<p>Clinton supporters won’t get away with the “says more about the person obsessing about…” implying that it’s just interesting to the prurient dirty minds of those “fundies” you all love to hate. Their relationship (all of it) is going to be in play–like it or not. As it should be.</p>
<p>Basically, he said, on the Straight Talk Express of all places, that he didn’t know if condom use helped prevent the transmission of HIV – that he would, humina, humina, humina, have to check with his aides to see if he had a position paper on that.</p>
<p>I don’t know about condoms, but I certainly hope McCain is wearing some kind latex ski cap on his head, the way he is interacting with Jerry Falwell.</p>
<p>You may not care about the deaths from AIDs of people in Africa or the United Status, but you don’t speak for all of us.</p>
<p>It would be near criminal for someone in as powerful a position as McCain to be as uninformed as he claims. Given the number of lives at stake, at the very least, he should recuse himself from all votes on the issue, if he doesn’t know anything about it.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that the swiftboaters will attempt to make the Clinton’s relationship a huge campaign issue. I suspect it will backfire.</p>
<p>If you recall, the Republican impeachment committee wrapped up as quickly as they could when they started seeing the poll numbers that viewed Lewinskigate as a witch hunt.</p>
<p>Raising this issue will make Sen. Clinton a more sympathetic figure. I suspect there are one or two women voters in the electorate who have had cheatin’ husbands.</p>
<p>Excuse me–I didn’t say <em>I</em> “may not care about the deaths from AIDs of people in Africa or the United States,” and I did not presume to speak for “all of you” - of course. As usual, you and your allies turn any attempt at rational discussion into personal attacks.</p>
<p>McCain’s views on condoms, whatever they may be, do not really impact the fight against AIDS anywhere, and are not in any way relevant to the OP or even the general discussion of Hillary’s chances; but it is a great way for you to vent your usual biases and hilarity (“latex ski cap on his head”) against the “fundamentalist religious jihad base of the Republican party.”</p>
<p>So Bill Keller of the NYT is a “swiftboater” per idad. Hahaha.</p>
<p>How it all falls out for Hillary–what will be will be. As it will for Rudy, Mitt, Newt, Obama and the rest. The more info the voters have, the better, it seems to me. What’s fair for one is fair for all, of course.</p>
<p>That’s bull, and you should know it, if you have any understanding of civics at all. Federal policy on sex education and funding for distribution of condoms has a huge impact on the fight against AIDs. As does federal policy on funding AIDs research and medications for AIDS.</p>
<p>To suggest that a highly powerful Senator has no impact on these issues is disingenious at best. And you did attempt to speak for us all when you said that “no one cares” about McCain’s professed ignorance on these issues.</p>
<p>I think the question of whether a powerful politician makes life or death decisions on the basis of not facts but pandering to a special interest group is highly relevent to a discussion of how long our leaders should keep troops in Iraq.</p>
<p>So sorry you misinterpreted me: I meant that “no one cares” about McCain as being in the running for the nomination; therefore, “no one” cares about his disingenuous statements about condoms. Left wing blogs maybe? I wouldn’t know.</p>
<p>Some people would like federal policy on sex education to be abstinence only education. In fact, there is a large policy push, with a good deal of our tax dollars, in that direction.</p>
<p>So you have no problem with someone being in the Senate who puts catering to special interest groups above human life and think it’s only “left wing blogs” who would care?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think reverence for life is only a left wing value. Oh, right, I forgot that the lives in question tend to be from constituencies that the right wing doesn’t value or is hostile to.</p>
<p>AllMusic, you’re right. Some states have had to turn down federal dollars for sex education, because they can accept those dollars only if they agree to conceal from the kids the fact that condoms can help save their lives.</p>
<p>Across the globe, fundamentalist religions almost always have control of female behavior, and especially female sexuality, very high on the agenda. So it’s not too surprising that the same people who are against the preservation of life in other areas would be against access to abortion. </p>
<p>And you have to remember that having a large population of children in poverty is good for big business, which relies on affordable labor created by surplus population. Have a shortage of workers willing to take low paying jobs, and the economy gets in real trouble. That’s the message Karl Rove is getting out about illegal immigration; we have to welcome the “guest workers” so that there’s a continual underclass willing to take on undesirable jobs; otherwise his kids might have to pick tomatoes or make beds in hotels.</p>
