John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 5, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Michael O'Hanlon on the Today Show this morning:
I think Senator McCain, whether you like his initial stance on the war or not, has a lot to brag about for the last couple of years. He's been one of the original advocates of the so-called surge strategy, which has worked well. So I think he's on pretty solid ground on Iraq. And as you say, he is proposing a 50 percent cut in what would be his first term as president. Senator Obama, of course, can claim that he's been right all along about the war being a bad idea. But he's got a bit of a dilemma in that his rhetoric doesn't seem to have caught up with the great progress in the surge whereby we reduced violence by something like 75 to 80 percent. And there's the beginning of an Iraqi political progress now as well. So I think senator Oba
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 5, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Barack Obama's new position on Iraq:
“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed,” he said. “And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."...
“My 16-month timeline, if you examine everything that I’ve said, was always premised on making sure that our troops were safe,” he said. “I said that based on the information that we had received from our commanders that one to two brigades a month could be pulled out safely, from a logistical perspective. My guiding approach continues to be that we’ve got to make sure that our t
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 3, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
According to USA Today, both Obama and McCain plan on expanding nuclear power:
McCain's call for 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 is a daunting, possibly unrealistic goal, and Obama doesn't want any more plants until there's an acceptable way to secure the waste. But both men acknowledge that nuclear power should be a growing part of the equation. They're right.
McCain is right, but as is so often the case, Obama has been all over the place on this issue. (One might even surmise that Obama has intentionally obscured his position in order to be all things to all people.) In October of last year, when Obama was going all out to pander to his party's anti-nuclear base, Obama made his position clear: “I am not a nuclear energy proponent.”
Then the shifting began. In May of this year, Obama
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Video (YouTube) on July 2, 2008 | 12:42 pm - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Video (YouTube) on July 2, 2008 | 11:40 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 2, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Time's Jay Newton-Small writes a column today on Wesley Clark's smug suggestion that John McCain's war record should be given no weight in assessing his potential to serve as commander in chief. The question Newton-Small poses is "How do you make the case that a decorated war hero, a former Navy aviator who was shot down behind enemy lines and suffered more than five years' incarceration as a prisoner of war, is not well qualified to be Commander in Chief?" And to answer that question, he turns to Ted Galen Carpenter:
The idea Clark was trying to communicate is that John McCain's honorable military service should be divorced and analyzed separately from his foreign policy record. Why? Because the first is unassailable, while the other is eminently flawed, says Ted Galen Carpenter, vice pr
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 2, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain issued the following statement today:
“Today, I spoke by phone to President Uribe. He told me some of the details of the dramatic rescue of the people who were held hostage. Three Americans are now free and Ingrid Betancourt is now in good condition. I’m pleased with the success of this very high-risk operation. Sometimes in the past, the FARC has killed the hostages rather than let them be rescued.
“So I congratulate President Uribe, the military and the nation of Colombia. It is great news. Now we must renew our efforts to free all of the other innocent people held hostage. With regard to the three Americans and Ingrid Betancourt -- they had been held many years, as many as six years.
“Last night, President Uribe and the defense minister did brief us that the ope
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 2, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Today Barack Obama will visit the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) at Cheyenne Mountain. Among the many important responsibilities of the personnel at NORAD is maintaining a network of land-, air-, sea- and space-based sensors that are used, among other things, for the monitoring of tests by the Missile Defense Agency. Senator Obama has ridiculed the now operational U.S. missile defense system as "unproven" and pledged to cut spending on the program, but to paraphrase Senator Obama, what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne Mountain. As the men and women who work at NORAD can tell him, missile defense works, unfortunately Senator Obama has made a habit of ignoring the progress of the American military.
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 2, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Obama advisor Tony Lake gives an interview to the Financial Times that features another vague description of Obama's post-withdrawal strategy for Iraq:
He stressed that Mr Obama, even after withdrawing troops from Iraq over 16 months as he has promised, would maintain “a residual presence for clearly defined missions”. These would include military training, and “preparedness to go back in if there are specific acts of genocidal violence”.
