<p>How could anyone vote for Hillary over McCain??</p>
<p>We’ve got a perfectlly qualified candidate right there in front of us & people are still talking Obama, Romney, Hillary…</p>
<p>You gotta be kidding me!</p>
<p>It is going to be very difficult for McCain in the general election given that he wants to not only maintain the Bush escalation of the war in Iraq, but stay there at the increased levels until hell freezes over.</p>
<p>I know these guys have to play to their base (the 28% dead-enders who still support Bush) and will try to flip flop away from the war in the general election, but the Dems are videotaping every chest-thumping word they say. Nobody is going to win in 2008 on a campaign promise to keep 160,000 troops in Iraq forever or until we win, which ever comes first.</p>
<p>Rove has backed the Republicans into a corner. The base is so far right that the candidates have to take positions in the primaries that kill them in the general election.</p>
<p>Well, JMC’s got a pretty good handle on the fiscal - his campaign again pork barrel spending demonstrates that he’s willing to make tough choices even if some of his fellow Senator’s don’t like it. </p>
<p>He KNOWS the right things to do - and I believe he has the guts to do them!</p>
<p>He’s been a committed public servant all his life - I don’t think he has any illusions about what it will take to be a successful president.</p>
<p>We REALLY need someone with his knowledge base, experience & backbone in the Oval Office. He should’ve had the nom in 2000. Let’s make right our past mistakes! I truly believe that he is not in this race for the “glory” & power as much as those other guys. He deserves a shot.</p>
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<p>That’s not the least of it. Have you taken your heart medicine today? Hillary is polling equal to or slightly ahead of McCain on the question, “which candidate would be the strongest leader”.</p>
<p>The Fox poll back in June had Clinton at 60%, McCain at 59%.</p>
<p>Somebody call the medics for bz2010. I think he fainted.</p>
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<p>How can you say that? He’s a Republican Senator who was part of a Republican government (White House, Senate, Congress) that, for six years, racked up the most massive budget deficits in the history of the country. I’m sorry, but this notion that Republicans can run on fiscal responsibility is just horse [you know what]. The Republicans are the party of wanton fiscal irresponsibilty and there is no way they can hide from it.</p>
<p>You may be right interesteddad. McCain’s position on the war will certainly hurt him among a certain contingent of voters. I’ve thought about this a lot. I hate this war as much as amyone - but I’ve concluded that the enemy is not going to go away just because we stop fighting. (We weren’t at war at the time of 9/11), in fact, I worry that it will just allow them to stage attacks elsewhere from Iraq. It does seem better to fight them there rather than here - agreed?</p>
<p>…and in light of Bin Laden’s recent call for American’s to convert to Islam, it doesn’t seem that their resolve & hatred for us has diminished any.</p>
<p>No… better to keep the enemy busy “over there”.</p>
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<p>Which enemy? There are at least five or six different “enemies” in Iraq none of which can be “defeated” by the US military. It’s just a question of how many lives and how much money you want to spend playing whack-a-mole, none of which brings us any closer to a desireable outcome (some kind of political stability in Iraq).</p>
<p>Keep in mind that, while we are playing whack-a-mole, the strain on our military prevents us from an effective effort against Bin Laden and leaves us disturbingly vulnerable to a major crisis popping up elsewhere in the world. We do not have a combat-ready Army brigade left to send somewhere else.</p>
<p>bzz2010 – Most of the people who are fighting the US ‘over there’ would not follow us home (dang those terrorist puppies!). The only reason they are fighting us is because we <em>are</em> ‘over there’…just as you or I would fight the Swiss or the Poles if they decided our government’s egregious behavior made us a suitable candidate for a ‘preventative’ invasion. The US military leaves…the insurgents’ common enemy… and they go back to fighting each other, or they make peace. Their country…their decision. </p>
<p>The sort of organized terrorists we have most to worry about are probably already here…just like the 9/11 group were in this country for a long time before they attacked (by the way, most of them were Saudi…you <em>do</em> know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?). Maybe with the National Guard back in the country, we can start protecting our citizens ‘over here’ without losing more soldiers in a war with an end no one has defined…or do you propose we stay in Iraq for 50 yrs for your feeling of personal security? How many soldiers, not to mention how many Iraqis (nobody does), are you willing to sacrifice to feel safe? More than 3000? We’re past that. More than 10,000? How 'bout 53,000…that’s a nice round number. We’ll just build another Wall.</p>
<p>“How could anyone vote for Hillary over McCain??”</p>
<p>I dunno, tell me who would McCain appoint to the supreme Court?</p>
<p>I prefer “the Party of God” to drive our churches, not our courts.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure where “here” is?”</p>
<p>New York. Isn’t that what we were both referring to?</p>
<p>I really do like what you’re saying, Novelisto. I’d love to see an end to our involvement in Iraq. Maybe there is a way to bring everyone home without it looking like we’re just giving up. To that end ,and in spite of - or perhaps because of - McCain’s stance on the war, I have to believe that he’d come up with an exit strategy that would be the most honorable for the troops.</p>
