McCain on Saturday Night Live
McCain is very good as he urges Democrats to not rush their decision, how cool it would be to leave their convention still not knowing who their candidate will be, and even saying in the interests of fairness he would be agreeable to have both Obama and Clinton on the ballot 
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Tags: Humour, John McCain, Saturday Night Live
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
bwah-ha-ha-ha.
BRILLIANT!
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:55 am
Indeed, extremely humorous. May the Donks take it seriously.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
May they not.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 am
The first constitution under George Washington and a few who followed actually did have the Vice president chosen from the runner up.
[DPF: Indeed Thomas Jefferson in 1796 was elected Vice-President to John Adams despite having stood against him. He then went on to defeat him in 1800 - a rare case of a VP standing against a P]
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Ol wooden teeth.
Of course Ben Franklin was also a spy for the British.
Thats politics.
Still McCain is doing a bang job as XO on the Galactica.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
I’m glad the man has a sense of humour, it will come in handy when he gets beat.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
If he wins you go into voluntary exile for a month.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Always great to hear from you Murray, how do you always manage to avoid the personal b*ll and concentrate like a laser on the substantive issues?
And with such wit and grace too, you truly are an example to us all!
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Accept the challenge if you have the courage of your convictions.
We’ll wait while you check a dictonary.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
heh – I didn’t know he could actually be funny. I don’t know that his smugness is justified though. Obama will mop the floor with him. Aside from being a much more inspiring speaker, Obama’s youth and party affiliation fits message of change, and that’s where the American electorate’s at. McCain is the opposite in all those respects. Expect to see the photo of him in an intimate embrace with Bush, to be rolled out over and over during the election campaign.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I see that Senator McCains campaign has announced that they’ll release the candidates medical records on the Friday night of a holiday weekend. That hardly sounds encouraging . . .
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
roger, presumably you mean the photos will be rolled out by the Obama campaign…
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I see Murray still thinks people should take his ravings at all seriously.
How about if Obama wins you stop being such a nincompoop?
Sorry, asking the impossible.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Obama is a great speaker and is of course younger. His policies on the other hand are less appealing (to me anyway). I just hope if he makes it, he has some great advisors.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
yay, several posts of counter-insults. Looking forward to it guys!
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
As much as I hate to admit it, in this case Roger may be correct. Obama would be a clear winner over McCain come election time.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
yes, good luck to Obama on trying to about-face on banning all chinese toy imports…
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Aside from being a much more inspiring speaker, Obama’s youth and party affiliation fits message of change, and that’s where the American electorate’s at.
No that is where the Democratic party members are at.
Expect to see the photo of him in an intimate embrace with Bush, to be rolled out over and over during the election campaign.
And expect to see a picture of Obama dressed as in Somali Islamist garb and pictures of his campaign office proadly displaying not the Stars and Strips, but the Cuban flag with Che Guevera’s mug on it.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I don’t think robes are “Islamist’ garb” – it’s just traditional desert-wear. Anyway, its been done…
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I don’t think robes are “Islamist’ garb” – it’s just traditional desert-wear. Anyway, its been done…
Im sure Senator Barrack HUSSEIN Obama will not be hurt by it then stephen.
Note: My posts are just giving examples of what type on info will be used if the Dems get dirty, and they can’t bitch and moan when the GOP take their gloves off too. Expect to see pictures of Obama listening to the National Anthem while everyone else has their hand on heart, expect to see video of his wife saying “I’ve never been proud of my country”.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Stephen:
“roger, presumably you mean the photos will be rolled out by the Obama campaign”
Not necessarily. The media tends to do it independently. The Daily show in particular takes great glee in repeatedly showing that photo.
On the other side of the coin McCain has fox news on his side, which will do the personal attack politics for him – making much of the fact that Obama went to a Muslim-dominated school when he was very young – etc…
But I expect to see the influence of Fox news decline over the campaign. They have in effect poisoned their own well with their superficial personal-attack focus, and now Obama simply won’t speak to any of their presenters/reporters.
DPF:
“His policies on the other hand are less appealing”
Which aspects? I know it’s a flawed methodology, but the political compass places Obama at roughly the same place as the NZ National Party. By some measurements wealth inequality has doubled in America over the last 40 years – and society has become much more divided and violent as a result of it. Surely a small swing back toward the center can’t hurt.
