John ‘100 Years’ McCain: Afghanistan Policy Needs Less Focus On ‘An Exit Strategy’
John ‘100 Years’ McCain: Afghanistan Policy Needs Less Focus On ‘An Exit Strategy’
Last night Fox News, host Greta van Susteren asked former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) what he thought of reports that President Obama plans announce his intention to send 34,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. McCain said he’s not concerned about how many troops Obama is sending, he just wants to succeed — regardless of whether we have an exit strategy or not:
VAN SUSTEREN: What do you think about that? Is that a decision that — that you think is a wise one or do you want the full 40,000 that was originally requested?
MCCAIN: Well, I’m not so much concerned about the number because I understand that it may be additional allied troops to help out, too. I’d like to look at the overall strategy. I would like to see the emphasis on succeeding, not on an exit strategy.
Greta, the exit strategy takes care of itself once you succeed just as it did in Iraq. But I’d like to hear the whole thing. I hope the president will make the right decision here. And I would like to support him if he does.
Watch it:
At least McCain is consistent; an exit strategy for the war in Iraq has been of little concern to him as well. When running for president, the Arizona senator and fervent Iraq war supporter said he would “be fine with” the U.S. military staying in Iraq for “a hundred years” and later “excitedly declar[ed] that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for ‘a thousand years’ or ‘a million years,’ as far as he was concerned.”
Indeed, as the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss has noted, McCain’s knee-jerk reactions to the crises in Iran last June and in Georgia last October, and now with his “no exit strategy necessary” policy, reminds the U.S. of the bullet it dodged last November by not electing him president.
Obama reportedly plans to announce an exit strategy in the coming days.
- Comments
- 66
Perino: ‘We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.’
Perino: ‘We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.’
Last night on Fox News, host Sean Hannity whined — as he usually does — about how the Obama administration doesn’t use the term “war on terror” (which is actually a good thing). Former Bush administration spokesperson and current Fox analyst Dana Perino joined in, complaining that no one is calling the massacre at Ft. Hood a terrorist attack. She then made this astonishing statement:
PERINO: And we had a terrorist attack on our country. And we should call it what it is. Because we need to face up to it so that we can prevent it from happening again.
HANNITY: I agree with you. And why won’t they say what you just so simply said?
PERINO: They want to do all of their investigations. I don’t know. All of the thinking that goes into it. But we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term. I hope they’re not looking at this politically. I do think we ought it to the American people to call it what it is.
Watch it:
Of course, the terror attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center occurred on Sept. 11, 2001 — eight months into President Bush’s first term. But also, conservatives like to claim that the Bush administration prevented any terror incidents in the U.S. since 9/11. But they conveniently forget the anthrax attacks on U.S. news organizations and members of Congress over the course of several weeks beginning on Sept. 18, 2001.
Huckabee Shies Away From Criticizing Limbaugh, Citing Fear Of His Big Microphone
Huckabee Shies Away From Criticizing Limbaugh, Citing Fear Of His Big Microphone
Last month, President Obama visited Dover Air Force Base to honor 18 soldiers killed in Afghanistan. One family allowed the media to photograph the return of their fallen member. Soon after, the right wing went straight into attack mode. “It was a photo op precisely because he’s having big-time trouble on this whole Afghanistan dithering situation,” hate radio host Rush Limbaugh said.
But Mike Huckabee took a different tack, calling the right-wing attacks “deplorable.” “I think it was the Commander-in-Chief of our military paying respect to a dead soldier, and I’m grateful that he did that, and I was proud of him for doing that,” Huckabee said. In a recent interview, CBS’ Katie Couric asked Huckabee if he was criticizing Limbaugh, but Huckabee declined to take the bait:
COURIC: Were you referring to anyone in particular or anyone specific because I know Rush Limbaugh had criticized the day before you made that statement.
HUCKABEE: No one in particular. I wasn’t criticizing Rush. He’s got a bigger megaphone and microphone than I do and I’m not going to get into a war with him. It wasn’t about Rush Limbaugh; it was about the general tenor. I read editorials, I heard people on commentary shows.
Watch it (starting at 31:05):
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Huckabee, a potential GOP candidate for president in 2012, apparently knows the dangers of criticizing the Party’s de-facto leader. Numerous Republicans over the past year — including RNC Chairman Michael Steele — have criticized Limbaugh at one point or another but then came crawling back to apologize.
