Tag Archives: John McCain

national news

Obama a sexist? That's a good one

Barack Obama has been called a lot of things during his time as president of the United States.

Socialist. Islamic terrorist sympathizer. Kenyan. Weak-kneed liberal. Un-American.

What else? I guess those are some of the worst epithets hurled at him … mostly from politicians and talking heads associated with Republicans.

Now comes this. From a Democratic U.S. senator, Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

The president is a sexist.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/sherrod-brown-barack-obama-gender-role-elizabeth-warren-spat-117866.html?hp=b1_l1

Brown didn’t like the way Obama lectured Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., over her opposition to the fast-track trade deal the president favors with a dozen Asian nations.

The president was being “disrespectful” of Warren, Brown said.

Here’s how Politico reports it: When asked how Obama was being disrespectful of the Massachusetts Democrat, Brown replied: “I think by just calling her ‘another politician.’” He continued, “I’m not going to get into more details. I think referring to her as first name, when he might not have done that for a male senator, perhaps? I’ve said enough.”

The dreaded “first name” reference is a sure sign of “disrespect,” according to Brown.

He needs to listen to audio conversations the president has had with many members of both legislative branches, members of both genders. He routinely calls people by their first name. There was that notable exchange during a White House budget negotiation early in his presidency when Obama lectured “John” on his concerns about how to come to a budget deal. “John” was none other than Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., who kept referring to Obama as “Mr. President.”

I agree that Barack Obama perhaps ought to reciprocate in these public exchanges with fellow politicians who adhere to using the courtesy title of “Mr. President” when addressing him. Use of the word “senator” or “congressman” or “congresswoman” would return the respect they show him.

However, it’s foolish to suggest that Sen. Warren’s gender makes it easier for this president to be “disrespectful” in the way he scolds those with whom he disagrees.

I’m waiting now for Sen. Brown to tell us what happened when his office phone rang. “Senator, the president is on the line for you. Hello, Sherrod … ?”

 

business news, national news, political news

Welcome aboard, Carly Fiorina

The Republican Party’s presidential field has grown by one — or maybe it’s two — candidate.

Carly Fiorina is running for president next year. She is citing her business experience as the reason for electing her.

She knows the ins and outs of the economy, she says.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-former-ceo-fiorina-enters-white-house-race/ar-BBj9cdO

I’m your woman, Fiorina notes.

Is she? Well, she served as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, the giant techno-firm. Then the company got into some financial trouble. It merged with Compaq and the HP board decided Fiorina was leading the company in the wrong direction, or something like that.

She was forced to resign.

Fiorina, though, portrays her tenure at HP as a success, although it’s a bit of a reach to come to that conclusion. The company jettisoned a lot of jobs. Still, the says the company’s stock value grew during her time in the HP driver’s seat.

Her political career? She was a key adviser to Sen. John McCain in 2008 during the GOP nominee’s losing bid for the presidency. Fiorina then ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010 … and lost that race too.

Oh, but she says she’s not a “professional politician.” Actually, she is, by virtue of her running now for elective office for the second time in five years. Hey, I’m not quibbling, just stating what I understand to be the definition of the term “politician.”

Fiorina’s personal story is gripping. She’s a cancer survivor and she has endured the tragedy of losing a stepdaughter to drug abuse. Those events surely have steeled her for the tough campaign that awaits.

I heard this morning that Ben Carson is about to join the Republican field, so he’s going to take a bit of the attention away from Fiorina, whose poll numbers are pretty low as it is.

I’m now going to wait for her Republican debate opponents to ask her to explain how her checkered business record commends her for the job of running a multitrillion-dollar enterprise called The Federal Government.

 

national news, political news

Cruz the Hawk a no-show at Armed Services

You hear about this occasionally.