On foreign policy he’s pretty moderate. He has been endorsed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a pragmatist who has worked in the Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Regan, Bush1 and Clinton administrations as an intelligence/foreign-affairs adviser. He has an uncanny ability to read the geo-strategic situation accurately. – i.e. he’s said to have been the chief architect of the “Afghanistan Trap” – which ended up being a key strategic victory for the US in the cold war, and he supported de-escalation in Vietnam much earlier than most (he understood that communism was much different from the Third Reich, in that Nations who came under its banner were much more able to take an independent direction – so there wasn’t in fact a struggle of a communist block against a capitalist block, but a US-block against a rather limited Soviet block.
Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq he warned that it would be a strategic blunder – which it obviously has been.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I agree Tom. I look forward to more contributions like that from you in the future
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Obama was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox, April 27.
This came after two years of boycotts of Fox News in order to placate the Moveon.org fanatics. Looks like his re-positioning has started.
As you would expect he handled himself fairly well.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Ah nome, only you would agree with empty words.
I though Obama was more protectionist than pro free trade which is hardly the National Party view
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Heh
Yeah – well I keep trying to use the image tag and this site just will not accept it despite various test sites doing so!!!
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Tom – Fox are the real fanatics. Their slavish devotion to the neo-cons’ Iraq adventure (until recently when they discovered that 80% of the US public were in disagreement with them), and the raving lunatics that pass for “reporters” (i.e. O’Reilly) show this.
“I though Obama was more protectionist than pro free trade”
Bush has been pretty protectionist as well. Also, the US arguably benefits from its existing tariffs, because it already has a massive trade deficit, and doesn’t need any more of its capital flying to Asia.
Also – the degree of wealth redistribution and/or socialisation is the primary measure in determining where one lies on the left-right continuum. I don’t think Obama’s policy is so different to National’s there. Although I’m open to being proven wrong.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Rather reminds me of Winston Peter’s longtime boycott of the Holmes Show. Personally I thought Holmes always was crap TV, but the fact was he had a huge share of the audience and Peter was nuts to ignore that.
It’s the same deal with Fox for Obama, as it was for Hillary when she finally decided to turn up there for an interview a few weeks ago.
Clark appearing several years ago on that TV3 talking puppet show though……….. I’d put that at the other end of the PR-stupid scale.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Chronic, if McCain wins you don’t comment on DPF’s for a month.
If he loses I wont comment on DPF’s for a month.
Do have any testies at all or are you just a wind bag socialist.
Put up or shut up.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Roger Nome
Shooting fish in a barrel time.
“making much of the fact that Obama went to a Muslim-dominated school when he was very young” … Fox made so much of this that 24 hours later, realising their mistake, they retracted their story …nice try.
“Obama simply won’t speak to any of their presenters/reporters.” – Obama was interviewed by Chris Wallace recently. The sky did not fall down although the conniption register at Huff Po and DKos went through the roof.
“but the political compass places Obama at roughly the same place as the NZ National Party” … joke of the week surely. He’s been rated by National Journal, a non partisan group, as having THE most liberal voting record in the Senate last year. Obama blocked the passage of the IL State version of the Infant Born Alive Protection Act (compelling doctors to keep alive any infant who survives what are called partial birth abortions). It passed the US Senate unanimously and by voice vote only in the House (very rare). State legislatures across the US passed State versions of this law mostly unanimously or by massive lopsided bi-partisan margins. Obama used his power on the IL Senate Health Committee to prevent the IL version of IBAPA from even being voted on because he thought it might impede on a woman’s right to choose and it could not be passed until he left to become US Senator for IL. Every pro-abortion Senator voted for the IBAPA, even PLanned Parenthood had the sense to shut up. Obama placed himself fartherest to the left than any legislator IN THE ENTIRE USA. Those are not the actions of an ideological moderate.
