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In case you missed FDL’s liveblog of the event, Obama and McSame squared off at Rick Warren’s megachurch in Orange County to court the evangelical vote. I expected McSame to pander to the GOP’s shock troops and pretend he was one of them — but he went well beyond that. If you thought Bush had a shallow, lazy grasp of serious moral issues — and had a dangerous, manichean worldview — get a load of McSame.
Q: At what point is a baby entitled to human rights?
A: At the moment of conception.
63% of McSame’s countrymen who think abortion should remain legal disagree with this. Even secular left-wing liberals like St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas rejected this view. Not even the Pope is sure about this. This is the view of theocrats like Warren. Do we really want another Terri Schiavo President?
On evil:
Q: Does evil exist and if so, should we ignore it, negotiated with it, contain it, or defeat it?
A: Defeat it.
A man who thinks that evil can be "defeated" is both ignorant of basic theology (or human nature, if you like) and exceedingly dangerous, and we’ve seen the catastrophic results of this worldview over the past 8 years. McSame doesn’t consider by how much evil we’ve done in the name of "defeating" evil. To him, "evil" just means — "the bad guys." And it’s that kind of mental laziness that leads to Iraq and that leads to torture.
Finally, for someone who’s so sure about what’s right and wrong, look how McSame the military expert is completely unable to state clearly when we are morally justified in going to war.
Q: What is worth dying for and what is worth committing American lives for?
A: Freedom. Our national security. Our security as a nation. Wars have started in obscure places that have enveloped us. We must also temper that with the ability to effectively and beneficially cause the outcome that we want. In other words, there’s tyranny and tragedy throughout the world and we can’t right every wrong but we can do what America has done throughout our history and that is be a beacon of hope and liberty and freedom for everyone in the world…The most precious asset we have is American blood and throughout our history Americans have gone to all four corners of the world and shed that blood in defense of someone else’s freedom…We won the Cold War as I mentioned earlier without firing a shot because of our ideology that Communism is wrong and evil and we can defeat it just like we defeat radical Islamic extremism.
Incoherent mess.
Which is it? Should we go to war for "freedom" or our national security? Does McSame think it was wrong to send American lives to "all corners of the world" when our freedom wasn’t at stake, or doesn’t he? What does he think about these wars that have "enveloped" us? Why did they "envelop" us — what went wrong? What has he learned from those wars?
Does he really think that we won the Cold War without firing a shot? What was Vietnam and Korea? If Communism is "evil," why did McSame push to normalize relations with Vietnam? Would he suspend trade with China since it’s inherently "evil"?
But the most unnerving Bush-like vapidity is McSame’s equation of radicalized Islam with the USSR. Wrongheaded, ahistorical, absurd.
We simply cannot allow this man anywhere near the White House. The fact that he’s in the Senate is troubling enough.
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Here Here BT!
Great post BT. Thanks!
In addition to incoherence, dishonesty, and shameless pandering, there is evidence of cheating in the transcript.
First there was Muzzy’s comment from the live FDL thread.
And to confirm, here’s the exchange from the unofficial transcript–this was early in the McCain segment, and no “judicial” issues had been raised at all:
Q: Okay. We don’t have to go longer on that one. Define marriage.
A: Union–a union between man and woman, between one man and one woman, that’s my definition of marriage.
Are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court justices?
Q: We’ll get to that.
A: All right. Okay.
Q: You got all my questions, good.
Leaks in McCain’s Cone of Silence?
McCain: damaged brain, unstable emotions, poisoned ethics.
Great post, BT.
McCain = vapid
or
McCain = Vacant
Good Morning BT.
I watched the forum live and then sat through a rerun yesterday with my husband who missed it on Sat. Was looking for stuff I missed. You’ve done a good job in this post.
Here’s a question though, do we actually know that Obama was Not Given the questions too? And, I’ve seen the allegations that McCain was not in the Cone of Silence. Has that been confirmed?
And, I’ve seen the allegations that McCain was not in the Cone of Silence. Has that been confirmed?
Yes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..19476.html
Obama’s answers would have been smoother Demi.
