Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who has built his campaign around his foreign policy experience, appeared to stumble in the midst of a high-profile overseas trip.
McCain, who had visited Iraq…earlier to talk with military commanders and Iraqi officials, spoke at an event in Amman, Jordan, where he expressed concern about Iranians “taking al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back” to Iraq. But Iran and al Qaeda are associated with different branches of Islam. Iran is a mostly Shiite country and al Qaeda is primarily a Sunni militant group; Iran has been reported to help Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not their Sunni counterparts.
McCain was flanked by the two other members of his congressional delegation: Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who are both supporters and close friends. According to a report in the Washington Post, Lieberman later whispered into McCain’s ear, prompting McCain to correct himself: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al Qaeda.”
This is the 3rd time in the past few days this has happened. Are we learning something unexpected about John McCain?
If McCain, Hillary, and Obama could read this thread, they would have a real good heads up on what kind of attacks to expect. I think we can clearly see where this political season is headed.
As an additional comment:
Notice how this thread started as a strike against McCain but became a referendum against Obama?
McCain survived this attack, but Obama was torn to shreds.
A preview of the general election?
McCain was correct. Liberman was in error. All three of the major liberal papers have have had stories over the last 2 years about Iran giving aid to al Qieda in Iraq.
The 9/11 commissions report on Iran and Iraq on page 61 even notes the help Iran has given al quieda.
The former insurgents in Iraq have stated on more than one occasion that the al quieda groups in Iraq were getting use of training facilities and material aid from Iran at the same time that they were.
I know there are some fairly dim folks in here, but most are smart enough to know that the Sunni/Shia rift only counts when they aren’t united against another common enemy. A good example is Iranian help for Hezbollah(Shia) and Hama’s(Sunni). Lebonese goverment troops have captured many weapons from Hezbollah that came from Iran and the same for the Israelie troops and captured weapons from Hama’s.
As for Obama and the Rev Wright….well, the speech was a good one, but had almost nothing to do with why he had to give a speech in the first place. We don’t need Obama or anyone else to tell us what race relations are like in this country. What we needed was Obama to explain how he could know that a man he calls his mentor and spirtual advisor for 20 years could be giving rather hateful and outlandish sermons and he never felt it nessesary to publically distance himself from him prior to when it started to have an adverse affect on his run for the Prsidency.
Rev. Wright is a bigot, a racist of the first order. A man as divisive as George Wallace or anyother bigot. He preaches hate, whatever excuses Obama tried to conjur up for him. I reject hate speech by anyone, white black, or brown. Hate is hate.
Obama gave us a nice speech, but never answered the central question, how could you listen to this garbage, all the nut job theories, all the hate, all the obvious bigotry and not disavow the man who made them?
It isn’t 2 or 3 sermons, ABC has dozens of sermons just like the ones already aired.
When Imus said what he said last year,( a one time event, in very bad taste) Obama released a statement that he would never tolerate a man on his staff saying such things about ANY women, not just black women and would fire them immediatly.
But the Rev. Wright has been saying just as bad, and worse about whites, the U.S., and Jews for over 20 years, on a regular basis, but all Obama could do was make excuses for him and refuse to disavow the man.
That folks is called **hypocrisy** and it dosen’t matter if your white, or black.
It shows a very bad lack of judgement on Obama’s part and a refusal to admit that his judgement was wrong. It showed that he isn’t a *healer* or a *uniter* or that he’s *post-racial*….it shows he’s just another politician who will do or say anything to get elected. We may as well elect Clinton, at least we KNOW she’s a hypocrite.
#55…bobbo….the problem isn’t racism, the problem is that, as you said….**nobody knows Obama**. This man came up from no where, he has done very little in the Senate, he voted *present* 103 times in the Illinois legislature on issues of importance that would have shown his actual thinking. He announced that he was running for the Prsidency 103 days after arriving in the Senate. He has no record. The 1 or 2 pieces of legislation that bear his name are standard liberal fare(and 1 has never been voted on). So when your basically a blank slate, people project what they want to see onto you, but at what point do you show who YOU really are?
I read about 70 to 80 pieces of political commentary a day, liberal, conservative, libertarian and moderate/progrssive and not one single piece has suggested that Obama believes what his Rev. Wright has preached for almost 30 years. But they almost all ask the same question….who is this man and just what DOES he believe and what will he do as President.