A moderate foreign policy – what meet Castro, Kim Jong Ill, Ahmajinedad and Chevez…in his first year in office….WITHOUT PRECONDITIONS!! Wait …. his stance is now shifting by the day. He will now make sure there are adequate preparations before these meetings. Brzezinski a ‘moderate’. Oh yes thats right Jimmy Carter’s right hand man leading to a plethora of foreign policy disasters. Carter kisses Brezhnev and says he can do business with him and Brezhnev invades Afganistan. Carter thinks Ayatollah Komanei is a thoughtful reformer, allows his Islamic radicals to take power and then faces not only the humiliation of the hostage crisis but the world has had to live with Iranian meddling in Syria, Lebanon, Palestianian terror groups and Iraq ever since and that’s BEFORE they started to brag about wiping out Israel. Carter of course now thinks he’s a one man diplomatic miracle worker. He meets Kim Jong in NKo and negotiates the so-called Agreed Upon framework and presto, 8 years later, NKo has nukes. He goes to Israel and meets Hamas who still have as their official policy to wipe Israel out and still they refuse to renounce terror. Carter never met a terrorist he didn’t want to coddle up to.
“Bush has been pretty protectionist as well” – Bush supports an FTA with Columbia, Obama opposes it (with Chavez cheering Obama on). Bush supported NAFTA, Obama opposes it (only for now – nudge nudge wink wink as his advisor told the Canadian Consulate in Chicago).
Obama has been trying to claim a McCain Presidency would be a GW Bush 3rd term when in reality, he is campaigning for Jimmy Carter’s 2nd term!
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Murray: “We’ll wait while you check a dictonary.”
Bwahahahaha!
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
KIA – None of the evidence you report challenge any of my substantive points. Fox will run superficial and vacuous attacks against Obama.
The fact the Obama is “far left” in the states places him in the centre right in NZ (the National Party would be “far left” in the US).
“Carter kisses Brezhnev and says he can do business with him and Brezhnev invades Afganistan”
Too superficial. Carter’s team lured the Soviets into Afghanistan by sponsoring the Pakistani Mujahideen to fight the Soviet-friendly Afghani administration. The world of politics goes beneath what the media presents to you. Carter talked the pacifist talk, but you’d be ignorant if you think he put it into action.
“Carter … allows Islamic radicals to take power”
So every time a regime that the US doesn’t like comes to power they just invade? Now we all know how that approach works out.
“that’s BEFORE they started to brag about wiping out Israel.”
The correct translation is “we want the Israeli administration eradicated”. I doubt he would have been saying that about the moderate and pragmatic Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin – who was assassinated by the kind of right wing radical that now controls Israel.
Anyway, Iran could never “wipe out Israel” – The Israelis don’t even need second-strike capability. They have the US to provide that.
“Iranian meddling in Syria, Lebanon, Palestianian terror groups and Iraq ever since”
But that’s what states do. It’s called geopolitics. In any case, the Shah would have been toppled no matter what the US did. He was extremely unpopular.
As to the Hostage crisis – that would have happened no matter what as well. The only way Regan was able to resolve it was through promising to pay exorbitant amount of money for some missiles in an illegal deal (the Iran-Contra scandal).
Also – in the 1950s Arab states were tending toward nationalist secular democracies (Egypt and Iran) – it’s only since Iran’s democracy was toppled in a CIA controlled coup, and America with Israel has generally attempted to assert hegemony over the middle east that the radicals have regained power.
The truth is the US has done very little to facilitate democracy in the Middle East over the last 60 years.
“He will now make sure there are adequate preparations before these meetings.”
So he will attempt to forge peace instead of pissing everyone off. What an idiot!
“Bush supports an FTA with Columbia, Obama opposes it (with Chavez cheering Obama on). Bush supported NAFTA, Obama opposes it (only for now – nudge nudge wink wink as his adviser told the Canadian Consulate in Chicago).”
What are the details of those agreements? Has Obama pledged to dismantle NAFTA or does he just propose to stop its expansion (probably a good thing for environmental regulations).
In any case as I’ve said above many of the trade protections could be good for the US economy.