When contrary theories, opinions, or interests are defined as evil we are in trouble. Ears are closed and understanding becomes impossible. Ideas cannot be killed by killing people, burning books or cities. This is something that Christians should have learned from the earliest days of Christianity.
Theological discussions in a political context give me the hives. I keep expecting someone to introduce into a party platform the need to burn all witches.
Hope you’re recovering well.
Each day is better than the last. Thanks. Hope to make it over to the HS for a few hours tomorrow.
BT – great points about the subject of ‘evil’.
Regarding the Goldfarb link at the bottom of Jane’s thread this morning and the end quote:
what Obama should do is make a proposition that each candidate gets to ask the other candidate 3 questions at each debate. This would help ensure that substance is brought, that the questions can’t be leaked ahead of time, and it would circumvent planted participants and a town hall circus which is what the McCain camp desires to begin with.
Offer straight up difficult and unknown questions in a controlled debate setting and see if McCain blinks.
.
You’re taking a big leap of faith on that one, B.
I find this line from your link interesting,
CNN says they talked to McCain’s camp and they said no one in his camp was listening.
Sounds like one of those lies by omission. Doesn’t say McCain wasn’t watching in his limo in the motorcade. They used the terms “McCain’s Camp” and “listening”. And, if he got the questions ahead of time, it wouldn’t matter.
We should not be surprised
ifthat they cheated. Reagan did too.
HELLO…. for years I have been standing a a chair…. waving my arms all around…. saying McBush is a nutcake….. that so called maverick is ALL show with no substance….. all hat not cattle….. mirage in the desert…
basically he is worse than Bush….. it is Raygun in a geezer suit….
Has anyone publicly asked the Obama campaign if they got the questions in advance?
Of course I agree with you BT. But I feel compelled to point out that that incoherent mess is probably quite impressive paragraph to the many voters who cannot write a decent sentence to save their lives. He would have gotten a B from any English teacher who was relieved to see more than one subject/verb agreement. Who are we to nitpick about logic and sense?
Blue Texan –
missed it due to work but knew I’d come home to find reality based reporting here at the Lake – score !
as is my wont, I checked the cable nets sites to see what the Villagers were saying and just what would be the Monday am water cooler talk -
expecting the usual fluffing, I was apoplectic over what I found here:
Crowley Noms Nads
Blue Tex and Firedogs – this is some of the most stark contrast in reporting I have seen in my time with the reality based community
oh and btw, this gem from Ms
LovelaceCrowley“As an aside: McCain was put in a “cone of silence” while Barack Obama was on stage, because he was getting the same questions”
FWIW: I wasn’t trying to pick on the uneducated, just the state of education thanks to our greedy government.
MC is Poopsie all grown up but still sitting in Daddy’s lap. ignore her.
Unless its Palestinian, Syrian, Iranian, Iraqi, Afghani or any other nationality that McCain’s client, Israel, would prefer not to enjoy human rights, or peace, or sovereignty.
McCain was referring to White American babies, right?
McCain’s campaign claims that — after his motorcade arrived 30 minutes into Warren’s questions for Obama — he was in a “green room” at Saddleback. THe campaign climas there was no TV in the green room.
McCain may be unable to figure out email, but his lobbyist/staffers can. During the motorcade/green room “moving cone”, were all their Blackberries/PDA’s/cell phones turned off? Or were they in use? Will McCain’s campaign provide media with the records for the time in question?
yeah, no TV, but how about the fax machine or the table with the neatly stacked photocopies?
Heck Doc how many limos and or big SUVs don’t have tvs in them
I’m a Blue Texan fan!
Every limo I see go by has a little TV antenna on the back.
You know that someone in one of those limos was watching and taking notes to pass to McCain.
I find Warren’s remark ‘You got my questions; good’ to be really troubling – did he give the questions to McCain’s people in advance, but not to Obama’s? (He’s already lied about McCain being in the ‘cone of silence’; I expect dishonesty in other matters too.)
