Well, after the free ride the McCain camp has gotten the last two weeks during Palin-mania, the Women of "The View" ask John McCain the hard hitting questions he hasn't had to answer yet:
It's in three parts on Youtube, worth watching. Barbara Walters really pushes him on Palin's qualifications, just what exactly she will be 'reforming' in Washington, and even goes after him on the false outrage of the the 'lipstick on a pig' flare-up.
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Jane Gideon
Sally Swift
Dorinda D.
Susan Wilson
Heather Havrilesky
pretend_farmer
Salon.com
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It's very disheartening, especially after I have reviewed all the most recent state-by-state polls, and the best analysis shows McCain winning 270 to Obama's 268 in every single analysis but the "poll of polls" compilation, which has it 270 for Obama.
This race is up for grabs, and we have the very first serious questioning of McCain (and it's The fucking View instead of real reporters!?!?!?!?), and no one seems to give a damn.
Sigh... Here we go again. I'm starting to long for Clintons...
A few thoughts:
In the first video he was really weak on the "reform" qualifications of SP. He just kept repeating her reform reputation each time he was asked for specific credentials or prospects for future reform. It's as though he thinks he can just say it and it's so. (But in his defense, I actually think that does work with America's electorate--you know, the old WMD, etc.)
The second video demonstrates an incredible sucking up to the Christian right. It's conventional wisdom that McCain is not a pious man but has had to move over there to get this nomination. Well, he does an awfully good job hammering that home. I kept thinking he was going to gloss over the stuff, but no, he kept going on about praying and God's will and so forth.
Which brought up another thought: He mentions praying in prison, but I notice he no longer tells that story about the guard drawing a cross in the sand since it's been debunked as having been taken from a different source and probably not personally true. My question is this: Why was this lie/exaggeration not ridiculed the way Hillary's Bullets Over Bosnia story was? Is this a falling down of the media or more of the "high road" theme of Obama (of which I have generally supported but am seeing the pitfalls of).
Elizabeth Hasselback (sp?): Wow, she threw him an abortion question in front of an unfriendly audience, knowing full well that it was an unfriendly audience. Count me as impressed, if not on her judgment, at least on her earnest intentions.
On abortion: You have to give him credit for not slicing through this any way other than he did, again knowing it was an unfriendly audience. Also, I am uncomfortable with the slippery thinking of Whoopi (whom I loved in Star Trek, by the way, but I give away my geekiness with that comment, don't I?): When she brings up the slavery issue (!) as a possible slippery slope backwards--rhetorical though it was--she is absolutely missing the point that both McCain and Elizabeth and other conservative scholars make: that the decision should come from the people via constitutional amendments rather than through rights contrived by the courts. Slavery, of course, was outlawed through just such a process--amendment to the constitution via the people of the states. (Granted, it was sort of forced on the southern states before they got back in and all that jazz, but the point is that it wasn't a court decision). I just prefer rigorous thinking from all sides, that's all.
Last point: I don't know why, but that old footage of McCain in conjunction with his talking about that day moved me. It occurs to me that though we are all weary of his using that experience for political gain it is genuinely possible that his life was forever altered and he became a different person as a result. We don't know his heart, and I am willing to concede that in private moments the reality of it for him can never be fully understood by others.
Sorry so long. I've taken to the habit of posting comments all over the place instead of writing my own next post. Maybe I'll get on that stick. (I'll tell you what. Whoever is reading this, come back tomorrow and see if I've done something new.)
Thanks Joe.
That said, I have one little bone to pick with McCain. I immediately cringed when he mentioned the "Democrat Party". I propose that we start calling them the "Republic Party" until either both are officially adopted into the vernacular or the Republics recognize just how irritating it is to be called by an incorrect name.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/
The role of women in this election -- in ways expected and very much not expected -- is unprecedented and fascinating. When the smoke clears, I think that's what analysts, and historians, will be talking about.
Watch these women for a week straight and you will want to kill yourself!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/us/politics/13mccain.html?hp
Kudos to Whoopie for trying (unsucessfully) to pin him down on the danger of having a VP who thinks the line between church and state should be ...... more of a guideline. Again here come the evangelical voters who made the deciding difference in 2004. I could hear her trying to break in to his long protestations of faith, and being ignored.
Kudos to Whoopee a second time for trying to point out that the Supreme Court, under strict interpretation upheld slavery (Dred Scott v. Sandford) and failed to strike down state laws circumventing the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (Williams v. Mississippi (1898), and Giles v. Harris (1903)).
[Only a progressive court and the 24th Amendment in 1964 forced an to the disenfranchisement of African Americans and poor Southern Whites. Even with that ammunition, it took the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to stop the end run around the constitution that had been allowed by previous Courts. The 13th, 14th , and 15th Amendments were all adopted by 1870, but were not truly implemented until almost 100 years later when a progressive court voted 6-3 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections .
That is the danger of Strict Constitutional Interpretation.
Progressive Courts do make law.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall (1801-1835) created the idea of Judicial Review in Marbury v. Madison (1803), in effect writing the very system in use today. He later implemented indirect interpretation of the Constitution to address legislation not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Without Progressive Courts, the United States would not have a Central Bank, integrated Navigation legislation, the Right to Privacy, and the Bill of Rights itself. ]
I was thrilled to see Whoopie trying to make the point that strict interpretation can lead to bad things….. Too bad it was just fluffed past. Must have been hard for her to sit there and smile.
I was even impressed with Joy who asked a hard question from a candidate she obviously admires, but is a little worried about.
And the temerity the Women had to use the L word. That took guts, although they let him slide on the answer.
Ladies, my hat is off to you. Wish you could have kept him on the hot seat longer. Now it is time to do the same with Barak Obama.