Fox’s Fuzzy Math: 193 Percent Of The Public Support Palin, Huckabee, And Romney
Fox’s Fuzzy Math: 193 Percent Of The Public Support Palin, Huckabee, And Romney
Reporting on the latest Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll last night on Fox News’ local Chicago affiliate, anchor Byron Harlan employed some funny math in asserting that Sarah Palin is leading the pack for the GOP nomination in 2012:
HARLAN: It looks as if the rogue route is helping Sarah Palin. Her book tour has meant new support. A new Opinion Dynamics poll for 2012 shows her on top when it comes to landing the nomination. Palin is at 70 percent, about a third higher than this past July. Mike Huckabee stands at 63 percent. Mitt Romney’s 60.
Those figures add up to 193 percent. An accompanying graphic tried to squeeze the numbers into one pie chart:
In fact, the poll Harlan referred to did not ask Republican respondents to pick their favorite candidate. The numbers he cited merely represent favorable ratings among Republicans surveyed for each individual. Watch Harlan’s report:
(HT: Twitter user Kevinthepang)
Fox Apologizes For NBA Announcers’ Controversial Comments About Iranian Player
Fox Apologizes For NBA Announcers’ Controversial Comments About Iranian Player
Last Friday, the Fox Sports Prime Ticket cable network suspended longtime Los Angeles Clippers announcer Ralph Lawler and analyst Michael Smith for controversial comments the two made on air about Memphis Grizzlies center Hamed Haddadi two days prior.
During the game, Lawler expressed surprise that an Iranian would be playing in the NBA. “He’s from Iran?!” Lawler asked. “THAT Iran?!” Smith then ridiculed Haddadi by comparing him to “Borat”:
SMITH: Are you sure that’s not Borat’s older brother? […] If they ever make a movie avout Haddadi I’m going to get Sasha Baron Cohen to play the part. […]
LAWLER: Here’s Haddadi, nice little back door pass
SMITH: Look at that pass!
LAWLER: I guess those Iranians can pass the ball!
Watch it:
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) encouraged Iranian-Americans to contact Fox to complain. “More than 2,000 people responded to our call,” NIAC claimed on Saturday announcing that Fox had issued an apology:
“We regret the remarks made by Clippers announcers Michael Smith and Ralph Lawler during Wednesday’s telecast. While we believe that Michael and Ralph did not intend their exchange to be offensive, in retrospect, the comments were inappropriate. We extend our apologies to Hamed Haddadi of the Memphis Grizzlies and to anyone who was offended. We have addressed this situation with Michael and Ralph and have taken appropriate action.”
NIAC is still working to ensure that the apology is read on air.
Rupert Murdoch denies he said Obama made a racist comment.
Rupert Murdoch denies he said Obama made a racist comment.
Earlier this month, News Corp. president Rupert Murdoch said that President Obama made “a very racist comment” when Obama inserted himself into the July spat between Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Officer Jim Crowley. Murdoch also said Fox News host Glenn Beck “was right” to say Obama is a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Today on Capitol Hill, Media Matters’ staffers asked Murdoch to be more specific about what “racist” comments Obama allegedly made, but Murdoch denied he had made the charge:
MMFA: Mr. Murdoch, can you be more specific about what racist comments the President allegedly made?
MURDOCH: I denied that absolutely. I don’t believe he’s a racist.
“But you said that he made racist statements,” the staffer noted as Murdoch walked away. Watch it:
O’Reilly Upset Over 9/11 Trials: ‘I Don’t Care About The Constitution!’
O’Reilly Upset Over 9/11 Trials: ‘I Don’t Care About The Constitution!’
Since Attorney General Eric Holder announced his decision to move five Guantanamo Bay detainees — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad — to New York for civilian trials on charges related to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Fox News personalities have been up in arms. Karl Rove called it a “long-standing plot” by the Obama administration’s “left-wing lawyers who do not love America.”
But last night on Fox, the network’s top legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano — who has been known to disagree with Fox’s right-wing narratives on legal issues — disputed that view, citing the constitutional right to be tried in the place where the crime has been committed. “I don’t care about the Constitution!” host Bill O’Reilly responded. The debate continued:
O’REILLY: So why is he entitled to come to New York City to be tried in the civilian criminal court if he’s arrested in Pakistan?
NAPOLITANO: Because the document you don’t want me to talk about says when the government is going to prosecute you, it must do so in the place where the alleged harm was caused.
