The announcement undoubtedly raises some eyebrows. The elder Murtha is……

Or, you know, I could say that after the failure of the Bush administration's hard line approach, Obama plans to take the opposite approach and attempt to pacify our enemies by legitimizing their concerns and finding diplomatic means to placate them. But that would *probably* be as much of an exaggeration of his policies as yours is of Bush's.

But the voters will decide whether to give America 4 more years of tough-guy, smoke-em-out, dead-or-alive failure, coupled with more blood and treasure for the sands of the new Iran-friendly Iraq we created. How's that saber-rattling working out for us? But this time we mean it. We're gonna really give it to you now. Don't make us send more of our kids over there to whup your Arab butts. You'll be sorry.

McCain pledges to continue the war, Obama to end it. That's the choice and I think America is ready to change the channel.

First, Obama never said he'd meet with Iranian president Ahmadinejad (whatever we may think of the idea of doing so).

Greendreams, now that its been shown that Joe Klein slandered McCain by saying that he lied (since the video of Obama saying what Klein claims he never said is right here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/200..., you may want to rethink your defense a bit.

Even before I saw that video I thought it was odd that people were pushing this idea that Obama never meant that he'd meet with Ahmadinejad, because clearly he'd been criticized for saying exactly that and he didn't seem to feel the need to correct the record. And when Susan Rice recently said in an interview that he didn't necessarily mean that he'd meet with Ahmadinejad, it was pretty clear that she was implying that Obama might plan to talk to Ahmad's successor in next year's elections, not that he was actually planning talks with Khameini.

Here're some facts:

Total health care spending in the United States has historically grown 2.5 percentage points faster than per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In particular, Medicare spending may rise even faster than the Trustees report estimates. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if Medicare spending continues to grow at the historical growth rate of total health care spending:

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (the health care program for the poor) will consume nearly the entire federal budget by 2050.
By 2082 Medicare spending alone will consume nearly the entire federal budget.
Can Higher Taxes Solve the Problem? The CBO also found that if federal income tax rates are adjusted to allow the government to continue its current level of activity and balance the budget:

The lowest marginal tax bracket of 10 percent would have to rise to 26 percent.
The 25 percent marginal tax bracket would increase to 66 percent.
The current highest marginal tax bracket (35 percent) would have to rise to 92 percent!
Additionally, the top corporate income tax rate of 35 percent would have to increase to 92 percent.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba616/

Basically, on this issue, the GOP fearmongers about a crisis but they're actually right (though instead of dealing with it, they made it worse) and the Dems fearmonger by scaring seniors into thinking that the GOP is just planning to cut their benefits and using the crisis as an excuse to privatize the system.

instead it's just a party organized around exploiting wedge issues and fear in return for money and power. In stark contrast to our other major party, of course, which um, does exactly the same thing?

Hrmm… other than abortion, which both sides exploit, I think there is a pretty big gap in the level of fearmongering and a focus on wedge issues.

Since 2002 the Republicans have literally said we would die if Democrats were elected. And they've pushed wedge issues like gay marriage.

Our kids can't afford all of the mandatory entitlement spending either, but you are embracing the proposed increases in that instead of criticizing those proposals.

That's 'welfare' spending. Let's use the proper words

they're not dismantling their universal healthcare systems though- that's the problem, that once in place these things become untouchable and can never be turned back even if the costs do become unsustainable.

Social Security has been reformed before and it can be again.

And treating a 46 year old man like he's some greenhorn kid is just nuts. That's close to the age companies consider too old for a new executive. Then you insult young voters. I pointed out the age-related health risks and cognitive decline, with links to evidence. Who's ageist?.

I don't generally bother to respond to your vitriol. Have a good night.

which our kids can't afford,Our kids can't afford all of the mandatory entitlement spending either, but you are embracing the proposed increases in that instead of criticizing those proposals.

As for Europe, I don't ignore the relative positions of left right there vs. here, but if you pay attention you see that the EU powers are very concerned about the sustainability of their entitlement programs. Of course they're not dismantling their universal healthcare systems though- that's the problem, that once in place these things become untouchable and can never be turned back even if the costs do become unsustainable.

Besides, I was mainly referring to foreign policy in referencing Europe's opinions. They don't embrace Bush but they aren't running in the opposite direction, either.

You do, but for the wrong reasons. He's not so much “cautious and nuanced” but boring and pehaps inept (or actually intimidated and to some extent ineffective as a campaigner). Superdestroyer and those others of us who characterize him as the next Dole are onto something. (At least McCain doesn't use third person when talking about himself.)

