To my right thinking friends, re: Saddleback

[danb]

If you're like me, you probably had other things to do on a Saturday night than watch McCain and tMessiah have a conversation with Rev. Rick Warren. I know I did.

As a service to my friends (and any open-minded foes), I am copying some impressions from pundits and readers at NRO. I do that because upon reading you may wish you saw the event, and CNN is rebroadcasting it tonight.

I'm Not John McCain's Biggest Fan, but put him up against Barack Obama and there really is no contest. He just has a seriousness and confidence Obama doesn't; in large part, because Obama simply doesn't have the experience.

I certainly do disagree with John McCain on some big issues, but tonight he was outstanding in ways Barack Obama is not and cannot be. McCain was substantive, clear, concise, and relaxed. Obama seemed a bit nervous, some of his answers seemed contrived, and most of all it was clear that he is simply out of McCain's league when it comes to substance and experience. Score it a big McCain night. He should hope many, many voters were watching - more than the usual CNN Saturday night crowd.

Without a doubt, the lowest moment of the night was Obama's smear of Clarence Thomas. He, like Harry Reid, can't simply disagree with Thomas; he has to try to degrade him. On Obama's best day he can't hold a candle to Thomas's intelligence. Obama can barely make it through a press conference and ducks town hall debates with McCain because of his inability to speak in complete sentences when pressed to show his much noted but usually absent brilliance.

I Have No Idea How Many People Were Watching tonight, but for the first time, watching tonight, I feel like McCain can win this thing. There's just a huge gravitas gap between these candidates.
I don't always agree with John McCain's judgment, but I have some sense it's rooted in something good and American.

I just got in and am catching up on the Saddleback forum on DVR, and my first thought is that must have been some stressful vacation for Obama, because he appears to have returned with lots of gray hair.

I have never liked John McCain. I have followed him closely, which is why I've not liked him.

He has hit a grand slam tonight.

He's making Barry look like the vague, socialist, intellectual that he is, in fact.

McCain is sounding like an American.

He LOVES our country.

Barry wants to improve it.

Obama just said Clarence Thomas didn’t have enough experience to serve of the court. Kinda ironic, huh?

"I have no doubt that most people watching the Saddleback forum were shocked to hear there have been 40 million abortions since Roe vs. Wade. Even though many Americans are "enlightened" on the issue of abortion, it is an ugly statistic and Obama's attempt to avoid a meaningful response cost him the election."

Saddleback: The Contrast
A fascinating night that gave us a peek at the fundamental contrast between these candidates. They both were very good, but in entirely different ways. Obama was relaxed, reflective, polished, and conversational—truer to the spirit of the event. McCain was energetic and forceful, but relied more on his favorite lines—treating it more like one of his townhall meetings (he had the advantage of an overwhelmingly friendly crowd). Obama was every bit the impressive, likable young man. McCain was the elder statesman telling his best stories. Obama was fluid and comfortable talking about his faith. McCain said the bare minimum about it.

But the starkest contrast came as soon as McCain started his half of the forum. Asked the three people he would listen to as president, McCain said right off the bat Gen. Petraeus (Obama had led with his wife and grandmother). It was an immediate signal that this is a man who is concerned first and foremost with matters of war and peace—just as you expect from someone who wants to be president of the United States. Asked when he had bucked his party at risk to his self-interest, McCain rolled off his greatest hits, and went all the back to differing with Reagan on Lebanon (a reminder of how long he has been immersed in national-security issues). It made Obama's answer about promoting an ethics law with McCain seem incredibly weak in comparison. Then, McCain's answer about the toughest decision he had ever made—refusing early release in Vietnam—was riveting and moving.

In the first fifteen minutes, McCain had established a moral seriousness stemming from his conduct in Vietnam as a POW and his long-time as a national leader that Obama can't match. Throughout the rest of the night, he brought up Iraq, al Qaeda, and the Georgia crisis, when Obama was more inward-looking. McCain sounded like a potential commander-in-chief, Obama more like a potential friend. This is not to say, again, that Obama was not impressive. But the skills he showed tonight—the thoughtfulness and verbal dexterity—were those of a very talented memoirist, which, of course, he is.