So after all of that you’ve yet to provide me with one reason to think that Obama is more left-wing than Labour-lite National.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Also, KIA:
Giving women choice is an issue of liberalism versus conservatism, not economic left or right. You seem to be confused.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
………..He [Brzezinski] has an uncanny ability to read the geo-strategic situation accurately. – i.e. he’s said to have been the chief architect of the “Afghanistan Trap”
As far as I’m aware the only one who has ‘said’ this was the old grouch himself in an interview with a French magazine a few years ago. Not surprising because, as KIA points out, it’s about the only foreign policy ‘success’ that the Carter administration can chalk up, uncanny-geo-strategic –reading-abilities not withstanding.
In any case it’s interesting that such a Cold War relic can be having such input (and influence???) with a man whose campaign is being solidly supported by so many left-wingers who use that very “trap” as yet another example of where the US went wrong in dealing with Afghanistan. Perhaps all the angry accusations of “blowback” raised in opposition to Bush’s 2001 invasion of that country were insincere?
Too superficial. Carter’s team lured the Soviets into Afghanistan by sponsoring the Pakistani Mujahideen to fight the Soviet-friendly Afghani administration. The world of politics goes beneath what the media presents to you. Carter talked the pacifist talk, but you’d be ignorant if you think he put it into action…..
One of the many rhetorical devices you use so shamelessly is this implication that everybody else is just going by media presentation whereas you have access to the truth – even while you put forward an endless stream of far-left myths.
Carter’s team did not “lure” the Soviets into Afghanistan at all. The CIA, State Department and the rest of the Administration (and to be fair, probably the entire US political establishment) were barely aware of the place in the 1970’s.
What should be remembered, just to put the dates right, is that a battalion of Soviet troops had already landed in the country in July 1979. Moreover, that this had been preceded in April with an ‘inspection’ tour by a group of senior Soviet officers, led by a General Yepishev, the officer in charge of ideology, morale, and discipline in the Soviet army, whose visit to Czechoslovakia during the “Prague spring” of 1968 was apparently decisive in persuading the Politburo to intervene on that occasion.
But even further back than this was the April 1978 coup by the Afghan military, which by then contained 3700 officers trained in the USSR. The coup deposed then President Daoud, who had been a major politician since the early 1950’s and had built up friendly relations with the USSR, and replaced him with Afghanistan’s very own communist party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).
The PDPA immediately started antagonising every Afghan group possible with forced modernization, expropriation of property, murder and imprisonment without due process. The result was that resistance groups had appeared by the end of 1978 and in March 1979 they took over the city of Herat, aided by a defecting unit of the Afghan army. The revolt was suppressed of course, but not before the Soviet advisers in the city (and their families) were brutally murdered.
The point about all this is that the facts demonstrate that the USSR was up to it’s armpits in Afghanistan not just six months before the Christmas 1979 invasion but years before. Furthermore it was well known that reactions to the Soviets (and the Afghan communists) were spreading fast among ordinary people long before the US even knew or cared about what was going on. This is not uncommon knowledge among journalists and academics.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
The correct translation is “we want the Israeli administration eradicated”.
And in a democracy it’s quite possible to “eradicate” an administration without eradicating it’s voters – especially if you’re an external power – right?
As to the Hostage crisis – that would have happened no matter what as well. The only way Regan was able to resolve it was through promising to pay exorbitant amount of money for some missiles in an illegal deal (the Iran-Contra scandal).
Sigh – wrong hostage crisis. The 1979 hostages in Iran were negotiated out by Carter, with the Iranians twisting the knife by making sure they were not released until the very second Carter ceased being president. This so that he would not even be able to stand there as President welcoming them home: much as I dislike Carter that was a very telling piece of symbolism in making him appear as even more of a eunuch than normal.
The hostages you are referring to were ones taken in the Lebanon in the mid-1980’s – Reagan foolishly thought the Iranians could help him get them back by acting as middleman with the various Shiite terrorist groups there. There’s no evidence now that they ever lifted a finger to help and this should be something to keep in mind when yet another President thinks he can do business with the Iranian mullahs.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
“Sigh – wrong hostage crisis. The 1979 hostages in Iran were negotiated out by Carter”
Sigh, no they were negotiated out by Regan’s team before Carter was ousted. Know your history.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
“What should be remembered, just to put the dates right, is that a battalion of Soviet troops had already landed in the country in July 1979.”