It was dwarfed into nothingness by the “dumbth” and the impolitic responses to that joke.

2. McCain is no clone of Bush — that is the most flimsy straw man of this year's political scene — and being strong against our adversaries and enemies and in defense of us and our interests is morally as well as superior in other ways to those in this country who actually stoop to holding the opposite position.

The latest flap about this is very central to the McCain/Obama foreign policy experience debate. McCain blew it on this issue in two ways. First, Obama never said he'd meet with Iranian president Ahmadinejad (whatever we may think of the idea of doing so). And second, what McCain knew in 2003, he seems to have forgotten in 2008, that it is the Ayatollah and the Council of Guardians who hold the power in Iran, not Ahmadinejad. Questioned on the matter by Time's Joe Klein, McCain sounds stupid and tries to wiggle out by giggling ineffectually. He even says “maybe I'm wrong, (he is) but I don't think so.” Watch it HERE

McCain's 2003 quote is HERE

Did he forget now what he knew 5 years ago, or does he think in the YouTube age you can just wing it and you'll get a pass?

Ouch. Well said.

Summary:  The Bush administration's new strategy in Iraq has helped reduce violence. But the surge is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state and may even have made such an outcome less likely — by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni tribes and pitting them against the central government. The recent short-term gains have thus come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

and Europe trending “conservative” doesn't mean much in this context. They're not dismantling universal health care, gutting the treasury at their kids' expense or launching “pre-emptive wars”. I just mean the world “gets” what Bushco was about. You'll not find any of those “conservative” officials in Europe praising Bush.

But cautious and nuanced McCain? I disagree. He embraces making Bush's irresponsible tax cuts permanent, which our kids can't afford, and endorses a continuation of a belligerent militaristic foreign policy.

I think most people here know we haven't gotten “tax relief”. A family of four in the US today spends $1,000/MONTH in interest on the debt racked up by so-called fiscal conservatism. Every dime the government spends is a tax and the major focus of the GOP, since Reagan, has been to put that on our kids' bill rather than paying our way as Goldwater advocated.

No arguments really about failures of the Republicans, but I see that much more as a failure of ethics and good governance that results from undivided rule than from a true failure of the ideological underpinnings.

The Republican party no longer has any ideological underpinnings. Republicanism hasn't equaled conservatism for a while now, instead it's just a party organized around exploiting wedge issues and fear in return for money and power. You should ask me what I really think some time

The world gets it? And that's why Europe is tilting more conservatively?

What Europe considers conservative would make most U.S. Democrats blush as far too liberal. Be mindful of the context…

And you are way overstating the failures- Iraq has improved lately, and al Qaeda is greatly debilitiated.

Which level of Hell is Iraq the equivalent of now? And which Al Qaeda are you talking about? Because there was a recent GAO report that said: “al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan.”

A much more nuanced and cautious correction is needed IMO and that's what McCain offers.

In what respect?

The world gets it? And that's why Europe is tilting more conservatively?

And you are way overstating the failures- Iraq has improved lately, and al Qaeda is greatly debilitiated. McCain doesn't offer a 180 degree change, and in my mind that's a good thing because there's absolutely no reason to think that if you are heading off a cliff on one side of the road that you will get back on the road in the right direction by turning the steering wheel hard in the opposite direction and gunning the accelerator. A much more nuanced and cautious correction is needed IMO and that's what McCain offers.

America–and the world–gets it. The Republicans have shown us their stuff. McCain is viewed, and justifiably I think, as a continuing trek down that same path.

We're ready to try something different. And why not? Bush and the neocons have not been effective against Iran–hell, we gave them Iraq and have had NO impact on their nuclear program. Not effective against Hamas or Al Qaeda or the Taliban. CS, their policies are a failure ! McCain does not offer a change from that.

We shouldn't negotiate with Hamas either way. That's an Israeli issue. Hamas is not our enemy, but Israel's. We've been involved in trying to broker the peace between Palestinians and Israelis almost from the start, and we currently form one fourth of the 'Quartet'. Are you saying we should abandon that?

McCain corrected it, and then repeated the error after the correction. He's playing the same Bush game of conflating all of our enemies with Al Qaeda. It's dishonest and shameful fearmongering.Yes, I think that's quite possible and even a likely interpretation. My feeling on it though is much like yours when you say you don't like the way Obama tries to play things both ways.