As for the social issues, tonight should throw a damper on the notion that Obama is going to make major inroads among evangelicals voters. Why would they vote for his social liberalism couched in exquisite equivocations, when they can vote for someone who agrees with them on most everything like John McCain?

"What a great moment in the history of race relations that a black presidential candidate can say that he would not have nominated Clarence Thomas - because he wasn't qualified enough!"
Ironic. Not only because Obama's the one not qualified, but because Barack Obama would keep us wedded to the same backward thinking that wants minorities and women to be pandered to instead of respected.

Sigh, more breathless pro-Obama hackery from Sullivan. He salutes what has essentially become the conventional wisdom among liberals — black and white — about Clarence Thomas to celebrate the newness and audacity of Barack Obama. Next up: Barack Obama will call for more funding for public education and Andrew will hail it as "revolutionary."

I think Obama did very well (and he doesn't need to win a majority of this audience, he merely needs to keep McCain's support below typical trends). But this was McCain's best performance in memory. For the first time I can think of in '08, at least, he comes across as the kind of guy a lot of conservatives can want to vote for, rather than merely settle for.

Cancel the convention, if you ask me. Just keep replaying tonight and McCain wins. He was serious, self-confident, and compassionate. He presented himself as a man who can inspire service.
During the one moment last summer I flirted with the idea of McCain for president, I wrote: "We’re in a war where we’re occasionally asked to shop to help the economy; we’re not hearing a real call to arms. We need one."

John McCain can do that and it's an important thing. It was one of the many advantages he displayed tonight. If John McCain keeps this up, he can win.

McCain As Good As Obama Was Bad
I don't want to get too overheated about what occurred tonight, but I do think McCain had a clear and decisive victory over Obama. It all comes down to something that Phil Bredesen, the Democratic governor of Tennessee recently said about Obama: “Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.”
By that standard, McCain did extremely well and Obama did very poorly. McCain's answers were direct, confident and, most importantly, serious. When asked about what leaders he would consult as president, he first suggested Gen. Petraeus, architect of the surge, who he correctly praised as one of America's all-time great military leaders. By way of contrast, Obama suggested he would seek out the advice of a typical white person, er, his grandmother and his wife Michelle, who's still trying to decide whether she's proud of her country.

When asked "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?," McCain answered "At the moment of conception." Obama's answer here was flaming-dirigible bad:

Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade.

That spectacularly inept metaphor is going to haunt Obama throughout the rest of the campaign. News flash: There's not a job on the planet above the pay grade of the President of the United States. If you can't solve every problem and are humble about it, that's fine — but you can't get away with being unsure about the most defining moral issue in politics. Of course, he didn't put down the shovel:
But let me speak more generally about the issue of abortion. Because this is something, obviously, the country wrestles with. One thing that I’m absolutely convinced of is that there is a moral and ethical element to this issue. And So I think that anybody who tries to deny the moral difficulties and gravity of the abortion issue is not paying attention.

So after completely hedging on the question and declining to give a specific answer — he wants to speak "more generally" about the issue? And, lo and behold, speak more generally he does: "I’m absolutely convinced of is that there is a moral and ethical element to this issue." In related news, Obama is also "absolutely convinced" that the sky is blue, water is wet and puppies are adorable. None of this, however, tells me a thing about his judgment and moral worldview.

But what bowls me over about how craptacular his answer here is; did no one on his campaign ever anticipate that he would have to talk about abortion, such that he could come up with a better answer than this? Surely they would have had to expect it at this forum in particular.

His answer here was in many ways reminiscent of last April, where he imploded in his last debate with Hillary. He was asked to respond to his then-recent clinging to God n' guns remark. He totally botched the answer and, like this evening, it seemed as if he was totally unprepared for the question that would most obviously be asked.