<p>Anyone reading this thread would probably believe that the McCain AIDS story is huge. I did a news.google search on “McCain AIDS.” I can’t find even one mainstream newspaper story on the McCain condom interview. However, there are dozens and dozens of blog writings on the exchange, followed by hundreds (literally) of hate-filled comments regarding it.</p>
<p>The NYT link, above, is a political blog by Adam Nigourney, and the Washington Post link on google news is also a political blog. Not one newspaper story.</p>
<p>I’ve come to realize that most of the bitter, acrimonious comments here are fueled by the left wing blogs. Why else would this story suddenly loom so large and take on so much importance for people on this thread.</p>
<p>Perhaps if people would lay off their daily blog consumption, it would be possible to have more rational, polite debates on the political threads.</p>
<p>It would also be nice if, when people offer an opinion based on substantial writing (Pulitzer prize winning author David Maraniss and Bill Keller of the NYT), others could cut back on the personal attacks. Not holding my breath.</p>
<p>Reverence for human life? An interest in truth-telling by politicians? A desire to see policy on life or death issues based in facts and not on catering to extremist ideologues regardless of how many votes they influence?</p>
<p>You’re the one on the attack, insisting that this story isn’t important because the mainstream media isn’t covering it…yet. Not all of us need some authority figure to tell us what’s important and what isn’t. Some of us have a conscience and a cerebral cortex of our own. We’ve no need to succumb to the kind of groupthink you suggest we rely on so as not to voice anything you consider unpleasant or acrimonious.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t you agree that the US Attorneys story is huge? Guess who broke it? A left-leaning blog, the Talking Points Memo, in a feat of investigative reporting that the MSM is now praising to the hilt.</p>
<p>The “Macaca” story resulted in a shoo-in incumbant Senator losing his re-election. Guess where it broke? YouTube.</p>
<p>Does the genocide in Darfur become somehow less evil if the MSM chooses not to cover it? Was the Holocaust unimportant during WWII because the mainstream media didn’t report it?</p>
<p>If you need Rupert Murdoch to tell you what’s important, your knowledge of current events is pretty much going to be limited to the Anna Nicole Smith paternity case.</p>
<p>HH, I can understand how this story is deeply personally embarrassing to you. With your constant insistence that sex education, even rape prevention training, is not needed in the schools, it must be humiliating to find out that even a rich, powerful Senator claims to be in need of instruction in the basic facts about the transmission of STDs.</p>
<p>But you need to get over it. Just because you find something uncomfortable to hear or that it weakens your own position doesn’t make it an unfit topic for discussion.</p>
<p>Let’s see what a slightly more fair-minded right-winger has to say about hijacking:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And HH, you could at least try to be original. Your “you need to get over it” is about the fifth time you’ve copied me like that. I guess it’s flattering, and it does prove my point about relying on outside sources for your cognition rather than exercising your own cortex.</p>
<p>And unlike you, I don’t get angry when people express opinions different from my own. Unlike you, I’ll defend to death their right to do it…just not their right to surpress anything they don’t want to hear or that hasn’t been spoonfed to them by Faux News.</p>
<p>Adam Nigourney is the NY Times chief political correspondent – one of a dozen or so major outlet reporters that McCain invited onto his bus in an effort to jumpstart his moribund campaign.</p>
<p>I have no idea whether or not his political column “The Caucus” is published in the print edition since I – like many others – read the Times each day online and that’s the page you link to when you click the POLITICS heading on the paper’s front page.</p>
<p>I don’t know if Fox or CNN is covering the issue because we have an iron clad policy in our house to immediately change the channel whenever the words “Anna Nicole Smith” are mentioned. As you can imagine, we’ve pretty much been limited to C-SPAN, ESPN, and DVDs lately.</p>
<p>This does give us some interesting insight into how some posters think.</p>
<p>For decades there was widespread abuse of children with mental retardation in state-run institutions. In one institution, radioactive isotopes were even placed in the children’s milk to see what the effects would be–without the knowledge or consent of the parents.</p>
<p>By HH’s logic, if we caught wind of this at the time it was going on, it would be a “non-story” and absolutely wrong and inappropriate of us to speak out against it, simply because it wasn’t a media event on a par with whatever the contemporary would be to Anna Nicole’s sexcapades.</p>