“That is not ‘cut and run and let’s just see what happens’,” Mr Lake said. “It seems to me a very responsible strategy.”
It should be noted that the surge was designed specifically to tamp down the "specific acts of genocidal violence" that nearly pushed Iraq into all out civil war in 2006. At the time, Obama opposed the surge, co
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 1, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Rep. Charlie Rangel on Fox & Friends:
CARLSON: I want to follow up with the congressman because you do agree that this whole thing does not help Barack Obama.
REP. RANGEL: Yes, I don't think it helps Wesley Clark either.
CALRSON: He probably wants to be VP. That's more or less done now.
REP. RANGEL: Knocking McCain doesn't qualify you to become Vice President.
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 1, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain recently said that, on some issues, Obama's "word cannot be trusted." The North Koreans may be relieved to find out this is true, but for one of Obama's constituents it's a different story entirely:
After President Bush announced last week that he would begin the process of removing North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, both Senator McCain and Mr. Obama said in statements that they would wait to see whether North Korea met its disarmament requirements before endorsing the move. But neither candidate said his support for adjusting North Korea's status was contingent on the fate of Rev. Kim.
This was not Mr. Obama's position in his first year in office. The January 28, 2005, letter he signed, sent to North Korea's ambassador to the United
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 1, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Obama seems to be on both sides of every issue, but it's rare that he on both sides of an issue on the same day. Headline number one, from the Associate Press:
"Obama to expand Bush's faith based programs"
Headline number two, from the Politico:
"Obama to scrap Bush faith-based office"
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 1, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
This is why you want to hear from commanders on the ground:
In Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch’s estimation, the much-debated “surge” of forces in Iraq was an unequivocal success.
The surge included the 3rd Infantry Division under Lynch’s command, and two brigades of the division are now home with another making its return from Iraq now.
“Clearly, it worked,” Lynch said of the surge Friday morning. “The progress is undeniable.”...
“The people of Iraq are the solution,” he said. “They are not the problem. They’d ask two questions — ‘are you staying?’ and when they were convinced you were staying, they would ask, ‘how can we help?’ And then they worked to secure the population.
Not that we're keeping count, but it's been roughly 905 days, 8 hours, and 34 minutes s
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 1, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 1, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Susan Rice took to the airwaves today to showcase her willful ignorance of the current facts on the ground in Iraq. She said the surge is "not spurring the political parties to reconciliation, which is necessary to end their conflict." Meanwhile, Reuters reports:
Iraq's main Sunni Arab bloc is on the verge of rejoining the Shi'ite-led government after many of its key demands were met, a party spokesman said on Tuesday.
The Accordance Front pulled out of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government last August, demanding the release of mainly Sunni Arab detainees in Iraq's jails and calling for a greater say in security matters.
"Many of our demands have been executed ... sharing of responsibility, the issuance of the amnesty law," said Accordance Front spokesman Salim al-Jubouri, referr
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on July 1, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Obama seems to be on both sides of every issue, but it's rare that he's on both sides of an issue on the same day. Headline number one, from the Associate Press:
"Obama to expand Bush's faith based programs"
Headline number two, from the Politico:
"Obama to scrap Bush faith-based office"
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John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Video (YouTube) on June 30, 2008 | 6:15 pm - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Video (YouTube) on June 30, 2008 | 6:15 pm - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Video (YouTube) on June 30, 2008 | 6:15 pm - Permalink - Comments (View)
John McCain's White House Campaign Office (R) posted a Blog Post (McCain Report) on June 30, 2008 | 1:00 am - Permalink - Comments (View)
Barack Obama has no military experience, no executive experience, and no foreign policy experience to speak of, which leaves his surrogates little choice but to focus on the candidate's judgment. So it was within that context that Wesley Clark appeared on CBS yesterday:
GEN. CLARK: I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.
SCHIEFFER: Really?
GEN. CLARK: But barack is not... he is not running on the fact that he has made these national security pronouncements. He's running on his other strengths. He's running on the strength of character, on the strength of his communication skills, on the strength of his judgment. Those are qualities that we seek in our national leadership.
Obama has yet to show the good judgment and strength
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