I imagine they talk about the nine commandments every Sunday
They keep right wing ideology simple so the Bubba’s don’t have a difficult time understanding the message. Control the Bubba’s and you can then proceed to rip off the treasury for the benefit of the few over the many.
In all fairness, Reagan was Reagan in a geezer suit.
I really despised Reagan and continue to despise the great harm he did to our country and the fact that so many people revere him sickens me, however, the one positive thing (if you can call it that) Bush Lite has accomplished is to make every one of his predecessors including Reagan look better by comparison.
It’s hard to imagine that McCain could be a worse president than what we’ve had for the last eight years but I have no doubt that he could be just as bad and the combined result of the Bush and McCain presidencies would leave the country and the world in a very bad place indeed.
But but but !!!! He’s a Man of God doncha know!
Will he outlaw any imports from Communist China? You know, to defeat Communism anywhere it rears it’s ugly head.
At the beginning of the forum at California megachurch, Warren told the crowd and TV audience, “I’m going to ask identical questions to each of these candidates, so you can compare apples to apples. Now, Senator Obama is going to go first. We flipped a coin, and we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence.”
But at 8 p.m. ET, as Warren said that, McCain was actually not in the building. He was just leaving his hotel, with his motorcade arriving at the church nearly a half hour into the event. A. Larry Ross, a spokesman for Warren, says McCain then went directly into the holding room they dubbed the “cone of silence” (in reality, a room with no TV or audio).
If he starts outlawing imports from China, he should just go ahead and block the Chinese from buying our Treasury bonds and such.
Since I believe they are the largest holders of our debt.
how’s this for a non-answer? anybody see wiggle room?
um, for those who don’t get the reference, the “cone of silence” actually doesn’t work.
I shouldn’t be reading posts like this today; they only deepen a depression (not clinical, thankfully)caused by the growing realization that McCain might well get elected, and that we will accelerate down the wrong track set in place by St Ronnie. My nephew and his fiance are visiting us this weekend. I am going to advise them to put some lines out to jobs in Canada, and get out of the US ASAP if McCain is elected. I suppose it won’t matter, as the nuclear dust will float over us, too, but at least we won’t be taking a direct his. Small comfort.
Knew what Reagan was going to do to the country, exactly what it did to California where I was living. He crippled it and then prop 13 did the rest.
These are very dangerous people and now that the Bush wackos have grabbed the reins of the McBush campaign then things are going to get worse. These are corned rats who need to protect their a*s or they just might end up in jail (ha likely)…..
The problem is that we are seeing the same behavior from McCain that we saw from Reagan running for his second term, age related dementia …. WE Cannot and should not go through having a pupet government again…. First Reagan then GWB…. with Cheney pulling all the strings.
ENOUGH already!
Of course McCain “knows evil” and can “defeat it”…he’s just like Bush.
For example, he believed that Pervez Musharraf was “legitimately elected” (despite the fact that Musharraf had exiled his major “democratic” opponents who won the last election in a landslide). And after Bhuttos assassination as a consequence of lax security by the Musharraf defense forces, he said…
“I know Musharraf,” McCain said. “I’ve met him many times and I can tell you personally that he is a very honest person and he does a lot of the things that we have asked him to do.”
And Johnny said he knew Perv so well he could pick up the phone a have a chat! Wonder if that connection was also made by a lobbyist helping the McCane campaign?
Ok…. so he heard or did not watch any TeeVee…. BUT what if someone else was watching and sending text messages via blackberry?
They his crew could discuss the answers and prep him as these questions were asked of Obama…. poof that is the truth but they still had access to the questions and prepped him…..
It is the same as that damn box on Bush’s back and ear weanie at one of the debates….
It would be interesting to know for certain whether McCain cheated because it would constitute undeniable evidence (not that we need any but other voters might) regarding his lack of character. It’s not really important though because McCain’s talking points had already been scripted to resonate with evangelicals and the rest of the Republican base.
