Media Ignored McCain's Faith Forum Fumble
After watching the presidential forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback church on Saturday, I was amazed at how complimentary the media has been of John McCain's performance. I gave up on his portion of the event after 30 minutes, tired of watching McCain fumble through his stump speech talking points instead of answering the questions.
The media was so kind to McCain after the forum that they missed (or ignored) the biggest jaw-dropper of the night -- his answer to the question of which Supreme Court justices he would not have nominated.
Warren: ... which existing Supreme Court justices would you not have nominated?
McCain: With all due respect, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Souter and Justice Stevens.
Warren: Why? Tell me why?
McCain: Well, I think that the president of the United States has incredible responsibility in nominating people to the United States Supreme Court. They are lifetime positions as well as the federal bench. There will be two maybe three vacancies. This nomination should be based on the criteria of proven record of strictly adhering to the Constitution of the United States and not legislating from the bench. Some of the worst damage has been done by legislating from the bench.
Warren did a better job asking questions than professional journalists have done in most of this year's debates, but that answer was crying out for a Tim Russert-style follow-up.
As Taegan Goddard points out today on Political Wire, McCain voted to confirm Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter. (Stevens was nominated before McCain was elected to the Senate back in 1946.)
McCain's answer may be the most glaring flip-flop of the general election campaign. He voted yes on most of the Supreme Court's liberal wing, yet he just said -- in a purpose-driven house of God, no less -- he wouldn't have nominated them.
Comments
"I was amazed at how complimentary the media has been of John McCain's performance.... McCain fumble through his stump speech talking points instead of answering the questions." - I think they're just used to that now. I can't remember the last time I saw a politician answer the question they were asked, rather than the question they wanted to answer. Even people as low on the political totem pole as the Detroit City Council (been in the news a bit lately, moreso since it's local news for my TV stations) know you just go ahead and answer the question you wished they asked.
Do I really need to waste time pointing out the glaring logical disconnect in your argument? Reflect for a minute or two and try to come up with it on your own.
You felt that McCain had no content but stump speech? Obama skirted every question! McCain should have stayed away from the extensive storytelling, but at least he didn't stray from the topic. He railed Obama on foreign affairs.
Not to defend McCain on the Supremes, but the question was who would you not have nominated, not voted to confirm. And hindsight is 20/20 here ... I think Warren was actually a lot easier on McCain. Some questions were posed harshly to Obama. It wasn't an identical questioning for sure.
You are so off base. The question was who would he not have nominated. It has nothing to do with who he voted was qualified. There is no doubt that the Justices named by McCain are qualified jurists. They are and if nominated, the Senate's decision must be on their qualifications, not whether the Senators' agree with their role as a Supreme Court Justice.
Unlike the Democrat lead Senate that blocked nominations of qualified jurists they disagreed with; during the confirmation process of Justice Ginsburg, the vote was 99 for and 0 against...even though many of her opinions, position on the evolving nature of the Constitution, and opinion that our Constitution should be influenced by foreign laws, are sickening to strict constructionalists.
If you are going to dog someone about an answer, at least understand the process.
I'm familiar with the process. Senators like McCain are the reason Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter are on the court. If he feels so strongly now that they do not belong there, he owes the public an explanation of why he put them there.
Not only was every answer McCain gave from his stump speeches, every anecdote and every joke was taken verbatim from the same speech he gives everywhere. I don't think he honestly thought about a single question.
Hey Rogers, how do you put music on a blog?
I got a new one, want to be a contributor? It'd be a hoot.
Yo, Rogers: He didn't say he "feels that they do not belong there". He said he would not have nominated them. Have you ever voted for someone you would not have nominated? Will everyone who voted for Hillary in the primaries be hypocrites if they vote for Obama in the general election?
Republicans tend not to attempt to block SC nominations made by Democrat presidents. Democrats tend to be more obstructive.
Go John....great night. Easy for you to choose now. If not, why not?
Have you ever voted for someone you would not have nominated?