U.S. senators or House members take office and immediately become what’s known as “show horses,” not workhorses. A young Illinois Democratic senator, Barack Obama, demonstrated little interest in the nuts and bolts of legislating before launching his bid for the presidency. Flash back to the mid-1960s, and another young Democratic senator from New York, the late Robert Kennedy, showed equally little interest in these matters — unlike his kid brother, Ted, who became one of the Senate’s legislative giants.

So, what gives with Ted Cruz, the Republican from Texas, who’s also running for president?

He’s a serious hawk on defense, but he’s rung up the worst attendance record by far on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/ted-cruz-2016-armed-services-committee-attendance-116522.html?hp=lc2_4

While the young senator has been MIA at the panel’s hearings, many of his colleagues are settling in to do the people’s business. Several of them have perfect attendance. Others have been called away on other official business; Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., missed a key hearing because he was part of a U.S. delegation sent to Saudi Arabia to honor the late Saudi King Abdullah.

Back to the man I like to refer to as the Cruz Missile.

Sure, he’s running for president. These campaigns gobble up a lot of lawmakers’ time. However, just as it matters for all the individuals who’ve run for president before, it matters now for Sen. Cruz.

Is he going to do what he’s getting paid to do, which is study, debate and vote on key issues affecting his country and the state he represents? Or is he going to remain absent from his day job while pursuing another office down the street from the one he already occupies?

 

military news, national news, Uncategorized

Finally! A clarification of 'natural-born citizen'

Where were these fellows, say, in 2007, 2008 and for most of Barack Obama’s first term a president of the United States?

Two former solicitors general of the United States have settled — in my mind, at least — the issue that polluted the political atmosphere until the time Obama was re-elected in November 2012. They’ve defined the term “natural born citizen” as stated in the U.S. Constitution.

http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/03/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/

Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, writing for the Harvard Law Review, say with virtually zero reservation that “natural  born citizen” applies to anyone who becomes an American immediately upon  birth, irrespective of where that birth occurred. At issue is whether that circumstances affects the qualifications of anyone seeking to run for president. Is that constitutionally qualified yes? Katyal and Clement say “yes.”

The issue has been discussed at times. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona before Arizona became a state. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a U.S. territory. George Romney was born in Mexico. Ted Cruz was born in Canada. Three of those men already have run for president; Cruz is expected to run for the 2016 Republican nomination.

All four men were U.S. citizens upon birth. Goldwater’s parents were citizens, as were McCain’s and Romney’s. Cruz’s mother is an American. Therefore, that qualifies them to hold the highest office in the land.

Oh, and what about Barack Obama?

Remember all that baloney about whether he was constitutionally qualified, that he was born in Kenya and that, according to the yahoos who sought to make a big deal out of his birthplace? Katyal and Clement say none of that mattered one little bit.

Obama’s mother was an American, which meant he was bestowed full U.S. citizenship the moment he was born to her and his Kenyan father — in Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state to join the Union.

A cousin of mine sent me the attached link to let me know that Ted Cruz also is qualified to run for president. My cousin is likely to support Cruz’s president.

But in truth, I’ve long believed that Cruz was qualified under Article II of the Constitution to hold the office, just as I was certain that Goldwater, McCain Romney and Obama could serve in that office.

I just wish the Harvard Law Review article could have settled this issue long before now.

Better late than never, right?

International news

Lighten up on the formality thing

Michael Strain needs to relax a little, maybe meet some folks and get on a first-name basis with them.

Strain is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and has written an essay for the Washington Post in which he express disgust that President Obama referred to German Chancellor Angela Merkel several times by her first name. It occurred during a joint press conference.

Strain was aghast at what he calls “false intimacy.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/02/18/please-address-me-as-mister-i-insist/?tid=sm_fb

Holy mackerel, Mike! Get a grip.

I’ll call him Mike, even though I don’t know the fellow. What’s he going to do in the remote chance he reads this? Will he come unglued the way he did over Barack’s faux familiarity with Angela?

I doubt it.