Therein lies the genius of what Rick Warren did. He asked questions that Barack Obama would be forced to give considered responses to, however the questions meshed so well with McCain’s stump speeches that upon hearing them (whether for the first or second time) all he had to do was plug in the appropriate campaign talking point, throw in a stolen chestnut (see Jane’s post from earlier) about Christmas at the Hanoi Hilton, have your surrogates poised to spread the word that you were crisp and your opponent inept and presto, pick up your debate trophy on the way out.
I agree.
I just noticed the change in tense in that second paragraph but hopefully the point I was attempting to make remained intact.
So McCain could have easily listened to half of Obamas questions on the radio in his limo…and could have hooked up a small wireless earpiece to listen in on the remainder, once he knew that he was going to be placed in a “dead room”. Or he could have been slipped a few of the questions later asked Obama by an aide after he left the “cone”.
Oh, and how is it that McCain KNEW that he was going to be #2 so that he could still remain at his hotel while Obama was being questioned? One would think that both men would have been at Saddleback at the point the decision would be made as to “who goes first”?
Great post, BT! I cannot figure out what about communism is inherently evil? As near as I can tell, the economic system was not the problem in and of itself with those governments operating under communism. It was the totalitarianism of it. The fact that the masses were under the thumb of a few at the top who directed all. But yet, the corporatism that is so out of control in our own society is approaching the same type of evil and corruption that we claimed was a communist fault. The dwindling of the middle class, the subjugation and mistreatment of the poor as illustrated so graphically by Katrina are symptoms of the corruption of our system and of our liberties. The attempt by the Executive branch of government to assert its dominance over the other two branches is another symptom.
To me, communism and corporatism are but two extremes of a spectum. I don’t think either socialism or capitalism is inherently evil. I think some degree of both are necessary for survival of the race and progress. We need self-interest in order to survive; we need to take an interest in the survival of the least able in our society in order to continue growth as a species. If we allow any or all of the “seven deadly sins” to corrupt our economic systems and/or our government, we will ultimately fail and those systems will collapse. We’ve seen it with communism so far. We may now be witnessing that process within our own society because we have allowed unrestricted greed to rule. We need to stop the corruption of our government and also of our economic system or we are dooming ourselves.
Vapidly vacant.
Billy Blood, aka William Kristol, tackles the problem of good and evil and of course gets it wrong. More. http://www.tagg-lines.com/2008…..again.html
Even secular left-wing liberals like St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas rejected this view
Heh!
Yeah, Obama was definitely not asked about Georgia. I haven’t compared them side by side but it also seemed Ricky gave McSame a lot more room to improvise.
It prevents people from making lots of money and buying shit they don’t need.
“At the moment of conception.” No one paid attention, but I swear I think he is saying “conception” = time of post-coital cigarette…no space, distance, it’s all over and we all know….Ingraham gave a big hit this am to Obama’s pay grade answer. How come these nuts have all the answers! Often wrong, never in doubt….
McC. perseverating through his drug-upper energy. Next time he should be drug tested. Alhz and dementia drugs are very powerful stuff.
Yep, saw that too. And Rick seemed to feel he needed to explain some of the questions. I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed that. Hold out the We Got A Dummy card.
My son just had a comment for the human rights at conception line….unless that thing at conception turns out to be gay.
Chip off the old block.
OK, more seriously — you make a good point. The USSR was clearly a malignant cancer on humanity. Stalin was evil. Gulags — evil. But the USSR should be viewed distinctly from the idea of communism, which is still in practice today. The fact that McSame conflates the two is, well, Bushlike.
It’s embarrassing that there are apparently a large number of voters who like instant reflexive answers to questions concerning nature of the universe and the purpose of life. Personally, I like to toy around with evil, tease it, let it think it might win, before I destroy it. But, everybody’s different.
What a babbling fucking idiot.
The scary part is that there are those that find cogitatin’ just too plain hard, and really eat up crap like this.
Excellent post…. I hope Pastor Rick and his flock have a clear a grasp of theology.
My favorite pander from the session was McCain listing John Lewis as one of his top three advisors! Lewis is a hero of the civil rights movement, a key opponent of the Vietnam war, and an Obama supporter. McCain was a leader of the opposition to making Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday.
So I wonder what advice Congressman Lewis might actually have for McCain?