<p>There’s no other candidate that could possibly come close to McCain’s insight regarding the military. I’m trying to recall any of the other candidates service record. Which, if any, have even served in the military??</p>
<p>With all due respect to McCain, I think his own heroic experiences in the military make it hard for him to see the forest for the trees. Outside of Toadie Petraeus and War Czar Douglas Lute, I don’t think you will find another General in the Pentagon who was in favor of the escalation or maintaining our current troop levels in Iraq. The Pentagon brass is desperately concerned about breaking our Army. Bush just kept firing Generals until he got to one (Petraeus) who was just as gung ho to stay in Iraq for all eternity. In his case, Petraeus wants the full ten years outline in his counterinsurgency book to prove his theories.</p>
<p>Okay, so we need a Commander-in-Chief who can give us an exit strategy that preserves the honor of our military - both those who are there now & those who have sacrificed so much (life & limb).</p>
<p>Who better to understand & commuicate w/ those generals & pentagon advisors? Who will really listen to “troops on the ground”? Who really knows how to “support the troops”? McCain is the only candidate with the experience & insight to do that.</p>
<p>Yes, we need to get out if Iraq - but we need to do it right so as not to undermine anything that has been accomplished there. Wouldn’t it be better to have a president with a military background at such a crucial stage in this process?</p>
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<p>According to this article, not many. Also, Americans don’t really care. “Experts say Americans’ conflicted attitude toward the Vietnam War makes a military background less of an advantage.”</p>
<p>Of course, having a president who had ever served and actually been in the front lines of a war, might make him/her less likely to jumpstart a war in the first place. </p>
<p>This link suggests that McCain and Hunter (also a decorated Vietnam vet) are the only two who ever served on the front lines. Others were either too young; picked a high lottery number during the draft; or failed physicals. </p>
<p>Gravel served in the Army in the 1850’s. Oops. I mean, in the 1950’s. Dodd was in the Army Reserves. Ron Paul was an Air Force Surgeon.
<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2423789220070625?pageNumber=2&sp=true[/url]”>http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2423789220070625?pageNumber=2&sp=true</a></p>
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<p>“John Kerry, reporting for duty!”</p>
<p>Didn’t work too well for him, did it?</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Take a look at President G.W. Bushs military record; compare it to Chaney and Rumsfeld at least Bush tried. He may drunked out, but he tried .</p>
<p>What?? Rumsfeld served in the Navy 1954-57 as an aviator and flight instructor. Cheney had several deferments; as someone else pointed out on another thread, he had “other priorities than military service.” Bush had a Nat’l Guard commitment, joined in 1968, but he didn’t complete it. He missed drills and active duty training for 2 years and was discharged early. “The unit in which Bush served was known as a “Champagne unit,” where the scions of the Texas aristocracy could avoid combat duty with relatively few demands on their time. Serving in that unit with Bush were the sons of three prominent men: Democratic Governor John Connally, Democratic Senator and future Vice-Presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen, and Republican Senator John Tower, as well as seven members of the Dallas Cowboys professional football club, and a man named James R. Bath, who would become a longtime friend of Bush’s.” (from Wikipedia). Jeb didn’t serve at all. Don’t know about his other siblings. Bush, the elder, is the only one who was really in the military, joining at 18 and flying combat missions in WWII.
<a href=“awolbush.com”>awolbush.com;
<p>Jack you are correct about Rumsfeld…I got carried away and my memory was faulty………</p>
<p>There were so many chicken hawks associated with the build up to and eventual invasion of Iraq I just kind of tossed Rummy in with the rest of them…my mistake and thanks to pointing it out….</p>
<p>I once worked for a combat wounded veteran of the Korean War who to this day walks with a limp. I was talking to him about Iraq 3 or 4 years ago, his comment, “men who have been in combat don’t start wars if they can help it.”</p>
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<p>And I bet they know the best way to wage then, resolve them & end them!</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t have total faith in the military to have a clear vision on military policy. Cf., to a carpenter with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The military is very good at what it does best: using military force to break things that need to be broken. They are much worse at building things, especially non-tangible things such as institutions, and while many of the field grade officers I know are well versed in history per se, their appreciation of social, political, cultural, and economic aspects of problems ranges from Rube Goldberg-contorted to dangerously simple-minded.</p>
<p>They’re great at discussing Iraq in “kinetic” terms, are mostly completely oblivious to the fact that the biggest determining factor to the outcome in Iraq lies in the Iraqi political arena that is largely beyond the influence of American military force…and in fact they recoil at the notion that they may be bit players in a drama that’s beyond their control.</p>