But I also think that it's worth noting that Obama wasn't just bad, but that McCain was very good. He was the perfect balance of likable and serious. He also came across as informed, offered far more policy specifics than Obama, and highlighted his faith as was appropriate to the setting and almost everything he said bolstered his conservative credentials. (His comments on taxes and what it means to be "rich" were especially good in that regard.) I'd wager that for a lot of conservatives watching, McCain went from the enemy of my enemy to someone they felt good about voting for. He may yet foul that up, but I suspect he may be riding high for a while after tonight.

[trash]

If you're like me, you probably had other things to do on a Saturday night than watch McCain and tMessiah have a conversation with Rev. Rick Warren. I know I did.

Ditto. But you have given me incentive to give it a chance.

Thanks Db. DirecTV ch 202, 7-9pm CDT

[MichState04]

I FORCED myself to watch pMSNBC's post forum coverage and they all said that McCain definitely came out ahead in this. That's all I had to hear from a network that has been pushing for an Obama presidency since February.

Like you, I did not actually watch the forum.

[Rashomon]

Originally Posted by MichState04

I FORCED myself to watch pMSNBC's post forum coverage and they all said that McCain definitely came out ahead in this. That's all I had to hear from a network that has been pushing for an Obama presidency since February.

Like you, I did not actually watch the forum.

Liberal media...

[ErnieMcCracken]

People having opinions about things they never watched.

[IMrightURwrong]

I watched it and thought they both did well.

[danb]

Originally Posted by ErnieMcCracken

People having opinions about things they never watched.

The quote I provided were all from people who watched. Not having watched myself, I found this information useful, and thought it would be the same for others who didn't see it, and think they might want to. CNN is repeating it tonight.

I have no opinion on the peformance of either tOne or tOther (), but after reading these comments I'm going to view it. Only after that will I personally assess their performances and effectiveness.

[IndoSpartan]

I recommend watching it. The pay grade thing was a mistake by Obama but I think what he was saying that he didn't want to make decisions on what women should or should not do. I think McCain's biggest blunder was his harsh attack on Russia. Don't think we have all or understand all the facts on that. McCain said he was 25 years pro life... what does that mean?


***Disclosure*** I am against abortion but I am voting for Obama.

[Negotiator]

Originally Posted by IndoSpartan

I recommend watching it. The pay grade thing was a mistake by Obama but I think what he was saying that he didn't want to make decisions on what women should or should not do.

Which is why politicians should rarely if ever try to inject humor into tense questions, there's almost always someone who doesn't like the attempt.

[IndoSpartan]

Originally Posted by Negotiator

Which is why politicians should rarely if ever try to inject humor into tense questions, there's almost always someone who doesn't like the attempt.

Oh, I agree with what he said. I do not think he is qualified to make such a decision because it has already been made by God. ;-)

[Cym Jim]

Originally Posted by danb

I have no opinion on the peformance of either tOne or tOther (), but after reading these comments I'm going to view it. Only after that will I personally assess their performances and effectiveness.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess that after watching it, you will agree with the opinions of your quoted pundits, .

I give you credit for claiming that you are going to watch with an open mind though, which certainly differs ever so slightly from your completely identity-driven views on all socio-scientific issues.

[IndoSpartan]

Misters Pot meet Misters Kettle

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

It's too bad that Rev. Warren asked at which point a baby gets human rights without following up McCain's answer, "At conception." I hope someone eventually asks McCain if a woman and her doctor, after terminating a pregnancy, should be eligible for the full penalties of first degree murder.

As for the entire event, it looked like McCain made some inroads among evangelicals. Few of them would vote for Obama anyway, but McCain needed to get that crowd motivated - and he did.

I don't know if Obama should have agreed to this event. He's not likely to get much of the evangelical vote, and his presence on the same stage with McCain made it a media event. He could've sat it out and it would have barely been covered, since the media aren't interested in scrutinizing McCain.

[IndoSpartan]

Originally Posted by Jack's Smirking Revenge

It's too bad that Rev. Warren asked at which point a baby gets human rights without following up McCain's answer, "At conception." I hope someone eventually asks McCain if a woman and her doctor, after terminating a pregnancy, should be eligible for the full penalties of first degree murder.

How would you answer that JSR?

As for the entire event, it looked like McCain made some inroads among evangelicals. Few of them would vote for Obama anyway, but McCain needed to get that crowd motivated - and he did.

The few, the the humble, the anti-war

I don't know if Obama should have agreed to this event. He's not likely to get much of the evangelical vote, and his presence on the same stage with McCain made it a media event. He could've sat it out and it would have barely been covered, since the media aren't interested in scrutinizing McCain.

African Americans not evangelical? Again I think both did well and if both candidates say they can reach across the aisle they need to prove it.

[Enrico Palazzo]

Originally Posted by danb

I have no opinion on the peformance of either tOne or tOther until Rush, Hannity and Savage send out the e-mails tomorrow to tell me what opinion I should have.

Fixed if for you

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

Originally Posted by IndoSpartan

African Americans not evangelical? Again I think both did well and if both candidates say they can reach across the aisle they need to prove it.

McCain will get most of the evangelicals, period. There are some who have different priorities and will vote for Obama, but I don't think he's going to gain many evangelicals by going to an event where he and McCain will be asked about abortion and gay marriage.

As for how I'd answer the question about when a baby gets human rights, I'd say at birth. If you agree with McCain that a zygote should have human rights, should the woman and/or doctor who terminate the pregnancy be charged with first-degree murder?

[IndoSpartan]

Originally Posted by Jack's Smirking Revenge

McCain will get most of the evangelicals, period. There are some who have different priorities and will vote for Obama, but I don't think he's going to gain many evangelicals by going to an event where he and McCain will be asked about abortion and gay marriage.

As for how I'd answer the question about when a baby gets human rights, I'd say at birth. If you agree with McCain that a zygote should have human rights, should the woman and/or doctor who terminate the pregnancy be charged with first-degree murder?

Depends what the law is, right? If abortion is illegal then yes. My appeal is to a middle ground and simply end federal funding for abortion. It would satisfy me that I am not paying for the murder of zygotes. Now whenever I go past a clinic my conscience is bothered. Let the States that want to fund abortion do it. You would have a big red/blue shift and everyone would be happy.

Why say zygote when you can say blastomere? "I did the pregnancy test dear... I'm with zygote" just doesn't sound right.

I think both answered the gay marriage thing the same.

[Cym Jim]

Originally Posted by IndoSpartan

Why say zygote when you can say blastomere?

Because that would not be accurate. Blastocyst would be fine, but you're going have to find one fast or discriminating abortionist to catch a blastomere.

[IndoSpartan]

Originally Posted by Cym Jim

Because that would not be accurate. Blastocyst would be fine, but you're going have to find one fast or discriminating abortionist to catch a blastomere.

I think I'll stay with blastomere. Because new genetic life begins at conception and am opposed to morning after drugs that cause an abortion or those that prescribe them.

[Cym Jim]

Originally Posted by IndoSpartan

I think I'll stay with blastomere. Because new genetic life begins at conception and am opposed to morning after drugs that cause an abortion or those that prescribe them.

Fair enough, but does each blastomere = human life? i.e., there is never just one blastomere.

[Island of misfit toys]

I'm going to jump in here, but from my unique perspective. I only saw half of each interview on the podcast, I hope to watch the rest soon. As an evangelical, I found it to be an awesome forum allowing me to look into the minds and also into the genuine Christian faith of each man.

The thing with the judges threw me. McCain listed all the ones I've learned to think are bad, Obama called out Thomas on probably something of a higher level that constitutional scholars and lawyers would be likely to pickup instead of us common folk- a fully worked out philosophy of law and constitutional interpretation. McCain's answer largely a political test, maybe Obama's answer more legal in nature, like Ann Coulter's lambasting of the Harriet Myers appointment. That's a guess. Even so, is it really legal principle that causes Obama to choose the lefties? Concern about executive power? I don't know.

25 years of pro-life is just a way of saying this is me to the core. Obama presents an interesting challenge- what can we do to make people choose for themselves to avoid needing abortions, and to avoid having abortions? Why, that's libertarian!

Obama actually answers the very practical question about what rich is and has the statistic that about 2.5% of the people make a quarter million, or whatever it is. Warren was asking for numbers and McCain took a pass, as though we don't have to come up with actual tax rates, as though tax rates can be progressive up through a couple hundred thousand but static from that level through hundreds of millions a year.

Here's the big problem with McCain, for him, the evil is out there, somewhere. It's them, it's not us. Two radically different answers to this question. Obama can see evil out there, but he can see it right at home, too. This article is a couple of years old but it seems to nail it with my concerns about McCain. For all of his virtues, for all of his independence, for all the personal tests he's already faced in war fighting and suffering, he's got one huge, glaring blind spot- it's this Christian dispensationalist-zionist-neocon worldview:

Previous Next
Latest
Is McCain a Neocon?
10/10/06, 5:37 pm EST

John McCain reacted this morning to news of the North Korean nuclear tests by pushing the willfully hawkish, neoconservative position: America, he said, should buy itself a missile defense shield to protect itself from threats like this one. This is a position that one wing of conservatism has been backing since the Reagan administration, even though it makes even less sense than it used to: Such a missile shield would be unbearably expensive, it would probably be anachronistic in an age when the most urgent nuclear threats are likelier to come from a suitcase bomb than they are from a fleet of launched missiles, and most evidence suggests such a shield wouldn’t work anyway.

But there’s a more interesting question now begged by the Arizona Republican’s stance: Is John McCain, the current frontrunner for the Presidency in 2008, a hawkish neocon likely to push regime change? Or is he an ideologically more moderate figure, a realist with deep-seated skepticism about committing American troops overseas? What kind of president, in other words, would McCain be?

In a fascinating cover story in this week’s New Republic (subscription only), John Judis wrestles with the issue and winds up mostly making the case for McCain the neoconservative. It’s a convincing story, and terrifically well told. In Judis’s recounting, McCain came out of his experiences in Vietnam believing that the United States ought only to get involved in overseas conflicts when its national interests were clearly at stake and when it possessed overwhelming military force, a realist position. Judis believes McCain then underwent a slow evolution through the 1990s — watching with horror as American troops failed to prevent massacres in Bosnia in the late 1990s — and pushing Clinton to send troops on a humanitarian mission to Kosovo, a war in which he acknowledged no great American national interest was at stake.

By 1999, in Judis’s telling, the transformation was complete. McCain was hiring prominent neoconservatives to work on his staff, was supporting the now-discredited Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi, and soon became very prominent early advocate of regime change in Iraq and Iran positions which he defends staunchly to this day. In an interview that is recounted towards the end of the piece, Judis presses McCain to differentiate himself from the neoconservatives, or to concede that the war in Iraq was a mistake in conception and not just execution. McCain passes up the opportunity; of the neoconservatives he says “generally I agree with them and respect them enormously.” McCain backed regime change in Iran, and defended the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

Judis concludes that McCain’s instincts are basically neoconservative. But he includes this caveat: McCain, he says, has proven that he is willing to listen to objective evidence and change his mind. “It is true that little he said to me suggests he will alter his worldview,” Judis acknowledges, “but he has done so before. Perhaps he will again.”

That seems a bit too hopeful to me. Judis seems to want to distinguish between two errors that the neoconservatives have made in Iraq, and argue that though McCain may be susceptible to one, he is much less susceptible to the other. The first error was of ambition, to believe that less progressive corners of the world could be transformed into democracies by the application of military force. This, the article is pretty clear, is a theory that still has a great deal of currency for McCain. But there was a second error in the neoconservative project in Iraq, and that was its simple divorce from reality: The unwillingness of the Bush administration and their neoconservative allies to listen to the military planners who said we were sending too few troops, the State Department officials who said the necessary groundwork hadn’t been laid for a political transition, or to a thousand others. It’s this set of errors that Judis seems to want to suggest that McCain is unlikely to make; he is simply more clued into reality, more willing to listen to advisors, and less stubborn than Bush was.

Well, maybe. But the evidence in the piece cuts stronger the other way, and his insistence that the Iraq war was a worthy project suggest that he is perhaps more stubborn than Judis wants to admit. Not only has McCain consistently backed neoconservative positions over the last decade of his career, but he’s also brought in that movement’s leaders as his closest advisors. And if the best evidence he can muster is the speculation that McCain, having soured on one foreign policy ideology, might sour on a second, then I don’t think I share his confidence McCain will be returning to the realist camp any time soon.

[Jacks Smirking Revenge]

Originally Posted by IndoSpartan

Depends what the law is, right? If abortion is illegal then yes.

Women and doctors serving life in prison, or being killed by the state, over abortion would be disastrous. We'd also have to have a full investigation of every miscarriage.

My appeal is to a middle ground and simply end federal funding for abortion. It would satisfy me that I am not paying for the murder of zygotes. Now whenever I go past a clinic my conscience is bothered. Let the States that want to fund abortion do it. You would have a big red/blue shift and everyone would be happy.

Why say zygote when you can say blastomere? "I did the pregnancy test dear... I'm with zygote" just doesn't sound right.

I think both answered the gay marriage thing the same.

Your "middle ground" isn't really in the middle. You're just keeping poor women from having the same choice that other women have, and keeping abortion legal only in certain states. I know that you're sincere about your view, but your moral stand on this issue is based not on human life, but on money and geography.

[IndoSpartan]

Originally Posted by Jack's Smirking Revenge

Women and doctors serving life in prison, or being killed by the state, over abortion would be disastrous. We'd also have to have a full investigation of every miscarriage.

I'm against killing JSR. I would be against killing doctors and women. You are right it would be difficult to police miscarriages. We could stop abortions in some states and the sale of morning after pills. If people break the law then they should face the consequences... same with those that engage in civil disobedience by preventing abortions.

Your "middle ground" isn't really in the middle. You're just keeping poor women from having the same choice that other women have, and keeping abortion legal only in certain states. I know that you're sincere about your view, but your moral stand on this issue is based not on human life, but on money and geography.

All women are poor JSR and discriminated against. I am tired of society pressuring poor women to kill their babies. My moral stand is based on money and geography? That's why I give to Right to Life? Where's your middle ground JSR?

I want all abortions stopped. I want all killing stopped. I seem to have no voice on other people's lives or what goes on in my country in this except I have validity when it comes to my taxes so that is where I am approaching it.

[IndoSpartan]

[QUOTE='86;4975339]I'm going to jump in here, but from my unique perspective. I only saw half of each interview on the podcast, I hope to watch the rest soon. As an evangelical, I found it to be an awesome forum allowing me to look into the minds and also into the genuine Christian faith of each man.QUOTE]

Wow '86 you really looked at this closely. I learned something. Is the text of this forum available yet?

[Island of misfit toys]

Originally Posted by IndoSpartan

Wow '86 you really looked at this closely. I learned something. Is the text of this forum available yet?

I don't know about the text yet, Indo, I just watched the podcasts. I watched the first half of Obama twice and even took notes. It's just a great 'scientific' test, to give them the same questions in the same format and to compare their responses.

Some may have missed it, but McCain and Warren really had a personal, spiritual moment there at the beginning when McCain referenced the open paragraph of one of Warren's books, 'it's not about you', or something like that.

As I've said, my nephew has been close to Obama since his Senatorial campaign. That has helped me to start looking beyond traditional Christian right positions to try to see any virtue in what previously has been 'the godless left.' The justices thing really stumps me. I have thought of the Scalia faction as being both strict constructionists and oh, by the way, supportive of the correct political positions. I'm not sure how Obama comes down completely opposite. Is it plainly the politics of the justices' positions or is there really some deeper, interpretive framework at issue? I'm lost.

If it weren't concern for McCain and the neoconservatives, he'd probably get my vote. But, that alone disqualifies him, in my book. I've run across the goldmine of articles and videos of Seymour Hersh. Man, he says things...things you just don't say. Not to take the thread off track, but take a look at this:

YouTube - Zionists have bought out American politicians - Sey. Hersh