When someone spends 20 years as the friend and member of a person like the Rev. Wright’s church, donating large sums to that church and listening to many, many inflammatory sermons by the Rev., we have a right to ask if he condones or condems the Rev.’s views.
The speech while almost elequent in many places, was also a man still trying to justify his mentor’s vile and divisive rhectoric, and at the same time refusing to disavow the man.
The Left is in a bind, they find themselves in a situation they should have seen coming. In order to keep up the front of Obama being a *transitional* figure, they have to ignore what Obama’s friend the Rev. Wright has been doing,and saying in his sermons, when those same leftists have attacked many non leftists for saying much less vitrolic things for many years.
Racism isn’t a one way street, it can come from any direction, as the Rev. Wright has made all to clear.
#66–Joshua==nice review. I find myself in a cul-de-sac. I don’t think anyone who is “religious” should be President or any other kind of leader. ALL political leaders are religious. The USA is overly influenced by nutball religion. What is the atheist voter supposed to do???
So, I believe many political leaders are shameless hypocrites adopting the religious situation that fits them best and then they ignore it as much as possible except to whip up the values voters of their constituency.
Then you get folks that are actually religious like Romney, Lieberman, and maybe Obama.
Electing a leader is a crap shoot. We don’t know them even folks like McCain who has been in public for years. He is a war hero and that much like the religion issue is mostly irrelevant to anything important.
Its all disgusting, so I’ll save my powder for threads more on point. The Obama/Minister issues are in the main guilt by association AND fail to recognize the dissassociation of religions influence/lack there of/hypocrisy in american politics.
Oh and the main contradiction in what Obama said, that people(incl me) can’t quite seem to get the right quotes to prove it, is that he first tried to wish the story away and downplay it as a crazy uncle and he missed all the sermons, but in his speech he accepts that the pastor is hateful and tries to explain it away as ‘yall have an untrained ear’
#68–what do you do with a crazy uncle?
#69 – Don’t hire him to be an adviser & don’t use him as your personal mentor?
70–pat==quite right again. And I’m sure if Obama played more Chess instead of politcal checkers, he would have thought that relationship more thru. The hubris of politicians being though that they think they will never be caught, even as they are being caught.
I am interested in the story about how a year ago the Obama team had rejected the preacher man for certain tasks because they knew he was too controversial and could tarnish Obama. Strange that understanding couldn’t be fully implemented.
Still mostly all a game of guilt by association–the darker emotions of Obama notwithstanding.
Yes, the person who would posses the nuclear football has to be careful with whom he chooses to have as a close adviser.
Judgment in choosing who to listen to is critical for a Pres. Where judgment is lacking disaster can happen. Especially when the person has his “finger on the button.”
# 68
Before this thread retires into the sunset, here is the transcript of Obama’s “Crazy Uncle” speech.
http://www.nysun.com/article/71813?page_no=2
It now looks like Obama is in big trouble.
Hillary’s “having experience from day one” has been debunked, Obama didn’t distance himself enough from Jeremiah Wright …
McCain.
McCain is still wrong and obviously didn’t pay attention during the briefing. Once his hypocritical record is advertised, the shiny exterior will look pretty tarnished with Bushshit.
Obama is going to win the Democrat nomination. Those that won’t vote for him now wouldn’t have voted for him before the hoopla. He handled himself with dignity, grace, and aplomb. He didn’t use ad hominems or try to blame others.
Obama is going to win the Presidential election. After McCain self implodes, and he will, Obama will gain a significant majority. Clinton might end up being the V-P, but one more attack on Obama by her campaign and the V-P will be Edwards.
You wing nuts obviously don’t like what Wright had to say. Too bad, racist tendencies have that effect. So what was so wrong with his sermons? What inaccuracies can you point to. Not which opinions you disagree with, your bigoted opinions are already known, what facts did he get wrong?
You forget about Imus. He claimed a specific group of women were “nappy headed hoes” simply because of who they were, not because of anything they had ever done. There is a big difference between that and the years of slavery and Jim Crow laws that kept blacks subjugated. I’m sure Wright remembers the “Whites Only” signs.