I don't agree with the notion that the Senate's only role is to doublecheck a Supreme Court nominee's references and approve him if they're legit. These are lifetime appointments. Republicans like McCain have been campaigning their entire careers on the horrors of appointing a bad one. He feels so strongly about it that when asked by Rick Warren to name a Supreme Court justice he wouldn't have nominated, he named four.
If I was a senator, I'd vote no on the ones who don't belong on the court and yes on the ones who did. Apparently this violates some deep-seated constitutional principle. Go figure.
If this is how you spend your days, you need counselling!
I think that the Senate normally concurs (at least in the past) with the Presidents nominees unless there is some reason to reject them. The arguement has always been that the President has the right to nominate someone he is comfortable with.
So it is not unusual for a Senator to vote for a nominee while basically disagreeing with their political leaning.. If this didnt happen, very few would ever be approved. Boy, who ever wrote this is either totally ignorant of the political process or has a mean spirited agenda. More amazingly was Obamma's reference to how he crossed over party lines with McCain when he actually voted against the ethics reform
It's certain McCain had the questions in advance; probably was watching the Obama portion in his "cone of silence."
The bigger issue that came from this is what a liar Rick Warren is. Surely he knew there was no cone of silence. He put it out there and now is shown to be a big, fat liar. Pzzzft. There goes his credibility.
As far as justices "legislating" from the bench, Thomas and Scalia are the biggest offenders of this type of justice.
"I don't agree with the notion that the Senate's only role is to doublecheck a Supreme Court nominee's references and approve him if they're legit."
However, you would need a constitutional amendment to justify the efforts that Democrats have made to obstruct the vote, up-or-down, for these appointments; either that, or a successful effort to stuff the court with liberal, progressive judges whose vote overrides the constitution and subverting it completely.
That's the ends-justify-the-means elitism of the neo-liberal (progressive) movement: to enforce their elitist opinions as being correct because they say so, "I don't agree with the notion...". Notice that the law of the United States in the form of our constitution, is morphed into a "notion" and belittled as they would do all the US Constitution they consider a stumbling-block to more efftive socialism. The perfection of which is an effort at communism - another pooh-poohed term while they support Putin's neo-communism by blaming Bush/McCain ...
How anyone can continued to be blindd by this sort of rhetorical, heuristic and elitist Democratism ... I'll never understand!
Choosing to nominate an individual and consenting to the sitting President's choice of individual are two very different things. As a senator, he is compelled merely to offer his advice, and then approve or disapprove the executive's nomination. It's a very different situation when you are in the hot seat. Undoubtedly, many of the Democrats who have approved Bush's nominations would have made very different nomination decisions were they sitting in his position.
Try to put a little more thought into your ignorant posts.
"Try to put a little more thought into your ignorant posts."
Well, Rogers explained that it wasn't ignorance of the process, but the process itself with which he disagreed. Your explanation is beside that point.
Of course, I suspect the vast majority of Democrats are blithely ignorant of that process and are dupes in agreeing that it is legitimate to obstruct and undermine the law, just so their partisan goals are achieved. They all don't want to know that it is the law of the land, and not some strange "notion" which denies their selfish, partisan interest(s).
Rogers uses this site to assist these partisan elitists and further suborn their agreement that the US Constitution is nothing but a "notion" when it gets in the way of progressiveness ... it is calculated, not "ignorant".
That's how the 3d Reich became a tyrant using state socialism, and a chicken-in-every-hospital-bed ...
I use this site to express my opinions. It's always fun to see that described as the first step on the march to tyranny.
"I use this site to express my opinions."
Of course you do! Why state the obvious?
"It's always fun to see that described as the first step on the march to tyranny."
Okay, I see - you lead up to using hyperbole as a further misdirection. Your exaggeration isn't a reasonable rebuttal, Rogers, and I think you know that very well. The motives and the tactics you use to express your opinion is what I was discussing, and as described in my own opinion. Again, it is an adoption of the philosophy of the ends-justifies-the-means (ejm) to assert/proselyte partisan opinion.