Later in the program, Fox analyst Brit Hume said he’d “been scouring the columns of various people opining about this to see if somebody makes a good argument for doing it,” adding, “And I really haven’t heard one.” Hume then noted Napolitano’s opinion and said, “I’m not certain I agree with that.” Watch it:
Holder’s “bold and principled” decision was “a victory for the rule of law and the American system of justice,” the Center for American Progress’ Ken Gude said.
“If you are accused, you get to know what you know what you are accused of, you get to face your accusers, and you get to defend yourself in court, and then you face a trial and a conviction. This is who we are as a system,” said Tom Andrews, director of the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo. “The Taliban? You can get a trial and a beheading in a few hours. That’s not our system of justice.”
Read more about Holder’s decision in today’s Progress Report.
UPDATED Shields: I’m ‘Nostalgic’ For A ‘Manly Man’ President Who Will ‘Kick Some Tail And Ask Questions Afterwards’
UPDATED Shields: I’m ‘Nostalgic’ For A ‘Manly Man’ President Who Will ‘Kick Some Tail And Ask Questions Afterwards’
UPDATE: Shields contacted ThinkProgress and kindly informed us that his comments below were intended to be sarcastic. We regret our error in misinterpreting his comments and for questioning his motives. Shields told us that his comments were meant to disparage those who consistently argue that more war will solve America’s problems and that his statement was directed at co-panelist and right-wing neoconservative Charles Krauthammer, who, according to Shields, was displeased with the remark. With a deeper appreciation for his wit, we extend our sincere apologies to Mr. Shields.
Since reports emerged last month that top commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal asked President Obama for upwards of 40,000 additional troops to continue the war there, the right wing has been attacking the President for taking time to make a decision on his new strategy. “It is absolutely unconscionable,” Liz Cheney said yesterday on Fox News, that Obama “is denying our troops on the ground in Afghanistan the resources that they need to prevail to win that war.”
Also during that time, Obama has made reflective gestures to those who have fallen in the wars he is now running, paying tribute to returning war dead at Dover Air Force Base and making an impromptu visit to Section 60 at Arlington Cemetery on Veterans Day to commemorate Iraq and Afghanistan war casualties. Yesterday on Inside Washington, during a discussion of Obama’s upcoming decision on Afghanistan, syndicated columnist Mark Shields scoffed at Obama’s demeanor, wishing instead for a “manly man” in the White House:
SHIELDS: We have a president of real intellectual horse power who is cool, detached and analytical and if anything you can watch the emotional side of him emerge in this whole process. … There’s an emotional aspect, the comforter in chief as well as the commander in chief. Both roles. And I think it makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the White House who could say, “Let’s kick some tail and ask questions afterwards” you know? That’s what we really need instead of any reflection.
Watch it:
Shields’ rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s justification for the war in Iraq, who in May 2003 argued that after 9/11, the U.S. had to invade in order to “burst” the terrorism bubble:
FRIEDMAN: And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying, “Which part of this sentence don’t you understand? You don’t think, you know we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we’re just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck on this, okay?” That Charlie is what this war [in Iraq] is about. We could of hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could of hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.
Of course Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and after nearly 4,400 U.S soldiers dead, 32,000 wounded and nearly $1 trillion spent, the U.S. still has well over 100,000 troops stationed in Iraq.
Kristol Urges No Trial For Hasan: ‘They Should Just Go Ahead And Convict Him And Put Him To Death’
Kristol Urges No Trial For Hasan: ‘They Should Just Go Ahead And Convict Him And Put Him To Death’
Law enforcement officials announced yesterday that Maj. Nidal M. Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the brutal attacks at Fort Hood Army base. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that “the number one issue, I think right now, is that Major Hasan be brought to justice.”
Last night on Fox News, Bill Kristol called Napolitano’s comment “stupid” and stated outright that there should be no trial:
KRISTOL: I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death.
Watch it:
Apparently, Kristol is not a huge believer in the Constitution, the Sixth Amendment of which states that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.”
Hasan’s attorney, Col. John Galligan (Ret.), noted this fact when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked how he could “represent someone accused of mass murder”:
GALLIGAN: I fully appreciate the importance of ensuring that everybody has a fair trial. I think that’s particularly important when it applies to anyone in uniform, officer or enlisted. Their profession is to defend us. We owe it to them as either fellow service members or as U.S. citizens to ensure that we properly defend them. The rights that I’m asking be accorded to Major Hasan are the rights that service members live and die for. Let’s just make sure we don’t deprive them in his case.
