All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Sen. John McCain praised President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan Tuesday night, but staunchly opposed any effort to set a date for withdrawing U.S. forces.

McCain, R-Ariz., said that Obama "made the right decision to have a properly resourced counterinsurgency strategy" and that the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops plus an unspecified number of new NATO troops "are sufficient to get the job done."

But McCain, speaking with "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric following Mr. Obama's speech on Afghan strategy, said repeatedly that he disagrees with what he called "an arbitrary date for withdrawal." The Vietnam veteran often used the same phrase in reference to the war in Iraq, including during his campaign against Obama for the presidency last year.

"Success is what dictates dates for withdrawal and if we don't have that success and we only set an arbitrary date, it emboldens our enemies and disspirits our friends," McCain said.

To be clear, Mr. Obama has not set a date for withdrawal from Afghanistan. In his address to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy Tuesday, he said that the addition of U.S. and international troops will "allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." But, the president added, "just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground."

Read full post…

Updated at 4:55 p.m. ET with comments from Sen. Carl Levin on a war supplemental.

Anticipating the increased troop levels in Afghanistan President Obama is expected to announce tonight, lawmakers are floating various ways to pay for the ongoing war.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) today suggested the idea of selling war bonds to pay for sending troops to Afghanistan, reports CBS News Capitol Hill Producer John Nolen.

"Some people jumped right out and said you need a war tax, and I said wow, we didn't have a war tax in the Second World War," Nelson said. "The fact that we had bonds, war bonds, and people invested in their country in that fashion made a lot of sense back then. I don't know why it might not make sense today, certainly in lieu of jumping to tax."

Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has called for a tax on the rich to help pay for the troop increase, but the idea has been dismissed by some as politically infeasible.

The federal government sold war bonds during World War II, using celebrities and radio campaigns to persuade people to buy them to finance the war effort. Hundreds of millions of bonds were issued -- and in fact, many were unclaimed. The government is currently sitting on $17 billion in unclaimed war bonds, the Washington Post reports.

Read full post…

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, could face a strong primary challenge in his 2010 reelection effort: A new Rasmussen Reports poll finds McCain in a virtual tie with a conservative Phoenix radio host and former Congressman J.D. Hayworth.

Hayworth has expressed interest in running against McCain, but he has not announced that he will do so. The former Congressman got 43 percent support in the survey of likely Republican primary voters, while McCain got 45 percent. Four percent went to former Minutemen leader Chris Simcox.

McCain leads among the state's Republican women, while Hayworth leads among men.

Rasmussen points out that a September poll found that while 75 percent of Republican primary voters expect McCain to win the nomination, 61 percent feel he has lost touch with the members of his party.

Nearly three in four Republicans nationwide say elected Republicans in Congress have lost touch with party members.

As for McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, Rasmussen has found that 59 percent of Republican voters say she shares the values of Republicans nationwide.

Read full post…

A number of retired military generals who now work for private defense firms are still advising the military -- with no obligation to disclose their ties to the defense contractors to the government, according to a report from USA Today published Wednesday. That needs to change, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the newspaper in an interview published today.

USA Today's investigation found that 80 percent of the retired generals and admirals who now serve as "senior mentors" for the military have financial ties to defense contractors. Not only are they not obligated to report those ties, the senior mentors are also exempt from ethics rules that apply to part-time federal employees because they are hired as independent contractors.

McCain told the newspaper that those paid by defense contractors should be barred from mentoring at war games that present a conflict of interest. Furthermore, he said, they should have to disclose their financial ties.

"I'm sure most of them would have no problem with that," he said. "The important thing is that they avoid the appearance of conflict."

McCain is the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Two Democratic senators on the committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Jim Webb of Virginia, also said there should be new disclosure rules. Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), chair of the defense subcommittee for the House Appropriations Committee, said he has asked the Defense Department to immediately provide his panel with justification and criteria for the work of the "senior mentor" program.

The ties between the public and private sectors go beyond the military. The Huffington Post points to a 2004 study that found 291 former high-ranking government officials serving as lobbyists, board members or executives at contracting firms that benefit from federal contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Read full post…

Sen. John McCain defended his 2008 presidential campaign staff today against the attacks lobbed at them from Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue."

In an interview with Reuters, McCain praised his campaign manager Steve Schmidt and campaign adviser Nicolle Wallace. Palin, McCain's 2008 running mate, criticized both in her book.

"There's been a lot of dust flying around in the last few days, and I just wanted to mention that I have the highest regard for Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace and the rest of the team," McCain said. "I think it's just time to move on."

Wallace said Palin's claims about her are not true and said the book is "based on fabrications."

Other members of McCain's campaign staff have disputed the stories from Palin's book. Additionally, factual errors and discrepancies in Palin's claims have come to light since excerpts of the book were released. Earlier this week, McCain said Palin was wrong about a $50,000 bill she claimed to have received for the vice presidential vetting process.

Despite the controversy, McCain told Reuters, "I'm still really proud of her and the campaign she ran, and I think it's pretty obvious that she has a substantial base and interest out there." The interest in her book, he said, showed "the strength of the base" of the Republican Party.