No, the CIA were in Pakistan well before 1979 funding the Mujahideen to fight in Afganistan. Know you history.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
“In any case it’s interesting that such a Cold War relic can be having such input (and influence???) with a man whose campaign is being solidly supported by so many left-wingers”
Not really. He’s a moderate, who has been advocating for withdrawal from Iraq for some time now.
“who use that very “trap” as yet another example of where the US went wrong in dealing with Afghanistan.”
Well, in terms of short-term geo-strategy it was obviously a success. I think the Soviet empire would have fallen apart by itself though. Economic stagnation and internal nationalist struggles for self determination would have brought that about sooner or later. But obviously US policy was designed to make sure the US retained and extend its super-power status.
“Perhaps all the angry accusations of “blowback” raised in opposition to Bush’s 2001 invasion of that country were insincere?”
Not at all. The CIA, through the ISI created that monster, and to some degree they maintain it through funneling around $100 million a year to the dictator in Pakistan. Obama wants more of the money to go to democratic movements in Pakistan. A vast improvement over Bush i’d say.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Oh God
The only way Regan was able to resolve it was through promising to pay exorbitant amount of money for some missiles in an illegal deal (the Iran-Contra scandal).
In that paragraph you are quite clearly referring to the mid-1980′s hostage situation in the Lebanon. That was the seed of Iran-Contra.
In the next response you’re referring to the “October Surprise” of six years earlier: a conspiracy theory that was bandied about for bloody years after the 1980 election. But the argument there is that the Reagan team was negotiating to KEEP the hostages in Iran, not release them, in order to obtain the maximum political advantage at home! Countless studies by bi-partisan commissions (who surely would have loved to kneecap Reagan in his first term) never found one damn bit of evidence of this conspiracy.
The most that has ever been plausibly suggested is that Carter had finally got over the horror of the botched rescue mission and ordered a second one set up – with the understanding that he probably could not pull the trigger but that Reagan would! That I find plausible – perhaps the Iranians did too. But it was Carter’s people, with some European diplomats helping, that did the negotiating.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Also – in the 1950s Arab states were tending toward nationalist secular democracies (Egypt and Iran) – it’s only since Iran’s democracy was toppled in a CIA controlled coup, and America with Israel has generally attempted to assert hegemony over the middle east that the radicals have regained power.
Only? Mossadegh certainly was toppled in the usual 1950’s US covert tactic. But even as that happened Nassar’s star was on the rise in Egypt, as were similar nationalist secular leaders in Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, with both of the latter being the socialist Baath Party.
One of the major reasons that Islamic radicals have regained power was that those nationalist secularists failed in almost every conceivable way. By the late 1960’s it was obvious even to Nassar that all his grand plans for a society of vastly increased living standards, with all the accompanying military, cultural and diplomatic power, had failed. And in the case of booting the Jews into the sea in 1967, spectacularly so. He died as a mere ghost of the charismatic figure he had been in the 1950’s, and largely despised by his own people.
With no further ideas as to how to improve their societies all of these socialist groups turned to simple repression, aided in the case of Iraq by having lots of oil, a piece of luck denied Egypt and Syria. That repression, far more than any US-Israeli hegemony has been another primary reason for the rise of the radical Islamic groups. They provide – or at least appear to provide – the answers the old socialist system do not.
But the final major reason has been the funding of these groups by Saudi Arabia, even as the US tugs it’s forelock to them, and the rise of the Islamic movement in the nation-state of Iran, with all its funding and training of these groups.
Which brings us to this last point…..
The truth is the US has done very little to facilitate democracy in the Middle East over the last 60 years.
On that I would agree – up to 2003. Which was why I was so pissed off at Bush 41 for not going down the highway to Baghdad in 1991, even as I grudgingly accepted the pragmatic reasons for not doing so.
But Brzezinski, described by you as a ‘moderate’, is very much a part of that whole tradition. The tradition that, according to the post-colonialist historians, directly led to the current situation in the Middle East. The cold-war, realpolitik tradition of Nixon and Kissinger that funded, and continues to fund, the likes of Mubarak to the tune of $2 billion a year, and lets the Saudi’s get away with all this shit in the vain hope that somehow they’ll survive the Islamists.