As Adam Serwer at TAPPED noted of those espousing Kristol’s view, “This is Salem Witch Trial justice: If the crime is heinous, the accused is automatically guilty. That the evidence may be overwhelming doesn’t matter: You don’t just ’skip’ a fair trial because you feel like it. There’s a word for systems of justice that selectively afford due process — that word is ‘corrupt.’”
Cao: Obama Administration ‘Has Been Tremendous’ For New Orleans On Katrina Recovery Effort
Cao: Obama Administration ‘Has Been Tremendous’ For New Orleans On Katrina Recovery Effort
Last month, President Obama visted New Orleans for the first time since taking office and touted his administration’s focus on assisting the area’s still on-going recovery effort four years after Hurricane Katrina. “I’m pleased to report that we’ve made good progress,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve made progress.”
But conservatives such as Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) criticized Obama’s visit calling it a “drive-through daiquiri summit,” while others “criticized the president for not touring the battered wetlands.”
Yesterday during an interview with Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) — the lone Republican to vote for the House health care bill last week — Washington Times radio channeled the GOP criticism. “He didn’t even stick around very long during his trip,” the host said. But Cao defended what the administration has done for the area:
CAO: Well, I just want to set the record straight, that even though the President only visited New Orleans once since his election, it was a brief stay, but this administration has been tremendous for the people of the 2nd district. Secretary Napolitano has been down here three or four times, the secretary of HUD, the secretary of Education, they have been down here numerous times. [...]
So I guess for me, it’s not that important to have the visit of the President, its much more important for me that I have a good working relationship with the administration and have the commitment…from the administration to push all the recovery issues of the 2nd District forward and they have been doing that in the last 9 months.
Listen here:
Paul Rainwater, the executive director of the state-run Louisiana Recovery Authority, agrees with Cao’s approach. “I would say it’s more important to have your cabinet secretaries down here,” he said last month. Indeed, the White House said there were 22 visits by senior administration officials to the area from March to August, 13 of them by cabinet secretaries.
Lawsuit alleges that New York Post DC bureau chief’s goal was ‘to destroy’ Obama
Lawsuit alleges that New York Post DC bureau chief’s goal was ‘to destroy’ Obama
The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports today that a fired New York Post employee, Sandra Guzman, has filed a complaint against the Post, the paper’s parent company News Corp., and Post editor-in-chief Col Allan “alleging harassment as well as ‘unlawful employment practices and retaliation.’” Stein reports that Guzman “paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering. Guzman alleges that she and others were routinely subjected to misogynistic behavior.” But in addition to horrible workplace conditions, the Post’s news division is operating with a clear partisan bias, according to Guzman. She said the Post’s Washington D.C. bureau chief vowed to bring down President Obama:
She says that hiring practices at the paper — as well as her firing — were driven by racial prejudices rather than merit.
And she recounts the paper’s D.C. bureau chief stating that the publication’s goal was to “destroy [President] Barack Obama.”
Guzman’s revelation isn’t all that surprising considering that a Senior Vice President at Fox News, also a News Corp. subsidiary, admitted earlier this year that the network is consciously aiming to be “the voice of opposition” to the Obama administration “on some issues.”
Hume Corrects O’Reilly’s False Claim That ‘Folks Don’t Want’ The Public Option: It’s Actually ‘Kind Of Popular’
Hume Corrects O’Reilly’s False Claim That ‘Folks Don’t Want’ The Public Option: It’s Actually ‘Kind Of Popular’
Last night on Fox News, host Bill O’Reilly and analyst Brit Hume discussed the prospects for the Senate passing a health care reform bill. After struggling with the terminology for the “public option,” O’Reilly ultimately concluded that “all the polls say” that “the folks don’t want it.”
Hume, a regular Fox News misinformer, surprisingly corrected O’Reilly, noting that Americans actually support the public option:
O’REILLY: They call it, you know, the public sector. What is the –
HUME: Public option, you mean?
O’REILLY: Public option, whatever. The folks don’t want it. … But it looks to me like they have maybe 55 votes to pass it. And that means they could be filibustered and never come up for a vote.
HUME: That’s what it looks like right now. The public option, actually some polls show that the public option standing by itself is not at all unpopular, but it is kind of popular. But that depends on how the poll question is raised. … We don’t need to go into all that right now.
