Comments on: McCain: A Life Entwined In Foreign Affairs

Presumptive GOP Nominee's Views Stem From First-Hand Experiences

[homespunlady]

From a NYT editorial:

Mr. Bush boasted about 52 consecutive months of job growth during his presidency. What matters is the magnitude of growth, not ticks on a calendar. The economic expansion under Mr. Bush %u2014 which it is safe to assume is now over %u2014 produced job growth of 4.2 percent. That is the worst performance over a business cycle since the government started keeping track in 1945.

Mr. Bush also talked approvingly of the recent unemployment rate of 4.8 percent. A low rate is good news when it indicates a robust job market. The unemployment rate ticked down last month because hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the work force altogether. Worse, long-term unemployment, of six months or more, hit 17.5 percent. We%u2019d expect that in the depths of a recession. It is unprecedented at the onset of one.

Mr. Bush was wrong to say wages are rising. On Friday morning, the day he spoke, the government reported that wages failed to outpace inflation in February, for the fifth straight month. Productivity growth has also weakened markedly in the past two years, a harbinger of a lower overall standard of living for Americans.

Exports have surged of late, but largely on the back of a falling dollar. The weaker dollar makes American exports cheaper, but it also pushes up oil prices. Potentially far more serious, a weakening dollar also reduces the Federal Reserve%u2019s flexibility to steady the economy.

[grumpas]

So McCain is good with foreign policy?????? When are these criminal''s going to start caring about American''s?????? They have ignored the problems here at home for 7 years now. They are developing into canyons that are swallowing all of us. We are in a mess here at home. All they can do is harp on keeping the money flowing into the money pit Iraq!

[skyk-2009]

People you don''t have to be a very intelligent person to figure out that what we are and have done in Iraq is WRONG! When the President of Iran can just walk right into the country ANOUNCED, and have all these rally''s and meetings, while OUR leaders are forced to visit in SECRET and no one knowing they are there until they are "Safe" in the Green Zone? Now after 6 years and a Trillion Dollars, it would appear to me that something is NOT RIGHT and it IS NOT Al Queda... AL QUEDA is Sunni... The MAJORITY of Iraq is SHIITE!!

[prinzowhales]

Mind you, these are polls of Americans...most of whom can''t find Iraq on a map...and many of them think that the sun revolves around the earth...They are also so f--king stupid that they elected Bush to lead them twice. Who really cares what they think?--The Regime doesn''t give a fig...Americans have made themselves irrelevant in the direction that this nation is going to take by supporting a Demopublican Party that is offering them a choices of faces to lead them in the Oligarchy''s predetermined direction.

Go back to watching AMERICAN IDOL, scum! When the Demopublican Regime needs your children, they''ll send their draft notice in the post!

[brianbwb-2009]

"Even funnier, you should have looked at the White House, the Pentagon, and the CEO offices of oil and oil support service companies around America, they were also laughing." Posted by brianbwb

Don''t get me wrong, I can understand how you wouldn''t be feeling the ironic humor on the way down.

[brianbwb-2009]

"We are about to jump! We look with our binoculars to the church Obama attends. We see people looking at us laughing at us as we are about to jump to our deaths! And we cry are they the ones? Then we jump." Posted by x123123

And we, on the other side, having lost the fruits of our long labor to your prejudices, having worked much harder than you only to receive less, who put up with your supercilious "Let them eat cake" attitude for generations, do indeed laugh, and say "Jump!"

If you think that Mr. Obama''s church was a bit much to bear, you should have seen all the other homes, bars, schools, and "cardboard cities" also laughing.

Even funnier, you should have looked at the White House, the Pentagon, and the CEO offices of oil and oil support service companies around America, they were also laughing.

[greatdrivew]

McCain = war
Obama = no war

McCain = permanent military bases in Iraq
Obama = no permanent military bases in Iraq

McCain = tax dollars go to military
Obama = tax dollars go to health, education and infrastructure

McCain = continue Bush tax cuts for the rich
Obama = middle class tax cuts

McCain = NAFTA rewards slave labor? Oh well, get over it, Michigan.
Obama = NAFTA will be renegotiated to include enforceable labor and environmental standards.

McCain = pathway to citizenship
Obama = pathway to citizenship

McCain = bomb, bomb, bomb . . . bomb, bomb Iran
Obama = diplomacy not war

McCain = viewed internationally as an extension of Bush and the neocons
Obama = countries the world over are envious they don''t have a candidate like him

McCain = militaristic, control oriented and outdated
Obama = a new kind of leader

McCain = last-resort candidate of a desperate party
Obama = the People''s choice

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by x123123

I will offer an allegory. A "Black" man is kidnapped and "renditioned" to another country where he is made a slave. His children are slaves, and so on for almost 400 years.

After slavery became illegal, this "Black" person''s descendants were hung from trees, jailed on false charges, denied the use of public facilities, and to this day are still called by a racial epithet, and still denied equal consideration in almost all aspects of life, by "Whites".

When the descendants of that original victim state the obvious, that the "White"-controlled country still fears and hates and discriminates against us, as evidenced not only by history but also present fact, they are called "racist" by people like you.

You err, because your hatred towards us comes from fear and guilt, but your ego and arrogance forces you to disguise it behind ridiculous stereotyping, and our enmity towards people like yourself is a logical reaction to history and present fact.

Yes, many of us did note an ironic humor at the events, some of us laughed more than a snicker, the centuries-long history of what we still endure because of government officials who share your mentality, has given us that right, it had nothing to do with anybody''s church.

[miles1967-2009]

Apprently all of this FIRST HAND experience with foreign policy has not prepared him to be President. McCain does not have the judgment and patience to lead America. He is an ill-informed, myopic, close-minded man who is easily swayed by the bigoted religious right. Check out the result of his BRILLIANT support of the "Surge", not to mention the fatally wrong idea to go to war with Iraq in the first place, and not actually go after the 9/11 terrorists. Check this link out:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

[stn_sage]

Smirk5 makes point that conservatives may be in disagreement with Gen.Petraeus if they think sufficient progress is being made---he doesn''t!

CBS_Oliver makes point that it''s not a matter of whether things are going well, but why it''s (still) going at all!

Excellent---I agree! Finally, Mr.McCain''s Vietnam service is NOT above reproach---if---some poster is aware of/knows of information that shows it isn''t!
Whereas, I believe he deserves respect for his military service, it shouldn''t be the sole factor that qualifies him to be President!