That’s his primary reason for advocating withdrawal from Iraq, and why he was opposed to invasion in the first place. Because he really does not give a shit about the people of Iraq. Because he’s into “geo-politics”. His attitude always was to keep the strong men in power, because who knew what might happen if they went. That may have been a rational, if amoral attitude in the Cold War. It has no place in the modern world and it can be argued that it actually made things worse, at least in the Middle East. The fact the Obama comes from an idealogical position that has made exactly those arguments points to strange disconnect in his campaign if he has someone like Brzezinski.
Those strong men may not survive, they’ve usually fallen, especially in the case of Egypt, which I would pick as a far greater worry than Pakistan for such an Islamist takeover. What worth Carter’s peace treaty between Israel and Egypt then?
And while funding democratic movements in Pakistan or Egypt, or any of those other places may sound good, how will it sound to the people in those countries? Are they really going to differentiate between that and older forms of US interference like the 1953 coup just because the Obam administration claim good intentions?
Then there is the classic possibility of the ‘evil wrought by good men’, which is to say that it could well be, after the democratic movements topple a regime like Mubarak’s, that they in turn fall prey to the Islamists they partnered with. That is exactly what happened during the 1978/79 revolution in Iran. I suggest you read Among The Believers by V.S. Naipaul for a sad and sombre look at that occurrence from eye-witnesses.
In other words, all these approaches, which have been tried to greater and lesser degrees, may actually be as risky and dangerous as – say – invading Iraq. I can only hope that Obama, should he win, will be up to riding those tigers, because charm and eloquence don’t go far in those situations.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Nome
As an aside – I’m not the one dropping your karma!!!!
May 24th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Roger Nome
“Fox will run superficial and vacuous attacks against Obama.” – and the New York Times will continue to run attacks on McCain based on unsubstantiated rumour and innuendo. The MSM will pounce on any slight gaffe by McCain especially any that can support the “too old” or “bad temper” memes. Of course Obama saying there are 57 States, or failing to remember the name or any of the issues surrounding Washington State’s famous nuclear waste site (an issue McCain recently discussed publicly in depth) or claiming Afganistan needed more Arabic translators when they dont speak Arabic there. Chirping crickets for CNN, the big 3 networks on these gaffes but had they been said by McCain, they’d be front and centre.
Your argument about Obama vs National ideologically is irrelevant. Even if you are right, it merely underscores how far to the left the political spectrum is in NZ (something of great comfort to you and a reason why I no longer live there). But more significantly, since this your original post effectively was boosting about Obama’s amazing electibility, it is where Obama sits in the US political spectrum which is further to the left of any successfully Democrat candidate for President and further to the left than Dukakis, McGovern, Mondale and Kerry who all….lost.
But some comparisons on policy are relevant.
National is very much in favour of FTAs – Obama opposes them.
National supports tax cuts – Obama plans the largest tax increase in US history (cancelling the Bush tax cuts, reintroducing death duties and almost doubling the capital gains tax).
National supports some private sector involvement in the health sector thus moving health policy slightly in a rightward or more market direction – Obama is heading in the opposite direction towards the full socialisation of US medical provision.
From a personal ideology point of view, I doubt that John Key would’ve failed to vote for a IBAPA look-a-like in NZ had such an issue come before the NZ Parliament. Obama sits alone out in left field on that. I doubt that John Key would’ve chosen to launch his political career in the home of unrepentant terrorists. I doubt that John Key would’ve sat for one minute in the pews of a church whose preacher vilified Israel, supported Louis Farrakhan and his trips to Libya, said God damned New Zealand and claimed that the NZ government deliberately infected Maori with AIDS.
Tom Hunter has ‘fisked’ you on the foreign policy stuff quite nicely.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:58 am
so k.i.a..you left new zealand because we weren’t rightwing enough for you..
..now you have obama about to drag america back to the centre..
..wither k.i.a..?
..where’s a rabid rightie to flee to now..?
(italys’ just lurched to the right..and is going nuke..
…maybe..?)
and ..how about a laff..?..k.i.a..?
..do tell us again how old man mccain is going to do/attempt a canute..
..and stop the obama tide from coming in..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
May 24th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Christ the gibbering buffoon is on day release again.
May 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
that muzza and his tautologies..!..
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)