Read full post…

Despite the fact that Sarah Palin uses her new book to air her grievances with John McCain's presidential campaign team, McCain reportedly said he enjoyed reading Palin's book.

"I hope she sells lots of them," McCain told the Hill newspaper.

Palin, who served as McCain's vice presidential running mate in the 2008 presidential election, accuses the McCain staff of micro-managing her and keeping her from the press, among other things.

Some members of McCain's campaign staff have disputed her claims, and factual errors from her book have come to light, as well as discrepancies in her claims.

McCain has largely stayed out of the debate over the veracity of Palin's claims, but he told the Hill that it was untrue that she was sent a $50,000 legal bill to pay for the vice presidential vetting process. He said the bill was in fact to pay for legal fees related to the "Troopergate" investigation into an alleged abuse of power by Palin.

"That was over the troopergate," McCain said, referring to the investigation into Palin's attempts to fire her ex-brother-in-law, state Trooper Mike Wooten.

Read full post…

Sarah Palin's new autobiography "Going Rogue" has recieved its share of media attention as well as a fair amount of criticism for including discrepancies with her own and her former campaign aides stories. CBS News' Scott Conroy, Republican Strategist Matt Mackoviac and the Huffington Post's Sam Stein debated these contradictions on "Washington Unplugged" Tuesday.

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein recieved emails from former McCain aides which contradict some of Palin's claims in the book. "It's minor stuff but it gets to the credibility gap that is sort of plaguing Sarah Palin right now," he told moderator Nancy Cordes.

One such e-mail disproves Palin's argument in "Going Rogue" that she was shielded from the press by the McCain campaign at large, campaign director Steve Schmidt specifically. On whether to appear on "Saturday Night Live," an e-mail from Schmidt shows Palin was hesitant because of the content of the sketch show and Schmidt says "do it if you want, don't do it if you don't."

"In the book she describes it much differently. She says that she was gung ho on the idea and that she was the one who had to convince Schmidt to do it," Stein explained.

Scott Conroy, co-author of "Sarah from Alaska" has also been fact checking "Going Rogue."

"From the reporting that we have done for our book. We reported for eight months. We had 190 interviews for our book. There is a lot of stuff in there that does not match up with what Sarah Palin has been saying and some of it is provably false," Conroy explained, noting Palin's claim that her stylist also worked with Katie Couric. "That is just one example that can demonstrably be proven false and does not really help Sarah Palin in her efforts to win this 'he said she said' battle with the McCain folks."

Read full post…

Former Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is one of the most polarizing figures in politics today. Love her or hate her, when Sarah Palin speaks, people pay attention.

New revelations about her life from the campaign that made her an overnight sensation are now coming to light in a new book, "Sarah from Alaska," jointly authored by CBS News' own Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe.

The book, based on the two authors' experience covering the campaign from within Palin's inner circle, shines a unique light on the new Republican superstar's meteoric rise.

Click here for an exclusive excerpt from "Sarah from Alaska"

Conroy tells CBS "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith that he and Walshe bore witness to a "remarkable internal war" between Palin's staff and that of her boss, former Presidential Candidate John McCain.

Walshe tells Smith that McCain's campaign leaders were "terrified that she would embarrass John McCain, even after the campaign had officially ended."

Another revelation in the book; the authors allege that Palin didn't tell her daughters she was running for vice president, instead leaving it to a staffer to deliver the news.

Read full post…

Sen. John McCain said the White House was dragging its feet on the decision to increase troop levels and chided President Barack Obama for the delay, saying "it's time to act."

"We watch this situation continue to deteriorate while this long protracted process of decision-making goes on. We're not operating in a vacuum. The president of the United States needs to make this decision and soon," McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS' "The Early Show." (Watch the video at left)

Violence continues to flare up in that country as the president mulls whether to send the additional 40,000 troops recommended by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed responsibility for 12 more deaths Wednesday, including one American, after gunmen stormed a U.N. complex in Kabul. U.S. troop deaths earlier this week made October the deadliest month for American forces since the 2001 invasion.

But McCain said the spike in violence, believed tied to Afghanistan's upcoming runoff election, should not dissuade Mr. Obama from authorizing the troop increase.

"Yes, it's a heavy responsibility. But to drag that responsibility out and that process out is not helpful to our effort," he said.

Read full post…

Yesterday, the Internet was in a tizzy over a revealing picture that Meghan McCain, daughter of senator and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, posted of herself on Twitter.

A quick recap: On Wednesday night, McCain posted the photo saying she was having a "'spontaneous' night in" with "my Andy Warhol biography and takeout."

The photo quickly spread around the Web, with supporters and detractors weighing in on the snapshot. It generated so much buzz, in fact, that it reached the top of Google Trends for a time both yesterday and today (with "balloon boy" taking up the time in between).

Late Thursday night, McCain herself responded to the interest and the uproar with a post on the Daily Beast, where she is a regular columnist, entitled: "Don't Call Me a Slut."

Read full post…