Posted on 10/20/2008 8:31:21 AM PDT by TAdams8591
Head Strong: McCain fails the big five tests His aim is untrue in too many areas, so a longtime Republican is voting for Obama. By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist
I've decided. My conclusion comes after reading the candidates' memoirs and campaign platforms, attending both party conventions, interviewing both men multiple times, and watching all primary and general-election debates.
John McCain is an honorable man who has served his country well. But he will not get my vote. For the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago, I'm voting for a Democrat for president. I may have been an appointee in the George H.W. Bush administration, and master of ceremonies for George W. Bush in 2004, but last Saturday I stood amid the crowd at an Obama event in North Philadelphia.
Five considerations have moved me:
Terrorism. The candidates disagree as to where to prosecute the war against Islamic fundamentalists. Barack Obama is correct in saying the front line in that battle is not Iraq, it's the Afghan-Pakistan border. Osama bin Laden crossed that border from Tora Bora in December 2001, and we stopped pursuit. The Bush administration outsourced the hunt for bin Laden and instead invaded Iraq.
No one in Iraq caused the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Our invasion was based on a false predicate, so we have no business being there, regardless of whether the surge is working. Our focus must be the tribal-ruled FATA region in Pakistan. Only recently has our military engaged al-Qaeda there in operations that mirror those Obama was ridiculed for recommending in August 2007.
Last spring, Obama told me: "It's not that I was opposed to war [in Iraq]. It's that I felt we had a war that we had not finished." Even Sen. Joe Lieberman conceded to me last Friday that "the headquarters of our opposition, our enemies today" is the FATA.
Laura has become tiresomely self-aggrandizing. Mike is a very pleasant change. : )
I was doing the happy dance when that station came in loud and clear. Laura is tedious.
Smerconish is another scribbler whose column I will never read again. He will never again have any credibility in the conservative camp, so he might as well become a full-fledged lib and be done with it.
Oh, I see. That’s true too...we had several justified reasons which makes the claim that much more ridiculous.
The Smerk is a schmuck!
So true and well said. I was afraid that President Bush Jr., would be like his dad and forgo regular communication with the American people on a variety of issues, including the Iraq war. His failure to do so and to correct the lies of the leftist media, was not the honorable and/or right thing to do, and left many people in the dark believing the lies of the left. Unfortunately, there will be tragic consequences to pay.
Good riddance. I so despise the way he initially used conservatives and the Faulkner case to achieve notoriety and further his career. He is nothing but an opportunist. Everything he does is for himself.
We should call him SmerCONish. The CON is over and he’s come out of the closet, now that he no longer needs conservatives but Liberals to advance his creer.
That’s career.
>>Michael Smerconish, whose best political pal is Arlen Specter, who wanted Tom Ridge for VP, who supported Michael Schiavo, who bragged about having an after dinner cigar with Fidel Castro while on a trip with Arlen Specter to Cuba, whose chummy with Ed Rendell and Lynn Abraham, IS NO CONSERVATIVE AND NEVER HAS BEEN. At best he’s a LIBERAL Republican who rose to talk show success on the backs of conservatives and Maureen Faulkner. He is the biggest, narcissistic, egomaniac, opportunist in talk radio.
Note: he narcissisticly begins his column with “I’ve decided,” as if we were all waiting with bated breath to see who HE would endorse. <<
100% correct. My mother told me that Smirky was interviewed by Mike Gallagher today, and Smirky got really angry and blew up on the air. That guy has a huge-and fragile-ego.
However, Gallagher later said that conservatives should stop listening to, reading and buying the columns and books of people who turn on us. I couldn't agree with Mike more. Though I know it won't happen, I would love to see the career that Michael Smerconish built on the back of conservatives and Maureen Faulkner, crumble to nothing, for that is what he deserves.
At least it's fitting that Smerconish lose all credibility with the conservative movement forever and ever and I hope and pray that happens.
I love your screen name, BTW. Did your mother tell you all the negative things smirc has been saying about Governor Palin?
Thanks. Sarah is what energized me and made me rejoin this site. I was here a few years ago, but forget my old screen name.
My mother has stopped listening to Smerconish. She can’t stomach him since he sided with Michael Schiavo, pretending that Terry’s parents didn’t even exist. The only reason she heard what was said today was because she listens to Mike Gallagher. But I can only imagine what Smirky says about Palin.
I’ll say this, Sarah has really allowed some of the establishment conservatives to show their true colors. We now know which Republicans are more interested in their status with the cultural elites than with the core principles of our party.
I listened to SmerCONish at the very beginning of his career and for a while, until it became clear to me, what he was, which was long before Terri Schindler (I refuse to call her Schiavo). But when I listen to Rush and other programming on 1210 in Philly, I hear commercials during the breaks promoting his morning program, which sometimes include excerpts of his comments. I also hear about his columns, which I no longer read, and I understand continue to be quite shallow and unintellectual, as is this one. I happened to be listening to Mike Gallagher this morning, like your mother, and heard the interview (which gave me the idea to post this article which is linked to Gallagher's website). SmerCONish lists the Palin pick as one of the reasons, he is voting for Obama. He doesn't think she's up to the task of being president.
"I’ll say this, Sarah has really allowed some of the establishment conservatives to show their true colors. We now know which Republicans are more interested in their status with the cultural elites than with the core principles of our party."
So well said. The revelations were/are stunning. There was much of that this campaign season. It exposed far too many cockroaches in our movement and in our party. I'm sure many of us will never forget.
. I also hear about his columns, which I no longer read, and I understand continue to be quite shallow and unintellectual, as is this one<<
I usually get to peruse the Daily News at work(I don’t buy it!), and there was a column a few months ago by Smirky devoted to whether he should grow a beard. No kidding. It had pics of him with the beard and everything. He is so completely full of himself. Shallow is definitely the word for this guy.
Smerconish is a butt kissing lib opportunist.
LOL!!! Is there any other political columnist/commentator who does things like that???? If they did they'd be laughed out of the profession. Fortunately for SmerCONish, he's based in Philly where too many people in the audience don't know an immature, full of himself, narcissist if they fell over him! And he does stuff like that ALL. THE. TIME!!! Un...be....liev...able what he gets away with. : ) : (
I don't know whether to laugh or cry! : ) : (
In just a few short words, you nailed him! : )
Years ago, before I got the picture,
I sent him a really hot inside scoop on the party.
He did not thank me, tell me to go eat shiite and die, nothin.
I find out the next day, he’s over my cousin’s house giving her a prize for her
Christmas lights.,
What a yutz.
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