Posted on 08/23/2008 7:40:52 AM PDT by WilliamReading
Good morning, this is John McCain, speaking to you at the end of an eventful week in the presidential campaign. All the talk today is about my opponent’s selection of his running mate. To his new running mate, my congratulations and I’ll get back to you real soon on your debating opponent.
The week began with a debate of sorts between Senator Obama and me at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. In case you missed it, the discussion yielded the line of the week, and maybe even of the campaign, when Pastor Rick Warren asked my opponent a very serious question. He wanted to know at what point, in my opponent’s view, does a baby have human rights? Senator Obama thought about it for a moment, and came back with the reply that the question was, quote, “above my pay grade.”
Here was a candidate for the presidency of the United States, asked for his position on one of the central moral and legal questions of our time, and this was the best he could offer: It’s above his pay grade. He went on to assure his interviewer that there is a, quote, “moral and ethical element to this issue.” Americans expect more of their leaders.
There seems to be a pattern here in my opponent’s approach to many hard issues. Whether it’s the surge in Iraq that has brought us near to victory, or the issue of campaign reform, or the question of offshore drilling, Senator Obama’s speeches can be impressive. But when it’s time for straight answers, clear conviction, and decisive action, suddenly all of these responsibilities are – well, as he puts it, “above my pay grade.” As mottos of leadership go, it doesn’t exactly have the ring of “the buck stops here.”
Often, too, Senator Obama’s carefully hedged answers obscure more than they explain, and this was the case in his conversation with Rick Warren. Listening to my opponent at Saddleback, you would never know that this is a politician who long since left behind any middle ground on the abortion issue. He is against parental notification laws, and against restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortions. In the Illinois Senate, a bipartisan majority passed legislation to prevent the horrific practice of partial-birth abortion. Senator Obama opposed that bill, voting against it in committee and voting “present” on the Senate floor.
In 2002, Congress unanimously passed a federal law to require medical care for babies who survive abortions – living, breathing babies whom Senator Obama described as, quote, “previable.” This merciful law was called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Illinois had a version of the same law, and Barack Obama voted against it.
At Saddleback, he assured a reporter that he’d have voted “yes” on that bill if it had contained language similar to the federal version of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Even though the language of both the state and federal bills was identical, Senator Obama said people were, quote, “lying” about his record. When that record was later produced, he dropped the subject but didn’t withdraw the slander. And now even Senator Obama’s campaign has conceded that his claims and accusations were false.
For a man who talks so often about “hope,” Senator Obama doesn’t offer much of it in meeting this great challenge to the conscience of America. His extreme advocacy in favor of partial birth abortion and his refusal to provide medical care for babies surviving abortion should be of grave concern to reasonable people of goodwill on both sides of this issue. There is a growing consensus in America that we need to overcome narrow partisanship on this issue for both women in need and the unborn. We need more of the compassion and moral idealism that my opponent’s own party, at its best, once stood for. No one is above the law, and no one is beneath its protection.
Upholding these principles, and bringing Americans together on the side of life, is the work of leadership. And I can assure you that if I am president, advancing the cause of life will not be above my pay grade. Thanks for listening.
Yeah, but it would be worth it to see all the liberals’ heads exploding.
My gut tells me that Romney was always pro-life. He just said he was pro-choice to be elected Governor of Massachusetts.
You may have trouble with that, but it doesn’t bother me at all. He did some good for the state of Massachusetts, and he would not have been able to win there otherwise.
Palin has a 6 percent chance of getting the GOP VP spot, compared to 64 percent for Romney
Contract Bid Ask Last Vol Chge
NEW.REP.VP.ROMNEY
Mitt Romney to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 62.2 63.7 64.5 5843 +22.5
NEW.REP.VP.PAWLENTY
Tim Pawlenty to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 18.6 21.0 21.2 2060 -1.5
NEW.REP.VP.RIDGE
Tom Ridge to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 6.3 10.0 9.3 1879 0
NEW.REP.VP.WHITMAN
Meg Whitman to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 0.5 10.0 6.5 373 -3.5
NEW.REP.VP.PORTMAN
Rob Portman to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 6.7 10.0 10.0 1068 +3.4
NEW.REP.VP.LIEBERMAN
Joe Lieberman to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 3.6 8.4 4.5 1191 -0.5
NEW.REP.VP.CRIST
Charlie Crist to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 7.0 10.0 7.0 1640 0
NEW.REP.VP.CANTOR
Eric Cantor to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 3.1 10.0 8.6 411 0
NEW.REP.VP.PALIN
Sarah Palin to be Republican VP Nominee in 2008 M Trade 3.0 6.8 6.0 1126 0
Love your sign.
Hero vs. Zero. How apt!
My gut tells me that Romney was always pro-life
_____________________________________
Romney’s own words prove your gut wrong...
