Obama outlines plans for race against McCain (Keating Five)

Yahoo News ^ | 11 May 08 | CHARLES BABINGTON and SARA KUGLER

[Mr Rogers]

Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he was open to campaigning with McCain in "town hall" events. But he also warned that controversial issues such as McCain's ties to the Keating Five savings and loan scandal are fair game, and he called McCain's proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax a pander and a gimmick...

Obama was asked Saturday if the fall campaign might touch on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, in which the Senate Ethics Committee said McCain used "poor judgment" for allegedly pressing regulators to go easy on the owner of a failed Arizona savings and loan who was also a campaign contributor.

Obama said there is no doubt the Keating Five case is "germane to the presidency."

"I can't quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that," he said.

[1035rep]

Well done!

[Gator113]

“Age and race should not be issues.”

True, but they’re are going to be anyway.

Religion shouldn’t have been an issue, but it was/is.

It doesn’t matter anymore, everything is fair game.

Well, there are a few things we just don’t care about anymore.... such as integrity, honesty. character, patriotism, vision, our constitution, common sense and....the blood of our fathers.

[rdb3]

Obama was asked Saturday if the fall campaign might touch on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, in which the Senate Ethics Committee said McCain used "poor judgment" for allegedly pressing regulators to go easy on the owner of a failed Arizona savings and loan who was also a campaign contributor.

Obama said there is no doubt the Keating Five case is "germane to the presidency."

"I can't quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that," he said.

Talk about a leading question!

[Mr Rogers]

McCain was NOT the only one supporting the surge - darn near every Republican in the Congress did, as well as GWB.

Meanwhile, McCain has been squishy on almost every other aspect of the GWOT, and the democrat - even Obama - will not want the war lost on his watch. He’ll stay in Iraq, rename and claim the strategy, and then claim the victory.

McCain has sold me out on just about every issue. I’m not going to go to bat for him on anything.

BTW - I’ve done a tour in Afghanistan, and my two adult kids have served in Iraq. Don’t waste your breath claiming, as others have, that I don’t support the troops because I don’t support McCain.

[inkling]

Oh how little you actually know about your hero Juan.

My hero? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA... Oh, sorry. That was rude of me.

Sorry dude, you don't know me. Did you notice that I'm from Arizona? Did you know that I collected sigs for his recall?

Think. Then type.

[Red Steel]

There is no Keating Five scandal for McCain. The Senate Judiciary Chief Counsel said McCain was innocent of all allegations, and should never have been charged, and is now supporting McCain.

A riposte that McCain should repeatedly pound back at Obama if he plays the Keating card.

[devolve]

[potlatch]

Beautiful graphic devolve, great job!!

[Polybius]

McCain was NOT the only one supporting the surge - darn near every Republican in the Congress did, as well as GWB.

WRONG!!!!!

Show me a link dating back to November 2006 that documents that ANYBODY in Congress or the White House was pushing for the Surge except for John McCain, Cheney and a few low level staffers .

Here is how things REALLY were back at the end of 2006:

The president was in a weak and lonely position. After Republicans lost the Senate and House in the midterm election on November 7, nearly 200 members of Congress had met with him at the White House, mostly to grouse about Iraq. ...... Inside his own administration, Bush had few allies on a surge in Iraq aside from the vice president and a coterie of National Security Council (NSC) staffers. The Joint Chiefs were disinclined to send more troops to Iraq or adopt a new strategy. So were General George Casey, the American commander in Iraq, and Centcom commander John Abizaid. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice favored a troop pullback. A week earlier, the Iraq Study Group, better known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, had recommended a graceful exit from Iraq. ............ In September, Rumsfeld had rejected the idea of a surge when retired general Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the Army and a member of the advisory Defense Policy Review Board, met with him and Pace. Keane insisted the "train and leave" strategy, as Bush referred to it, was failing. He proposed a counterinsurgency strategy, the addition of five to eight Army brigades, and a primary focus on taking back Baghdad. Rumsfeld was unconvinced.

Back in November of 2006, when John McCain was pushing for the Surge and when his position had the support of only 18% in public opinion polls, the Republican Congress was screaming like a stuck pig looking for political cover, Rumsfeld was rejecting the Surge and Bush was backing up Rumsfeld.

In fact, Rumsfeld had previously fired commanders such as General Shinseki for disagreeing with Rumsfeld's notion that the war could be won on the cheap because Rumsfeld said so.

