Mike PouraryanThe Saddleback Civil Forum w/Barack Obama & John McCain (The Second Hour)
August 17th 2008 06:19
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Fiath, Morality, Character & Our Society
The second hour of the Saddleback Civil Forum featured Senator John McCain. Pastor Warren began by asking who Senator McCain considered the 3 wisest men in his view. He named General Petraus, John Lewis and Meg Whitman. I found his comments curious. What Meg Whitman did at EBay was nothing short of remarkable. She took a vision by Pierre Omidyar and made it a reality. The need for such visionaries is needed. We do also need men with the moral compass and authority like John Lewis who struggled so that all enjoy the fruits of freedom. As for General Petraus, what he has been able to do is to be celebrated with the security gains due to the so-called surge. The analysis I have seen has clearly shown that there has been improvements. But, the gains have been fragile at best. The mainstream U.S. media has lost all interest in reporting out of Iraq. If one visits http://www.juancole.com, one gets some visibility, though. Juan Cole is reporting that bombings are continuing in Karbala. So, if security is improving, then what seems to be the problem? Furthermore, there is the issue of the Kurds, the Turks and the Arabs in Kurdistan. Senator McCain's praise for General Petraus is deserved. But, the realities of the ground may shift the ground yet again.
On the question of character, I found the response to his personal failure to be straightforward. He blamed himself for the collapse of his first marriage. There were some discussions about a week ago when Hannity and Colmes devoted an hour to that idiot John Edwards as to the double standard on why Senator McCain's shortcomings should not be discussed. Senator McCain had the guts to step up and we must take his word at it. As for America's greatest moral failure, I found his response to be a subtle repudiation of George W. Bush's motivation strategy to get America back after the tragedy of 9/11. Senator McCain's felt that Americans should have been motivated to be more involved with their communities vs. simply going out shopping. What he noted that all must, "....serve as cause greater than your self-interest...Â. Senator McCain also reminded all of us that he went against the Republican Party and the President of the day on many occasions including torture, climate change and one that I thought was quite courageous: The Boeing Procurement Scandal that saw Boeing's CFO and the top Air force procurement official actually going to prison over it.
Pastor Warren and Senator McCain continued their discussions for quite some time afterwards. I will be writing on it later on. However, I found Senator McCain's comments on budget and spending a bit disingenuous. This was brought up during the discussions on taxes and the Senator's desire to make sure everyone got rich. Senator McCain reminded us that he had a 27 year record of service in the House and Senate. The Senator said that the problem was not too many taxes, but too much spending. Senator McCain seems to forget that out of the 27 years, 20 of those years were years that either Republicans ran the White House or had control of at least one branch of the Congress. So, Senator McCain bears as much responsibility for the fiscal disaster we are faced with. Some of his solutions he discussed about a Five Thousand Dollar refundable tax break for health insurance does not go to the heart of how to control the runaway healthcare cost that threatens to eat away at the fabric of our economic well being. Blaming folks is not going to cut it.
To Be Continued.......
On the question of character, I found the response to his personal failure to be straightforward. He blamed himself for the collapse of his first marriage. There were some discussions about a week ago when Hannity and Colmes devoted an hour to that idiot John Edwards as to the double standard on why Senator McCain's shortcomings should not be discussed. Senator McCain had the guts to step up and we must take his word at it. As for America's greatest moral failure, I found his response to be a subtle repudiation of George W. Bush's motivation strategy to get America back after the tragedy of 9/11. Senator McCain's felt that Americans should have been motivated to be more involved with their communities vs. simply going out shopping. What he noted that all must, "....serve as cause greater than your self-interest...Â. Senator McCain also reminded all of us that he went against the Republican Party and the President of the day on many occasions including torture, climate change and one that I thought was quite courageous: The Boeing Procurement Scandal that saw Boeing's CFO and the top Air force procurement official actually going to prison over it.
Pastor Warren and Senator McCain continued their discussions for quite some time afterwards. I will be writing on it later on. However, I found Senator McCain's comments on budget and spending a bit disingenuous. This was brought up during the discussions on taxes and the Senator's desire to make sure everyone got rich. Senator McCain reminded us that he had a 27 year record of service in the House and Senate. The Senator said that the problem was not too many taxes, but too much spending. Senator McCain seems to forget that out of the 27 years, 20 of those years were years that either Republicans ran the White House or had control of at least one branch of the Congress. So, Senator McCain bears as much responsibility for the fiscal disaster we are faced with. Some of his solutions he discussed about a Five Thousand Dollar refundable tax break for health insurance does not go to the heart of how to control the runaway healthcare cost that threatens to eat away at the fabric of our economic well being. Blaming folks is not going to cut it.
To Be Continued.......
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Comment by Steven Barrett's OpEd Blog
Very good post. What a contrast McCain offered to the very (almost painfully constricted) "performance" of Obama's during the first segment. (I haven't seen your take on that yet.)
McCain doesn't come off very smoothly and appears to let his emotions show too much through the shaking of hands and face, but that's more a reflection of nervousness from being before such a large influential audience. Because when they panned back, he looked natural in his answers to Rick Warren.
What's Rick Warren trying to do, look like a younger Falwell with a gotee -- or a sectarian Tim Russert? But he moved things along well. I'll give him credit for doing a good job of keeping both pols on course. A lot of moderators don't out of fear they'll never get the chance to host another "biggie" like this. I had doubts about Warren before and made them public on Orble. I still wish he was tougher, but his choice of questions indicated a deeper insight than I'd previously expected from him.
I'll bet Warren was probably kicking himself afterwards for not following up on Obama's lamebrain answer to the abortion question. "Above pay grade?" That's bureaucratese for kicking a tough issue to a higher authority. Hope he doesn't borrow Harry Truman's desk sign, "The buck stops here." McCain cleaned the house on that issue with one succinct answer: moment of conception. It's a like it or not answer of course, but the hags at NARAL, NOW and PPF must be wringing their hands on that display of political ineptitude. I've debated people on this issue and they've given me much better responses than Obama's and we weren't playing for all the marbles. Looks like he lost a few on the way to church.
Great post. /s