Sir Francis Drake....1588
The legislature passed the bill after being assured it would allow a tiny number of rare abortions in legitimate health cases. Even so, Reagan hesitated to sign the bill, but his staff assured him the bill would only allow rare additional abortions, and only in cases where there was a real tragic medical situation. So Reagan signed the bill.
Unfortunately, it was only a year or two later that the courts began moving to the left on abortion (as they are now doing on same-sex “marriage”), searching for any technicality to mandate abortion-on-demand. They took the law Reagan had signed, which permitted abortions for health reasons, and “interpreted” health as meaning everything from a headache to “distress” at being pregnant. Their “interpretation” had the effect of sanctioning abortion-on-demand, something Reagan deeply regretted.
In later years, the media, Dems, and other liberals would sneeringly and falsely accuse Reagan of being an abortion flip-flopper, by asserting that as California governor he had “signed the nation's most liberal abortion law.” They left out that the law was never intended to be liberal at all. Romney, in contrast, has been a true flip-flopper on abortion.
Palin would be fine, Condi would be horrible.
The abortion/Infantcide issue along can win this election for McCain he better choose wisely.
Cantor/Palin/Hunter all Solid Pro-life conservative.
Yep. He has also changed to pro-life. Rush, Sean, Ann, Mark Levin, all support him too.
Glad you like it! Use it however you want - that’s why I posted it!
McCain says this about Obama:
this is a politician who long since left behind any middle ground on the abortion issue
This is the clue, one among many in this carefully crafted nothing of a piece, that John McCain thinks there's "middle ground" on the unalienable rights of the unborn. In truth, there is no "middle ground" on issues of life and death. A PERSON is either allowed to be killed or they're not.
None of this is any surprise, of course, to the careful observer. John McCain has always played footsie with both sides in this.
But, John McCain's true service has always been to the side that continues to allow the deaths of thousands of American children EVERY SINGLE DAY.
The bottom line is that not a single child will be saved by voting for McCain rather than Obama. Not one.
And the true principle that lies at the heart of the issue will be obscured more by McCain than Obama.
Doesn't mean I support Obama. But people need to wake up and quit allowing themselves to be deceived by this crop of consummate liars. And that most certainly includes McCain.
*barf*
This is the formula for fifty million more dead American children.
What do you expect from people who don’t recognize a difference between dead and alive? They define the lives of people they have no use for as less than human in one way or another. It’s easier to abort or euthanize someone if they deny their humanity. The irony is that in so doing, they actually deny their own humanity, having traded it off to Satan.
Oh really, Senator?
How about the children that are at the embryonic stage of their development, the ones you think are just fine to kill?
How about the children who are the product of rape or incest that you think should be killed for the sins of their fathers?
How about the children murdered with the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars YOU gave to Planned Parenthood?
How about the children unfortunate enough to reside in the womb of a mother who lives in a State that falls within your Stephen A. Douglas, Gerald R. Ford, Ron Paul, fake federalist position that State's rights trumps the unalienable right to life?
I thank God I was born. But I wasn't born yesterday.
This is an opportunistic, calculating, deception foisted on conservatives, but particularly designed to deceive Christians.
If you’ll notice, they sent it out on Christian Newswire.
I never understood these freepers and their "true conservative" candidates who think all the problems in this country would go away if we just punt every devisive issue "back to the states" to sort out. States Rights, States Rights, States Rights, blah blah blah. My state government already has enough "rights" to pass all kind of laws affecting the lives of its citizens (our Governor signed an executive order telling pharmacists they have to dispense abortion pills to any woman who requests one or they can have their license revoked), I don't want to give them any MORE power over my life. What about the right of individuals? What about the right to life that is GURANTEED by the Consitution? Is there some section that says "this constitution shall not be construed to guranteed life and liberty nationally, but rather shall be decided on a state-by-state basis" that I missed?
The way you cited Stephen Douglas is an excellent example and it seems many of these "true conservatives" like Fred Thompson would have been Douglas Democrats if they were alive in 1860 (awww, gee whiz, slavery's wrong, but we can't have the federal government intervene and actually pass some law to protect the guaranteed right to freedom in the Constitution) Did these people sit through the whole lesson on slavery in America in their history class? We sure as heck didn't get rid of slavery in America by "letting the states decide"
Do they really think if Roe v. Wade is overturned some socialist state like Mass. is going to say "oh, now that it's up to us, let's restrict abortion here". Seriously. Here in the people's Republic of Illinois, our legislature won't even pass parental notification laws.
What is wrong with some "conservatives"? They seem to have no problem with tyrannical government and abriging the rights of life, liberty, and property as long as it's done at the state level.
No one is above the law, and no one is beneath its protection.
John McCain, August 2006 interview with Esquire Magazine:
“I understand the frustrations a lot of Republicans feel. We’re not representing their hopes and dreams and aspirations. We worry about Ms. Schiavo before we worry about balancing the budget.”
In this election ... no matter who “wins”
we have ALL lost already.
None of them are of Presdiential quality.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.