Watch it:
Those trying to derail reform with a public option try to claim that Americans don’t support it. “All the polls now indicate substantial opposition to this particular type of health care reform,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said last night on Fox. But Hume is right. Americans do support the public option, as recent polling shows:
– CNN/Opinion Research, Oct. 30 – Nov. 1: 55 percent support “creating a public health insurance option administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private health insurance companies.”
– Ipsos/McClatchy, Oct. 30 – Nov. 1: 51 percent support the “creation of a public entity to directly compete with existing health insurance companies.”
Other recent polls, such as USA Today/Gallup and Washington Post/ABC News, have found majority support for the public option — results that are consistent with other polling on this question throughout the health care debate this year.
Indeed, large majorities in Connecticut support the public option but Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the state’s junior independent senator, has repeatedly said he will filibuster any bill that contains a public option. Like Hume, Lieberman doesn’t want to talk about polling support for the public option either, reportedly saying that poll respondents are simply “confused.”
O’Reilly Goes After Sesame Street: ‘We May Have To Ambush Oscar’
O’Reilly Goes After Sesame Street: ‘We May Have To Ambush Oscar’
During an episode of Sesame Street that was originally broadcast two years ago, a character tells Oscar the Grouch, who happens to be reporting for “GNN” (Grouchy News Network), that she is switching her news viewing loyalties to “Pox News,” adding, “Now there is a trashy news show.”
Right winger Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Hollywood” blog took on the Sesame Street menace this week proclaiming: “Add one more soldier to the Left’s war on Fox News: Oscar the Grouch”:
If Mom and Dad watch cable news, it’s better than 50/50 they watch “POX News.” So what gives? PBS — a network partially funded with my tax dollars — has the right to tell my kids that their parents watch “trashy” news? The message is clear, I can’t even sit my kids in front of “Sesame Street” without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority.
Thursday night on Fox News, host Bill O’Reilly picked up on Big Hollywood’s rant and couldn’t resist defending his network against the smear merchants at Sesame Street. “Say it ain’t so. Sesame Street trashing Fox News!” O’Reilly complained. After airing the segment in question, O’Reilly said wryly, “We may have to ambush Oscar.” Watch it:
As Big Hollywood itself acknowledged, Fox News wasn’t the only news organization or media personality Sesame Street spoofed. “Walter Cranky,” “Dan Rather-Not,” “Meredith Beware-a” and “Diane Spoiler,” all made appearances on the show. And of course, Oscar’s employer, the “Grouchy News Network.”
Media Matters’ Simon Maloy notes, “It looks like Andrew Breitbart’s BigHollywood.com is looking to dethrone NewsBusters as the premiere source for asinine right-wing media criticism” by documenting “the absurd liberal bias in an episode of Sesame Street that aired two years ago. Just let that sink in for a moment…”
We wouldn’t put it past O’Reilly hit-man Jesse Watters to be staking out Oscar’s garbage can right now.
Bachmann Claims Anti-Health Reform Rally Was ‘Organic,’ ‘Nothing That We Planned’
Bachmann Claims Anti-Health Reform Rally Was ‘Organic,’ ‘Nothing That We Planned’
Last Friday on Fox News, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announced that she was organizing an anti-health reform rally on Capitol Hill, calling on Americans “literally by the busload to come to Washington D.C.” to protest reform. The next day, Bachmann summoned everyone to “get off the couch, get in your car, get a van together, get a bus together, but get here!” “We’re going to have a big party,” she said.
Around 4,000 right-wing activists showed up on Capitol Hill yesterday to protest reform. Last night on Fox News, Bachmann inflated the attendance numbers drastically. She also tried to paint the event as entirely grassroots, despite admitting that she had organized it:
BACHMANN: Today people told me they heard that call out on your show on Friday night, and they immediately started contacting other people. And this was totally word of mouth. This was nothing that we organized, nothing that we planned. We didn’t order one bus, one carload. Nothing. Complete word of mouth. And estimates are anywhere between 20 and 45,000 people had assembled. [...]
And also this absolutely outstanding grouping of people that we had today at the Capitol. This is organic. It was a meet up. It was spontaneous.
Watch it:
Bachmann’s claim is laughable. Aside from her leadership in organizing the protest, the corporate front group Americans For Prosperity helped coordinate. AFP mobilized about 40 buses to bring activists to DC, with AFP staffers standing at their designated bus drop off point near the Capitol, handing out signs, directions, talking points, petitions, and donuts to protesters. Moreover, notorious astroturf group FreedomWorks got involved in the action as well:
The protesters were fueled — literally and figuratively — by lobbying organizations like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, the groups behind the August town hall protests and “tea party” events. Freedomworks promoted this week’s event on their Web site DontKillGrandma.com with recommendations for protest tactics.