#75…Mister Catshit…..I would expect you to post exactly as you did.
Instead of looking at what Obama has said in the past and said this past week and seeing the contradictions, you defend him on all counts. You suffer from terminal leftism.
No one deny’s that blacks haven’t exactly had the Club Med deal since the civil war. Or the Jim Crow laws and the lynchings(which by the way weren’t done by or thought up by Republicans, but Democrats) or any of the million slights to a whole group of people. But what you too blind to see lefties can’t understand is that race isn’t the issue here. The issue is nothing more than a persons character and judgement, that wishes us to first nominate him as his parties standard bearer for the Presidency, then elect him to that job without knowing who he is or what he really stands for.
It’s the lack of anything of substance to give voters a chance to see how he thinks he will be any better at doing all of the things he says that *he* can, but that every President since FDR have also claimed they could do and have basically failed.
Does race need to be brought out into the open and seriously debated? You bet your leftist ass it does. And while I give him credit for saying some things that no politician in memory has ever said to both blacks and whites, I didn’t see any suggestions(other than electing *me*, Obama the uniter)on just what he planned to do that is any different than every liberal and moderate/conservative politician before him have offered.(many of those people’s idea’s have brought tremendous change to race issues in this country, as a nation we should be proud of how fast, basically 50 years, that truely amazing changes have taken place)
Really open your mind, because I know you have a good one when you shake the leftist cob webs out of it, and relly read the speech. Not once but several times, then read other speech’s by Obama on the subject and what starts popping out at you is that he’s not offering us anything new, or even anything that worked in the past. No where in the speech does he repudiate welfare, or affirmative action or set asides or quota’s.(he talks about how they may have caused white angst, but didn’t offer to change them) No where does he talk about how to change schools and bussing. He simply recites a list of grievince’s by blacks and then throws in some by whites and proceeds to tell us that we all can become victims and special groups under the far left utopia he has in mind. And that once we all understand that we are really brothers in victimhood, he(Obama) will lead us into the light.
But after all the angst and hand wringing, the one thing that even Liberals that are honest enough to really look at the speech are noticing is this……while he rejects Rev. Wright’s caustic sermons, no where does he explain WHY he sat in the pew and listented to this man spew his hatred for 20 years, and not do something to show his disagreement. I just found out today that Oprah was a member of the Rev. Wright’s church for many years, but she very quietly left the church when he started making his really outragous claims after 9/11. She was smart enough to know this man was toxic, but Obama, the Harvard Law grad wasn’t.
Instead, he denies that the Rev. said those kinds of things, then that he was like the crazy Uncle, then he was no worse than his white Grandmother(the woman who really raised him), gave very large sums to the church(during the time that Michelle Obama claims they were struggling to get by and pay student loans, pay for private schools for his kids on their paltry combined income of over 350,000 a year, that turned into 970, 000 a year that turned into 1.6 million a year)and said he could no more distance himself from the Rev, than he could from his black supporters. Funny that, just last year he insisted that Imus should be fired for making 1 statement that he apologised for profusely for months.(has anyone noticed the Rev. Wright apologising to anyone, about anything he has said that was so hateful, bigoted, anti-semetic and diviseive???) But he feels that what the Rev. said isn’t that bad….sorry….but I and millions of other’s say…..BULLSHIT!!!!!!
#75…Mister Catshit…sorry, I meant to respond to you last paragraph.
While I’m sure the Rev. Wright did indeed remember the whites only signs and the slights, I can only think that so did 2 other very prominent men of the Rev.’s generation, Bill Cosby and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.
Cosby grew up in the same city Wright did at approximately the same time and instead of internalizing the hate, the slights, the prejudice, he moved on with his life and used his background to make a better life.
The Rev King was raised in the South, where he suffered far more abuse than the Rev. Wright ever saw in Philadelphia, but he turned that hatred into a message of hope and reconciliation between the races….but Wright only preached hatred.
I apparently missed your request to supply you with inaccuracies in Wright’s sermons. And of course your usual lefty slurs against me and what you perceive to be my make up. I guess I’m a glutton for abuse because I keep attempting to have a real debate with you about left verses conservative, but I think that maybe your to0 much of a bitter, hateful man that would find the Rev. Wright’s sermons uplifting.