In a public rebuke to Shinseki, Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, called Shinseki's estimate "far off the mark"[15] and "wildly off the mark". Wolfowitz said it would be "hard to believe" more troops would be required for post-war Iraq than to remove Saddam Hussein from power.[1] Specifically, Wolfowitz said to the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2003: .............. DEP. SEC. WOLFOWITZ: There has been a good deal of comment - some of it quite outlandish - about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army - hard to imagine. ..... On November 15, 2006, Gen. John P. Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committtee, acknowledged that in his view, and with hindsight, Shinseki had been correct in his view that a larger post-war force was needed.

As they say, "Victory has a thousand fathers" so, now that the Surge the McCain was pushing for back in November 2006 is producing victory, "darn near every Republican in the Congress, as well as GWB" and as well as their pet dogs named Toto all now claim to have been for the Surge all along.

Back in November of 2006 and before that, however, McCain's Surge idea was as toxic as the Black Plague to military and political careers. Just ask General Shinseki.

BTW - I’ve done a tour in Afghanistan, and my two adult kids have served in Iraq. Don’t waste your breath claiming, as others have, that I don’t support the troops because I don’t support McCain.

Thanks for your service and your family's service.

In regards to "supporting the troops", I never use that expression because everybody claims to "support the troops".

"Veterans Against Iraq War is a coalition of American veterans who support our troops but oppose war with Iraq"

Veterans Against Iraq War, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan and Barack Obama all claim to "support the troops" by wanting them back in CONUS as soon as humanly possible whether America loses the war or not.

I stressed WINNING THE WAR.

Whether or not you served in Afghanistan and your sons served in Iraq, that does not change the fact that Obama has flat out PROMISED to bug out ASAP and lose the war and McCain has flat out said that, in the war, there is no substitute for victory.

You can truly care about the troops and "support the troops" by whatever meaning you give to those words.

However, you cannot change the fact that if you work to enable Barrack Obama to become Commander-in-Chief and Obama does indeed become Commander-in-Chief, you will have succeeded in accomplish what Saddam's Iraqi Army, al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgents and the Shiite Mahdi Army were never able to accomplish on the battlefield ..........

......... have America lose the war.

[devolve]

.

Thanks potlatch -

It’s amazing how insane the left is!

[investigateworld]

It's over 20 years, but I'll predict lots of MSM photos of elderly seniors standing next to their single wide trailers, holding photographs of their previous mansion in Beverly Hills ... All lost due to Keating & Co.

And McCain with a trembling lower lip saying "I thought you newspaper guys really, really liked me?".

[devolve]

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

I just went to the link and it says nothing about McCain and the Keating 5. Nor does the article talk about Obama going after McCain on Keating!

Did the AP change the story?

[af_vet_rr]

Obama has already made a smarmy illusion that McCain’s problem may be that he’s getting old in a statement Obama made this week! I thought it was appalling, but didn’t hear much about it at the time other than it was noted, but not discussed. Obama’s is going to make inferences to McCain showing signs of sinility.

He said that McCain had lost his bearing (and then McCain's staff responded, and then Obama's staff responded with a "such and such on McCain's staff just proved that losing your bearing has nothing to do with age").

The saying is not really relevant to age - it's an old saying that's been around forever. Basically it's to lose your way (that's the short and simple answer - most people could not tell you what a bearing was to save their life in the context of navigation).

Don't let yourself get sidetracked on things that aren't relevant or that are misconstrued, and be thankful it's Obama and not Hillary that is going up against McCain. Hillary would be dragging out McCain's divorce and everything else that Rove used against him in South Carolina in 2000.

Obama will be a walk in the park if McCain can convince conservatives that he is a conservative.

[potlatch]

Wonderful graphic of ‘one who spits on the USA’!

[devolve]

.

Thanks potlatch

That idiot bisexual (according to his own autobiography!) William “Ol’ Bomber” Ayers posed for that photograph and now cries about when Sean Hannity simply states what he and Barack Hussy Obama Junior have said

Obama does have a lot of “alternate lifestyle” friends - I guess that’s why he his wife often visits Ayers and his “FBI’s Most Wanted List” wife -

[potlatch]

Yikes! That last sentence gave me shivers of disgust.

While I am cutting out and painting, you learn all the gossip, lol.

[devolve]

.

I know

Obama picked the most radical, corrupt, and dangerous creeps to be his mentors and friends

But we must ignore them as we must assume Obama is not like-minded

[potlatch]

Well - we aren’t ignoring it!

[devolve]