Moreover, AFP hosted Bachmann on a conference call the day before the rally to discuss their “House Call.”
“So you’re organizing and asking people to come meet you on the steps of the capital,” Fox host Sean Hannity asked Bachmann last Friday after her announcement. “Thursday at noon,” she said, “You can go to MicheleBachmann.com for more information.”
After Saying Snowe Is ‘Welcome’ In The GOP, Steele Suggests He’ll ‘Come After’ Her For Supporting Stimulus
After Saying Snowe Is ‘Welcome’ In The GOP, Steele Suggests He’ll ‘Come After’ Her For Supporting Stimulus
This week on MSNBC, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) — who endorsed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd congressional district run-off on Tuesday — refused to say whether or not he’s “glad” that moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — who voted for President Obama’s stimulus package — is in the Republican Party.
The next day on MSNBC, RNC Chair Michael Steele was asked if there was room for Snowe in the GOP. “Absolutely,” Steele said:
STEELE: Welcome! Welcome! Because–you know why that’s important? Because every footprint of this party is different from region to region, from county to county. I can’t win in the northeast with someone who’d be a better candidate suited in the south….So the reality of it is I’m looking to find my candidates where they are. And I want to lift them up beause they represent those districts. So like New England, Olympia Snowe works there for her. She may not translate in South Carolina. She works in Maine.
But today on ABC’s TopLine, Steele appeared to have a change of heart. When asked if he’s comfortable with GOP candidates who supported the stimulus, Steele said there’s “no justification” for that support, adding, “we’ll come after you”:
STEELE: So candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you’re crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles, because we’ll come after you. [...]
You’re gonna find yourself in a very tough hole if you’re arguing for the president’s stimulus plan or Nancy Pelosi’s health plan. There’s no justification for growing the size of government the way this administration and this Congress wants to do it.
While Steele didn’t mention any names, clearly Snowe and fellow Republican Senator from Maine Susan Collins — who both supported the stimulus — may soon be in the RNC’s crosshairs.
CBO Says GOP Health Care ‘Alternative’ Leaves 52 Million Uninsured By 2019
CBO Says GOP Health Care ‘Alternative’ Leaves 52 Million Uninsured By 2019
Last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the House Republican alternative health care bill. While the CBO determined the GOP bill’s 10 year price tag to be $61 billion — far less that the Democrats’ proposal — the score also found that the their bill would have little effect on nearly 46 million uninsured Americans:
By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share. CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the amendment’s insurance coverage provisions would increase deficits by $8 billion over the 2010–2019 period.
The CBO found that the Democrats’ bill, however, would cover 36 million more Americans and “reduce the number of nonelderly Americans without coverage to around 18 million over the next decade.” Yet, just before the CBO scored the GOP bill, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) falsely claimed their alternative “will cover millions more Americans” than the Democrats’ bill.
Last night on Fox News Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) dodged a question about how many uninsured the GOP plan would cover and instead railed at the Democrats for “trying to get at this business of universal coverage”:
PENCE: We believe you get at the coverage issue by lowering the cost of health insurance. … So Republicans by focusing on the cost of health insurance believe that we are going to take our country in a direction where we also deal with the tens of millions of people and employers that struggle with providing insurance.
Watch it:
Bob Schieffer Likens H1N1 Flu Vaccine Shortages To Hurricane Katrina
Bob Schieffer Likens H1N1 Flu Vaccine Shortages To Hurricane Katrina
This summer, the Obama administration announced that it would spend more than $2 billion to buy enough H1N1 flu vaccines to inoculate every American and said that companies could have up to 80 million ready by October. But only a fraction of those vaccines have been produced so far. “[W]e probably did overpromise, and we overpromised on the basis of what was represented to us” by the manufacturers, senior White House adviser David Axelrod said this week.
Some conservatives are now calling the mishap “Obama’s Katrina.” Today in an interview with Axelrod on CBS’ Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer advanced that view:
SCHIEFFER: What do you do to correct this kind of thing? You’re told one thing, you’d have so much and you didn’t. These are the kinds of things we heard after Katrina during a previous administration.