Item number 1….AIDS isn’t a government plot to kill blacks. 2…Hiroshima, while not desirable, was done to save many American lives in a war that we didn’t start. 3…black men may go to prison disproportionately, it’s not a government plot to wipe out blacks. 4….the lack of good schools in the inner cities isn’t the white mens fault, but the fault of the governments of those cities. And on and on. While I actually agree with some of his complaints….most are just plain false.
Amen, Joshua!
Joshua, the left hates Bill Cosby, so don’t use him as an example. They even wrote a book about him called has the black middle class lost its mind?
#77, joshua,
Cosby grew up in the same city Wright did at approximately the same time and instead of internalizing the hate, the slights, the prejudice, he moved on with his life and used his background to make a better life.
The Rev King was raised in the South, where he suffered far more abuse than the Rev. Wright ever saw in Philadelphia, but he turned that hatred into a message of hope and reconciliation between the races….but Wright only preached hatred.
You sure don’t know much. Cosby is a comedian. He has done his best to show blacks there is a way to do things. King stressed the difference between blacks and whites until the day he dies. He yearned for equality and knew and acknowledged it wasn’t there.
Now, you so deftly ignored my question so I’ll use caps here.
WHAT THE EFF DID WRIGHT EVER SAY THAT WAS WRONG? If you can’t answer that then you are just blowing smoke out your ass.
*
You know, I’m still waiting for you to back up your comment where you said Nancy Pelosi took direct orders from the Trial Lawyers to insist the Telcos not get immunity. You made the bald statement, back it up. For your information, I also emailed my Congressman telling him I was strongly against amnesty for the Telcos.
#80….Mister Catshit….this is the last time I ever answer you for any reason. As I said above, I’ve tried to actually debate you on issues and political beliefs for over a year and a half(under your present and past names), but all you have done is resort to really vile and nasty remarks about me and anyone who dosen’t believe the way you do.
You and those like you (of both parties and beliefs) are why we have such a mess in this country. Why there is so much nastiness between those of differeing views. Anyone here could go back for the last 18 months and look at your posts, you have no desire to discuss issues or anything else…..you simply spew hatred at others….you should consider joining the Rev, Wright’s congregation. You probably are the most bitter and wretched person I have ever encountered. But please, don’t stop, because everytime you post one of your pieces of crap you turn another 2 or 3 people away from Liberalism.
If you can’t see and read for yourself what Wright said that was hate filled, bigotted and racist….then no one will ever be able to explain it to you. As I said before….bigotry, by ANYONE is still bigotry!!!
From now on, I will ignore you as if you don’t exist.
#82, joshua,
I’ve tried to actually debate you on issues and political beliefs for over a year and a half
All I’ve seen from you is posting bullshit you can’t back up. Is that what you refer to as debating? When called on your bullshit you run crying that I don’t want to debate.
You and those like you (of both parties and beliefs) are why we have such a mess in this country.
If you say so. My belief is that the right wing nuts that think they have some “god given right” to steal, lie, and abuse Americans are the problem. This is exemplified by the current Republican leadership.
you simply spew hatred at others….you should consider joining the Rev, Wright’s congregation. You probably are the most bitter and wretched person I have ever encountered
Why? If Wright is filled with hatred, what has he preached that is wrong? I asked that earlier. Instead of debating the issue, your effen lazy ass thinks it is just fine to make the ad hominem attack on Wright and Obama as being bad for no specified reason. Just because the talking heads at FOX SPEWS say it is bad doesn’t mean it is. Well, unless you are as bigoted and anti Obama as FOX is.
If you can’t see and read for yourself what Wright said that was hate filled, bigotted and racist….then no one will ever be able to explain it to you. As I said before….bigotry, by ANYONE is still bigotry!!!
So denigrating someone without any other cause because they point out a true fact is bigotry? I would really like to see your justification for that line. Oh yes, I can read. The question is CAN YOU ??? You have shown no evidence that Wright is bigoted or any of his sermons were bigoted.
From now on, I will ignore you as if you don’t exist.
Waaaahh, waaaah, the cry baby’s feelings have been hurt because he has been caught lying again.