These kinds of exchanges don’t bother me. As a friend of mine, Dan, noted on a Facebook post, it might not have bothered Mike when President Bush rubbed Chancellor Merkel’s shoulders during a G-8 Summit some years back. For that matter, I recall only a few snarky comments about the moment that was video recorded for the world to see. Then it passed. Nothing else was said. No harm, no foul, right?

I have noted before, though, that the president does have a habit of referring to fellow members of the U.S. government by their first names while they refer to him publicly as “Mr. President.” I recall a meeting held at the White House with congressional leaders and Sen. John McCain was protesting a policy initiative coming from the White House. He referred to Obama as Mr. President, and the president referred directly to his 2008 campaign foe simply as “John.”

The exchange seemed oddly disproportionate and it bordered on disrespectful.

But such an exchange between heads of government? Hey, no problem.

Besides, has anyone bothered to ask the chancellor if she objects? Believe me, if she did, she’d say so and the president would refer to her differently.

So, lighten up, Mike.

 

national news, political news

Second thoughts on 'scum' comment

We’re all entitled to having second thoughts, aren’t we?

I put a tweet out there a few days ago in response to Sen. John McCain’s angry comment at protesters who were holding up signs while several former secretaries of state were testifying before McCain’s Senate Armed Services Committee.

He called them “low-life scum.” I said they were entitled to protest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/01/mccain-im-still-outraged-by-kissinger-protesters-at-hearing/?tid=sm_tw

Well, McCain’s anger was justified in one important sense.

One of the former diplomats they were accosting in the hearing room was 91-year-old Henry Kissinger, who served Presidents Nixon and Ford and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Vietnam War. Also testifying with Kissinger were Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice.

Yes, the demonstrators had a right to protest. They should have demonstrated at least a bit of decorum and kept their distance from Kissinger, Rice and Albright. Kissinger in particular was actually threatened physically by the demonstrators, who were carrying signs that declared Kissinger to be a “war criminal.”

McCain made no apologies for his outburst. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have apologized, either.

“Of course, I was outraged, and I’m still outraged. It’s one thing to stand up and protest. It’s another to physically threaten an individual,” Chairman McCain said.

You were right to be angry, Mr. Chairman.

 

national news, political news

Palin's non-speech sours GOP base

Can it really be that the hard right wing of the Republican Party has come to its senses regarding a former half-term Alaska governor who for the past half-dozen years or so has been its darling?

Sarah Palin stood before the Iowa Freedom Summit and delivered what can only be described as a rhetorical goulash of blather.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/palin%e2%80%99s-speech-draws-fire-from-the-right/ar-AA8HGpj

It didn’t play well in Peoria, let alone in GOP strategists’ living rooms.

Her TelePrompter, loaded with prepared remarks, went pffftt. Left to her devices, Palin stammered her way through a bizarre litany of nonsensical sentences.

As the Washington Post described it: “Her address was a 31 1/2-minute roller coaster ride of cliches, non sequiturs and warmed-over grievances. One line that stood out: ‘GOP leaders, by the way, you know, ‘The Man,’ can only ride ya when your back is bent. So strengthen it. Then The Man can’t ride ya.’”

Huh?

The Post reports that the critiques from those who heard Palin were harsh and unforgiving.

Darn! I was hoping she’d make a go of it, that her “serious” consideration of a White House campaign in 2016 would turn into the real thing.

Silly me. I guess I had forgotten — if only for a moment or two — about how miserable a campaigner she turned out to be when Sen. John McCain selected her as his vice-presidential running mate in the 2008 White House campaign. Or that she’d gotten twisted up in that goofy reality TV show. Or that she’s making a lot of money as a Fox News “contributor”; her precise contribution to Fox remains something of a mystery.

I suppose there’s some other stuff to mention, but I’ll just let it lie.

With that, I’ll bid adieu to Sarah Palin. It was nice while it lasted.

 

political news

Palin now 'seriously' considering a WH run

Sarah Palin has gone from “considering” a campaign for the presidency to “seriously considering” it in 2016.

