Posted on 01/31/2008 5:16:24 PM PST by Always Right
Talk show host Michael Reagan invited John McCain to call into Reagan's radio show on Tuesday, February 29. McCain obliged, and what follows is a transcript of their brief and tense conversation, aired nationally on more than 220 radio stations. This transcript was provided by the Bush for President Campaign.
Michael Reagan: This is an interview I tried to do earlier today with John McCain... It would be choosing the judges if John McCain becomes President of the United States, and will they be liberal judges, or will they be conservative judges? That's an issue many people would like to get an answer to. Is Warren Rudman going to be the Attorney General? That would be a good question to ask. Why don't we go now, Sen. John McCain. Senator, how are you?
John McCain: How are you?
Michael Reagan: I am just fine, thank you very much. Where are you, are you in Fresno?
John McCain: I'm on the bus, I'm on the way to Bakersfield, I'm headed through a lot of very beautiful fruit tree areas. It's very pretty here in the valley.
Michael Reagan: Question I want to ask you, first of all, have you decided now to get into the debate that's going to be taking place on Thursday night?
John McCain: We're having the debate, will be done by satellite from, we'll have to stop on our trip back to New York and we had to cancel some, some ah of our New York schedule, but we'll be there by satellite.
Michael Reagan: All right, let me ask you this, because I think it's an issue, just isn't being played out within the campaign, there's so many other things that are being talked about, but as President of the United States, one of the legacies you would leave would be the judges that you would appoint as President of the United States of America and there's some great concern if Warren Rudman, who is your overall campaign chair, would be in such a position in a McCain administration to appoint judges like Judge Souter to the bench as was done during the Bush administration back in the 1980s.
John McCain: Ah, Warren Rudman did not appoint Judge Souter, President Bush did, remember he was the president.
Michael Reagan: Yes, but ...
John McCain: Second of all, Warren Rudman is a fine, decent man who served his country in the Korean War, Attorney General of his state, and a Senator who was highly respected. It was, it was President Bush that appointed Justice Souter.
Michael Reagan: Right, but Warren Rudman...
John McCain: Warren Rudman is 70...let me finish, please, could I finish? Ah, ah, Warren Rudman is 70 years old, he's been, he had a serious illness. He's not interested in playing any active role in a McCain administration and I resent enormously phone calls that were made by Pat Robertson saying that he was a vicious bigot. I think that one might be...
Michael Reagan: Senator, Senator, Senator, Senator, Senator...
John McCain (talking over Reagan): ...well worth talking about as well...
Michael Reagan: Senator!
John McCain: I'm not...
Michael Reagan: Senator!
John McCain: I asked you, Michael, if I could finish, can I finish?
Michael Reagan: But you did finish... [McCain interrupts]
John McCain: Can I Finish? Can I finish? Yes or no?
Michael Reagan: What else do you have to say?
John McCain: Can I finish or not, I mean otherwise...
Michael Reagan: Go ahead.
John McCain: Okay. I don't appreciate having him being called a vicious bigot by Pat Robertson in personal phone calls to hundreds of thousands of Americans. He is a fine and decent man and he will play an advisory role to me because he is a fine and decent man who enjoyed a sterling reputation as United States Senator and Attorney General of the state of New Hampshire.
Michael Reagan: So...
John McCain: Now I'm finished.
Michael Reagan: Very good. And what I was trying to get to is the fact that, yes, Warren Rudman did not appoint him, Warren Rudman's the man who sold [him] to John Sununu, who sold him to President Bush at the time, and what...
John McCain (interrupting): In other words...
Michael Reagan: I want to find out.
John McCain: In other words, in other words, in other words, President Bush and John Sununu did not have any minds of their own. That's, I don't think that's the way it happened.
Michael Reagan: That's, Senator, let me ask you this. There are, there are...
John McCain (interrupting): I don't believe that's how it happened.
Michael Reagan: Well...
John McCain: John Sununu knew Souter just as well as Warren Rudman did, they're both from New Hampshire.
Michael Reagan (talking over McCain): The question is, the question is, what kind of judges would you appoint to the bench? Would they be Souter-like? Would they be judges in the make of a Bork, a Thomas? What kind of judges could we see from a President McCain?
John McCain: My record is very clear as to who I have supported and my record is very clear in public statements that Justice Scalia is a Justice that I admire very much. I also happen to admire Justice Rehnquist, Chief Justice Rehnquist, who is from the state of Arizona. And, ah, but Scalia I admire an enormous amount as well as others. My record as a conservative is very clear, my record on supporting people who adhere to the Constitution is very clear, and my record as a - 18-year record - of conservative positions both physically and others is also very clear.
Michael Reagan: All right. Next question, education. Big issue. I mean, compared to other industrial nations, we here in America, the children routinely test near the bottom. So what about your plan for a better-educated child here in America? What is the McCain plan?
John McCain: Choice, ah, by the way, before we go into that, ah, are you - it doesn't disturb you that Pat Robertson would call up people and say that, that ah, Warren Rudman is a vicious bigot? I'd like you to talk about that a little bit.
Michael Reagan: No, Senator. No, Senator. No, Senator, because let me tell you, I think that gets off...