Ejm is what allows you to describe consitutional rules of the Senate as a "notion", and to try to rationalize why McCain's abiding by those rules, as opposed to his opinion, is somehow a personal evil on his part ...
Indeed, your effort is an echo of the same done by the leadership of the Democratic party, and on down, and since you are all in lock-step in the propaganda efforts issued, and using ejm to justify the virtual lie which is accomplished; e.g., by representing constutional law as being nothing but a "notion".
You may not want to actually change the constution by activism, yourself, but you slavishly support the party which has that goal in mind. Just as did all the zealous partisans of history, and which chauvanism was so disparged by Washington.
I have to vote for Obama or for McCain and that's unfortunate to me, I don't much like either one. I'm still going to vote though. I guess that makes me a flip flopper? WTF rogers.
He said he would not NOMINATE these justices for the Supreme Court NOW. He has become more mature in his thinking and now knows how far to the left these Justices really are by their decisions they've made since becoming Justices, and by their legislating from the bench
in many of their decisions instead of restricting themselves to enforcing existing law. He has come a long way from the days of when these justices were confirmed. Obama, on the other hand, has remained the same throughout his political career. He says he wants to reduce abortions but his recent records prove otherwise. He says he loves America, yet all of his influential friends are America haters. He claims to be totally ignorant of his pastor's anti-American rhetoric even though he attended that church for over 20 years. If a person can go to a church for 20 years and not know what kind of person his pastor is, then he is the least qualified person to become president because, as Barak stated, his pastor was his mentor for many years. If doesn't know who his pastor really is after 20 years of attending his church, how in the Hell will he know who his enemies are? He will have no idea who the leaders of other nations are because he's never had more than 20 years of contact with any of them. A pastor is a spiritual guide, and if Barak doesn't know what his spiritual guide stands for then he's living in a fantasy world. I can't even imagine him as a public office holder let alone being president of the United States, God forbid.
Although I am most appreciative of Rev Rick Warren's contribution to this campaign,I just wish that he had repeated to Sen McCain what he told Sen Obama: "don't give me your campaign speech". Obama followed the advice. Sen McCain was under no such restriction.
JOE BIDEN USHERED IN CLARENCE THOMAS.
Sorry, but McCain's comment on the Supreme Court Justices is not a contradiction. He would not have nominated them, but given that they were nominated by the President, he had no reason to vote against them. Plenty of Democrats voted to approve Bush's nominees even as they stated they disagreed with the choices.
What I hoped would be raised was how could Sen. McCain be critical of Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia when we invaded far away Iraq? His comment that countries don't invade countries in the 21st century should have been brought up.
As everyone above me has already explained, you are less qualified for journalistic review than most of the stations you are putting on the cutting block.
If you're too far one way to see how you're argument makes little to no sense, then you've unfortunately formed a polar opposite to characters we all equally hate, being Limbaugh and Hannity.
Is Russia's invasion of Georgia the same as Bush's?
That's what Democrats want you to believe in their efforts to deny, subvert any success accomplished by deposing a genocidal madman, murderer and rapist!
They (Democrats) have attempted to deny success of the Iraq war from the very moment it started -- that's a prime example of what patriotism means to Democrats ... they think it is crap ...
... unless their president is invading another country (Serbia) to depose a genocidal leader of a sovereign nation that turned out NOT TO BE ONEa genocide! At that time, they called any complaint about the need for that INVASION as being anti-patriot and that such talk could harm our nation's security and the lives of our soldiers ...
Now, the hypocritical anti-patriot Democrats still whine and moan about the successful deposition of a true genocidal leader of an UNSOVEREIGN nation that had been causing trouble for 20 years, had invaded a neighbor and threatened the world with WMD, there or not!
Suck it up anti-patriotic, greedy for votes, subversive Democrats trying to lose a war that ALL of the USA is fighting ... not just Republicans.
Now, here they are trying to make the United States of America the same as Communist Russia ... the faithless, ignorant, selfishly self-interested, partisan geeks!
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