Iran, an emerging sophisticated country well on its way to producing real nuclear warheads that would be within close range of Israel, and a country deeply planted in the heart of the Muslim world, one that harbors, trains, and sponsors terrorists that attack and try to attack America and Israel on a frequent basis, one that is almost single-handedly destabilizing an entire region of the world, and one with strategic ties to powerhouse countries like Russia and China. Biden does NOT have a grasp on what’s going on in the world, clearly.
*Gravel is even scarier than Biden on this issue. “We have no important enemies”?
*Another funny one, Richardson starts listing off international issues he would want to address. Count ‘em carefully now. “Number one,” “Number two,” “Number three,” “Number four,” “Number three.” Where did five go?
*Of course, the candidates’ answers on how they would respond to a massive terrorist attack on our nation do NOT comfort me in the least.
*Obama is asked how he in his personal life betters the environment. He starts spouting something about how his campaign planted trees, but at least this time the fed-up moderator actually catches him straying and sets him back on track, much to Obama’s embarrassment.
*Kucinich takes offense to Obama’s correct statements that a nuclear Iran is a threat, and that Iran is a dangerous state sponsor of terror. The day Kucinich becomes President, I’m buying a bomb shelter.
*Gravel’s exchange with Obama about nuclear war…just hilarious.
I really don’t think there was any clear “winner” of the debate. It all depends on how you choose to grade the candidates. If, when the press talks about who the “winner” of the debate was, they meant the person who spoke must fluently and in the most sensical language, probably Clinton. If they mean the person who actually had the best ideas and strategies, probably Richardson. If they meant the person who gave the most impassioned performance, spoke most candidly, and relatively got the most publicity out of the event, probably Gravel. Perhaps the Dems will hit their stride later on in the season, but this debate was a flop in my opinion. They weren’t giving real answers, for the most part, and when they did, they were frighteningly socialistic and/or frighteningly out-of-touch with the reality of where the world is going and how grave the threats are to the United States by global terror. I can’t see how any of the Dems came out of that debate a winner.
April 28th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
HeavyM,
Obama was NOT asked about what to do if two American cities were nuked.
That pretty much qualifies as a LIE.
He was asked about if two cities were “hit”. That could be anything from a suicide bomber, or a bomb in a wastebasket.
And I certainly think that the EU nations qualify as our closest allies.
Of course I would add Canada to that, but the context of the question was in reference to military allies – and when we have needed such allies, it has been mainly the EU and NATO countries that we rely on.
Australia too, of course.
April 28th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Tano,
Not only was what HeavyM said NOT a lie, but I would go as far to say that the suggestion of synchronized nuclear attacks of some magnitude was the ONLY plausible interpretation of the hypothetical question. I highly doubt Brian Williams was referring to an individual suicide bomber or a bomb in a wastebasket when he prefaced his question with “if, God forbid a thousand times, while we were gathered here tonight, we learned that two American cities had been hit simultaneously by terrorists, and we further learned beyond the shadow of a doubt it had been the work of al Qaeda, how would you change the U.S. military stance overseas as a result?
It was also puzzling that the pacifist Obama, who responded saying he might “take potentially some action,” cited Japan as one of our three most important allies in the world; seemingly oblivious to the fact that is only true today because of America’s overwhelming use of military force on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Josiah,
Good notes. Another frustrating non-answer to add to your list was the question provided by yours truly, that Brian Williams asked of John Edwards:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Senator Edwards, Russia has been in the news of late. Just today, they suspended an arms deal over a squabble. Simply, do you regard them as a friend or a foe?
EDWARDS: Well, what’s happened in Russia, of course, is they’ve moved from being a democracy under Yeltsin to being a complete autocracy under Putin. The government has been centralized. Any kind of democratic effort, any opposition party, any opposition voice has been squashed. I think the question we should be asking ourselves and I’ve thought a lot about this. I’ve spent a fair amount of time since the last election working overseas and working on these issues. I think the question we should be asking ourselves is how does America change the underlying dynamic of what’s happening in the world? We need to maintain our strength, military, economic, political. But how do we ultimately change what’s happening, the threats that America faces? I think for that to occur, the world has to see America as a force for good again, which is why I talked about making leading an effort to make primary school education available to 100 million children in the world who don’t have it, in the Muslim world, in Africa, in Latin America. Leading an international effort on sanitation, clean drinking water, economic development using micro-finance as a tool. I mean, here’s a way that America could actually demonstrate its commitment to humanity, which I think is critical for our leadership.
I hope journalists will be aggressive enough on the campaign trail to follow up with the candidates who skirt and dodge the questions posed during debates.
It will be interesting to see if Chris Matthews plays hardball with the GOP candidates in next week’s debate, whereas Brian Williams let virtually every irrelevant TPM response go without challenge.
April 29th, 2007 at 1:29 am
HeavyM, you count Great Britain as one of our greatest allies, and then trash NATO and the EU. You do understand that Great Britain is in the EU and NATO, right?
April 29th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Nathan, a country being a member of an organization does not imply that the organization represents this country wholly. A simple example: you end up marrying a person of your dream, but it does not imply you are crazy about his/her family (in-law jokes, anyone?). In fact, the Great British has been taking a few steps recently to get away from EU, or at least, they have been active in restricting the EU’s influences over their country. Yes, we have a beautiful relationship with Great Kingdom, but we are nowhere near the same par with the Europe Union as the whole. I’m sorry, but EU as present established is joke. They do have some good ideas — common currency, international regulations, and so on, but EU has gone beyond that to the point that the EU bureaucrat somehow get in their head that they could administrate to nauseating extremes every minute of the Europeans’ lives.
April 29th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Oh yes, and look at the performance of NATO in Afghanistan, is it enough to say?
April 29th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Canada is also in NATO.