John McCain (interrupting): No, let me tell you, let me tell you, when the man's name is maligned and his reputation is maligned then it ought to be talked about, okay? (inaudible)
Michael Reagan: Senator McCain, goodbye. (PAUSE) There you go, all he wants to talk about is Pat Robertson and bigotry. He doesn't want to talk about education. Didn't matter what question you asked him, he wanted, everything was an attack. Man does not have the temperament to be President of the United States. As somebody said, another hour of the show, said to me, you know, I know Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan's a friend of mine, etc., You ain't no Ronald Reagan. You ain't no Ronald Reagan. In your dreams, Senator McCain. In your dreams. Only in your dreams. Let's go to the phones, Mike, you're up.
It would be interesting to see how is campaign is getting financed.
John McCain is surging because when voters sit back and look at the field of candidates, out of all of them he's the only one in the Republican upper tier who is consistent. He is consistent in a field of GOP candidates who appear to be inconsistent from one year to the next, and from one decade to the next, on issues important to this campaign.
He's his own man and he's the only adult in the field who has shown consistency. You always know where he stands, You may not agree with his positions on immigration or campaign financing, but he leaves no doubt about his positions on those issues.
John McCain is a man of great courage, in-your-face honesty, and gravitas. He stands out among the leading candidates who seem to be one way today and another way tomorrow. John McCain has been the same yesterday, is the same today, and you know he will be the same tomorrow. That's what the voters are looking for and this is why we are seeing this movement to John McCain in New Hampshire and other states.
What did he mean by that?
Incredible charges need incredibly good evidence. You don’t have any. Please refrain from making shocking charges of treason and collaboration with communists unless you can back them up.
From Wiki....(shorter than his personal account, but largely taken from it)
McCain spent six weeks in a hospital, receiving marginal care, was interviewed by a French television reporter whose report was carried on CBS, and was observed by a variety of North Vietnamese, including the famous General Vo Nguyen Giap. Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that he must be part of America’s political-military-economic elite.[39] Now having lost 50 pounds, in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white,[35] McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Hanoi in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week (one was Bud Day, a future Medal of Honor recipient); they nursed McCain and kept him alive.[40] In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would be for two years.[39] In July 1968, McCain’s father was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater.[4] McCain was immediately offered a chance to return home early:[35] the North Vietnamese wanted a mercy-showing propaganda coup for the outside world, and a message that only privilege mattered that they could use against the other POWs.[39] McCain turned down the offer of repatriation due to the Code of Conduct of “first in, first out”: he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.[41] McCain’s refusal to be released was even remarked upon by North Vietnamese officials to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman at the ongoing Paris Peace Talks.[35]
In August 1968, a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain, using rope bindings into painful positions and beatings every two hours, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery.[39][35] Teeth and bones were broken again as was McCain’s spirit; the beginnings of a suicide attempt was stopped by guards.[35] After four days of this, McCain signed an anti-American propaganda “confession” that said he was a “black criminal” and an “air pirate”,[35] although he used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal the statement was forced.[42] He would later write, “I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.”[39] His injuries to this day have left him incapable of raising his arms above his head.[43] His captors tried to force him to sign a second statement, and this time he refused. He received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal.[44] Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract “confessions”.[39] On one occasion when McCain was physically coerced to give the names of members of his squadron, he supplied them the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line.[42] On another occasion, a guard surreptitiously loosened McCain’s painful rope bindings for a night; when he later saw McCain on Christmas Day, he stood next to McCain and silently drew a cross in the dirt with his foot[45] (decades later, McCain would relate this Good Samaritan story during his presidential campaigns, as a testament to faith and humanity[46][47]). McCain refused to meet with various anti-war peace groups coming to Hanoi, such as those led by David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and Rennie Davis, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father.[39]
In October 1969, treatment of McCain and the other POWs suddenly improved, after a badly beaten and weakened POW who had been released that summer disclosed to the world press the conditions to which they were being subjected.[39] In December 1969, McCain was transferred to Hoa Loa Prison, which later became famous via its POW nickname of the “Hanoi Hilton”.[39] McCain continued to refuse to see anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime;[39] to one visitor who did speak with him, McCain later wrote, “I told him I had no remorse about what I did, and that I would do it over again if the same opportunity presented itself.”[39] McCain and other prisoners were moved around to different camps at times, but conditions over the next several years were generally more tolerable than they had been before.[39]
Altogether McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. involvement in the war, but the Operation Homecoming arrangements for POWs took longer; McCain was finally released from captivity on March 15, 1973,[48] having been a POW for almost an extra five years due to his refusal to accept the out-of-sequence repatriation offer.[49]
First he wants you to pay to see his full article.
Second he doesn’t source any of his charges to anything but anonymous sources that whispered it to him.
“A little birdie told me” isn’t evidence.
What are we? Democrats?
Lets oppose McCain with the FACTS; not historic revisionism.
I didn’t make the charge—I don’t know what to make of it. I am making reference to the post in the other thread.
Well, fast forward one year, McCain was openly offering to collude with Obama on a number of issues. Does that count as evidence?
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