Oh, boy. This is getting fun.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/01/27/palin_hits_quasi-conservative_fox_on_fox_dings_oreilly_for_calling_potential_candidacy_reality_show.html

Palin dinged Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly for having the temerity to refer to a possible Palin campaign as a “reality show.” She went after who she calls “quasi-conservatives,” who, I guess, aren’t like her, which I suppose is a “true conservative.”

Truth be told, I no longer recognize the modern version of conservatism as I’ve always understood its political meaning.

A part of me laughs off a possible Palin candidacy. It cannot possibly be serious. Indeed, in the book “Game Change,” a chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign, key advisers to Republican nominee Sen. John McCain acknowledged not vetting Palin after her name emerged as a possible pick to join McCain on the Republican ticket. McCain’s senior political adviser Steve Schmidt acknowledges now that it was a huge mistake to select Palin to run with McCain.

Yet, another part of me would welcome a Palin campaign, perhaps for the same reason I’m cheering for Mitt Romney to run again. Mitt made some goofs while running for president in 2012. Palin has written the book on gaffes, blunders and foul-ups since her 2008 campaign for VP. So, maybe this is her chance at redemption.

Sounds good, yes? Sure, except that Mitt is a serious politician, while Sarah Barracuda is not.

Mitt can redeem his reputation. Palin is a lost cause.

 

political news

Go for it, Sarah!

Sarah Palin says “of course” she’s interested in running for president of the United States in 2016.

I don’t know how many potential candidates have made such a declaration. I think I’ve lost count.

This one, though, is laughable on its face.

Yet here I am. Commenting, albeit briefly, on it.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/sarah-palin-possible-2016-run-114534.html?hp=r3_3

Palin is the former half-term governor of Alaska. She was the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008. Then she “went rogue,” and might have cost the ticket led by Sen. John McCain millions of votes the GOP otherwise might have gotten.

She won’t run for president. Not this year. Not ever.

Palin is, shall we say, damaged goods.

The reality TV show? The strange behavior of her family getting involved — allegedly — in a fight at an Anchorage house party? The absolute absence of any knowledge of anything beyond TEA party talking points?

Republicans are going to be blessed in 2016 with a relatively stellar field of potential candidates. It’ll be filled with heavyweights, individuals of actual accomplishment. Some of them are reasonable, rational, intelligent and articulate.

Sarah Palin? Not … a … chance.

Then again, why not? She’ll liven it up, yes? You betcha.

 

political news

Now it's Sen. Graham thinking about '16 bid

Oh boy, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for the upcoming presidential campaign.

The potential Republican field just got another name to ponder: Lindsey Graham, the senior U.S. senator from South Carolina.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/lindsey-graham-2016-elections-south-carolina-114362.html

Why is this such an interesting development?

Graham is a noted conservative from a deeply conservative state. He and fellow Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona take turns bashing the dickens out of President Obama, particularly on foreign policy — which is understandable, given that the domestic economy is starting to rock along. Heck, sometimes Graham and McCain are singing together.

However, Graham has had this annoying tendency — if you’re a Republican — to say nice things about some of the appointees the president puts forward to fill key administration posts. While many other GOP senators were slamming Loretta Lynch as the next attorney general, Graham said she’s a solid pick, highly qualified and he indicated his intentions to vote to confirm her when the time comes.

This is the kind of thing that’s going to make him a target among other GOP White House contenders when they line up to debate — if Graham decides to run, of course.

He’s a sharp lawyer. Remember when, as a member of the House, he managed the Republicans’ successful effort at impeaching President Clinton? Well, the Senate decided correctly to acquit the president of those “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

So, as he told “Meet the Press” today, he’s thinking seriously about a presidential bid. He told NBC’s Chuck Todd that he has “set up a testing-the-waters committee under the IRS code that will allow me to look beyond South Carolina as to whether or not a guy like Lindsey Graham has a viable path.”

Just one request, Sen. Graham, if you take the plunge: Stop referring to yourself in the third person.