NPR’s Juan Williams noted the huge distinction between the two situations on Fox News Sunday this morning:
WILLIAMS: I must say that there’s a huge difference between Hurricane Katrina in government failure and what we’re seeing here in terms of delivery of the vaccine. This is a matter of private manufacturers not living up to promises in terms of the delivery system. …But I don’t think most Americans are blaming the Obama administration for this as they blamed, as they said that President Bush’s administration failed to properly understand or pay attention to what FEMA was not doing with regard to helping Americans with Katrina.
Watch it:
Indeed, Williams is right, Americans aren’t blaming the Obama administration. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “69 percent of respondents said they were confident in a federal response to the outbreak.”
Even conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer acquitted the Obama administration of responsibility over the vaccine shortages today on Inside Washington. “I would be inclined to blaming this all on Obama but I rise in his defense because…this stuff is extremely hard to do safely, it’s a long process. … I would give him a pass in terms of assigning political blame,” he said.
Gorbachev: Bush once told me that ‘blockheads and dummies’ were supporting the ‘extreme’ Reagan.
Gorbachev: Bush once told me that ‘blockheads and dummies’ were supporting the ‘extreme’ Reagan.
During a recent interview with The Nation editors Katrina vanden Heuvel and her husband Stephan Cohen, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev credited President Reagan for helping end the Cold War, but he argued that instituting democratic reforms in his country was the true catalyst. “Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended,” he said. Gorbachev later described a private conversation he had with then Vice President Bush about Reagan:
By the way, in 1987, after my first visit to the United States, Vice President Bush accompanied me to the airport, and told me: “Reagan is a conservative. An extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him, and when he says that something is necessary, they trust him. But if some Democrat had proposed what Reagan did, with you, they might not have trusted him.”
When asked what lessons he learned “that President Obama should heed in making his decisions about Afghanistan,” Gorbachev – who ended the Soviet Union’s 10 year war there in 1989 — replied, “One was that problems there could not be solved with the use of force. Such attempts inside someone else’s country end badly.”
Americans trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on health care.
Americans trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on health care.
A Gallup Poll out this week shows that 55 percent of Americans trust President Obama “when it comes to making changes in the health care system.” While 48 percent said they trusted Democrats in Congress on health care, only 37 percent trust the Republicans:
Matt Yglesias observes that “this sort of result tends not to support the idea that breaking with congressional Democrats to join congressional Republicans in a filibuster of Obama’s signature health initiatives would be a political winner.”
Santorum On Resourcing Afghanistan War: ‘That Was Not Done By The Prior Administration’
Santorum On Resourcing Afghanistan War: ‘That Was Not Done By The Prior Administration’
Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney attacked President Obama, saying he is “afraid to make a decision” on the war in Afghanistan and that he’s “dithering.” A number of conservatives, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and columnist George Will, disagreed with Cheney’s language. “I would never want to call my president ‘dithering,’” Hatch said.
But many on the right have failed to mention the more substantive point, namely that Cheney and the Bush administration itself “dithered” on Afghanistan and diverted valuable resources to invade Iraq. But last night on Fox News, former Republican senator Rick Santorum stepped up to the plate:
SANTORUM: My sense is that we have an obligation to support our generals in the field, to give them the resources they need to accomplish the mission. That was not done by the prior administration. Let’s be very clear about that. They put their own political imprint on the Afghan strategy.
Watch it:
Of course, Santorum is right. In 2008, Gen. David McKiernan, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, asked the Bush administration for more troops, a request that was denied.
Indeed, as McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay — one of the few Washington journalists whose reporting matched the facts in the run-up to the Iraq war — asked of Cheney’s recent attacks: “Do we smell a campaign of historic revisionism by those widely seen as primarily responsible for the disaster in Afghanistan that has prompted Army Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal’s request for up to 80,000 more soldiers?”:
As late as December 2005, despite official warnings about the Taliban resurgence and a lack of U.S. resources for critical reconstruction programs, the Bush administration planned to reduce the 19,000 U.S. troops then in Afghanistan by 2,500 soldiers in order to bolster hard-pressed U.S. forces in Iraq.
And even after seven years of war _ and the deaths of 630 U.S. service members, more than 400 other coalition soldiers and thousands of Afghans _ the Bush administration lacked strategies for dealing with the al Qaida and Taliban safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where it backed a military dictatorship, or building Afghan security forces, according to the Government Accountability Office.
It’s nice to see Santorum recognize reality.
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll