First 2008 Presidential Debate

OK, it wasn’t exactly a debate – but personally I liked it much better than a debate.  They had the same questions that they had to answer from the Southern Baptist pastor at Saddleback church in California, one of the few SBC Mega-Churches with more than 22,000 members.  Just in case you missed it, here is just a sampling of the questions, answers and comments by another Texas Jewish Cowboy (me).  

I have always discounted John McCain as another Hillary Clinton but wearing a Republican arm band. Obama I haven’t trusted since he said that he could no more desert his pastor than he could desert the black community nor his white grandmother – and then promptly deserted his pastor two weeks later. What a wimp! I had said during the preliminaries that if it was McCain versus Clinton in the presidential vote, I wouldn’t even bother going to the polls because they were cut out of the same piece of cloth. OK, here are just a few of the questions and answers from last night:

To whom would you go for counseling?  (name three):  Obama names his wife, then his mother, then said that there were many others someone outside of the “family.”  McCain names General Patraeus, then John Lewis (D.Ga) – civil rights leader – and then Meg Whitten, the CEO of EBay.  Sorry, but I read Michelle’s thesis – I certainly would not trust her as the First Counsel for the President of the United States. General Patraeus, while not my first choice, did have the knowledge to straighten up the armed forces in Iraq so that we have a chance.

Does evil exist and if so how would you deal with it? Obama said that Americans must have humility when confronting evil. McCain said, “Defeat it! If I have follow him to the gates of Hell I will get Osama Bin Laden.” He also stated that the Al Queda is now in both Iraq and Afghanistan and that we need to put the pressure on him there rather than here. I rather like that much more than the namby-pamby, politically correct answer that Obama gave.

When does life begin? Consider that we have had 40 Million abortions in the USA since Roe versus Wade Supreme Court decision. Obama said that he was not in a high enough pay grade to answer that one. (Not only a duck and dodge, but a really wimpy duck and dodge.) Obama then stressed that because he was Pro Choice did not mean that he was Pro Abortion. (Sorry, Charlie – they’re one and the same.) McCain immediately said, “At conception.”

When asked about their darkest moments and toughest decisions, McCain responded with the, by now, well-know episode in the Hanoi Hilton (North Korean prison camp) where he had to decide to follow the code of conduct when he was offered release before prisoners who had been there longer than himself. He declined and spent another three years in the Hanoi Hilton. I don’t even remember what Obama said but it was not notable. What McCain did NOT say was that the North Koreans broke his already broken arms (he broke both arms when he bailed out and crashed) again in prison. He also told of the Christian prison guard who relieved his pain once when his elbows were pulled up behind his back and his head was forced down between his knees and he had been left there for the night. Later that year, on Christmas Day, the guard wandered up to McCain and with his boot drew a cross in the dirt.

I didn’t know it before, but now I KNOW the man that I want leading my country for the next four (or eight) years – and it is not a wimp from Chicago; it’s the man of iron, the REAL man of iron, that I saw last night. I was wrong last year and most of this year about McCain – he is decisive, clear, articulate and a strong right-wing Christian. If he picks a Jew for a running mate, who can stop him? You can find some of talk scattered around the internet – my left wing newspaper ran only a 1/4 page on the inside back of the main section.

SDG
Yaakov