In-Depth Debate Analysis: Part III

This is the third and final installment of debate analysis. This section covering the last questions asked in last Friday’s debate.

Question: How do you see the relationship with Russia? Competitor? Enemy? Potential Partner?

Barack Obama speaks first. An aggressive and resurgent Russia is a threat to peace and stability in the region. The attack on Georgia was unacceptable. Russia needs to abide the cease-fire, and get out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia cannot act be a 21st century power with a 20th century mindset. We need to let the smaller nations near Russia, NATO allies all, that we will be behind them. We must insist that Georgia and the Ukraine be given a shot at joining NATO. Russia has 15,000 warheads, and has the capacity to make 40,000 more, and Al-Qaeda could potentially get their hands on one. You don’t deal with Russia by staring in it’s leaders eyes and looking into his soul.

John McCain said that Barack Obama said that both sides in the South Ossetian War “ought to show restraint”, and called him naive…again. He called Russia a KGB apparatchik-run government. Then said he looked in Putin’s eyes and he saw 3 letters, a K, a B, and a G. He mentioned oil in Georgia, implying that that is the reason Russia went in…despite the fact they never got to either Georgian pipeline. He said that Russia needs to follow the cease fire agreement. He seemingly also took up prognostication here, saying we should watch the Ukraine, implying that he thinks the Russians will move next militarily there.

Barack Obama got a long response in here, and a long ranging one as well. He reiterated his first call on the South Ossetian War was illegal and objectionable, and called for a cessation to violence, and put through a bill to give $1,000,000,000 to Georgia to help rebuild that war torn nation. Barack said that he warned the administration about Russian peacekeepers in Georgia. He thought it odd, and told the Administration as much, and that those Russians needed to be replaced with International peacekeepers, but that they didn’t listen. McCain had mentioned Oil in Georgia, so Obama responded with an answer about our own oil addiction, that all the offshore drilling we can do won’t bring us energy independence, and called for us to look for alternative energy sources so we won’t be at the mercy of our enemies for oil that runs through their nations.

It went tit-for-tat on energy after that, for about a minute, and then the last Question of the night was asked.

Final Question: What do you think the likelihood of another 9/11 type attack on the United States?

John McCain went first. He said it was much less now than the day after 9/11, but we are a long way from safe. He said that he, along with Sen. Lieberman called for the 9/11 commission. And that he was stymied by the administration until the families of the victims of 9/11 came to Washington and got things moving. He worked with both Democrats and Republicans to get more than 40 of the recommendations that commission brought up. We have a long way to go in our intelligence services, and then he made a rather startling statement, one that implies that the American government had in fact tortured prisoners, saying we need to have “trained interrogators so we don’t ever torture a prisoner ever again”. He spoke of a need for increased need for technological and intelligence capabilities. He said that the recommendation caused the largest reorganization in government since the establishment of the Defense department in 1947. He mentioned border security lastly.

Barack Obama said that we are in some ways safer, having sunk billions into airport security and in securing potential terrorists targets, but there is need for more work. He said our ports are in need of protection, and our transit infrastructure is vulnerable, and that our chemical sites need hardening. Barack said the main issue was nuclear proliferation, that terrorists must be stopped from getting nukes, and then adding we spend billions on missile defense, which is necessary, but stopping nuclear proliferation is an additional burden that must be met. He said we are the greatest nation on Earth, but that he will work to improve America’s standing in the world, noting that we are less respected as a power now than we were 4 or 8 years ago.

The final exchange of the night started with McCain talking about Missile defense and SDI, the Reagan era missile shield, and claimed that Barack Obama was naive for what must have been the 12th time, and then brought the conversation back to Iraq. Barack seemed a bit amused by this and said that McCain and Bush had been focused solely on Iraq, while leaving Osama Bin Laden free, and this has in turn weakened our standing in the world. John McCain with his last few statements talked about Russia, and veterans affairs. Barack ended his portion of the debate with a call to bring America back it’s standing in the world, and a commitment to education, and talk of his family, and the American Dream. John talked about knowing how to heal the wounds of war, and knowing how to deal with our friends and adversaries.

And it was done. WHEW!

Now I have to tell you, for all that a lot of pundits think this was a fairly close and even match, I cannot entirely agree. Yes, John McCain landed some solid blows, yes he made some points, but not one point that he made about Barack Obama went unchallenged and unrefuted. I cannot say the same thing about Sen. McCain. There were times when the Senior Senator from Arizona looked like a fool, between his talk of short North Koreans, or his inability to make any accusation made against Sen. Obama stick, to losing points by not looking his opponent in the eye, when he claims to have looked Putin in the Eye and seen the KGB Logo, the man was, to be honest, a bit flat.

John McCain was strongest when attacking Barack Obama personally, but those attacks usually came in the form of simply calling the man naive. That was stupid, a tactical blunder. Every time he did that he put his foot in his mouth, because he was proven wrong on those very grounds, time and again. He tried to paint Barack Obama as inexperienced and came away empty handed every time he made the attempt.

Barack Obama on the other hand, came off as more than the “professorial” speaker he has been touted to be, but less than the man who spoke on the rostrum in Denver at Mile High stadium late in august. He is clearly a better speaker with a teleprompter than live and unscripted, but he is more than a match for the Bombastic and slightly off-kilter John McCain.

Obama wins in my estimation. That’s just me though. What do you think? Anything in this INSANELY long debate analysis bother you? Anything I said that was off base in your Opinion? Is there something I missed? Drop me a Line and Let me Know!

Uncle Mikey

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Today I am going to look at 3 men, one a Lobbyist, one that lobbyist’s business partner, and the other a former lobbyist working in the McCain Campaign, and their baggage.

First Up: Harry Sargent/Mustafa Abu Naba’a. The McCain campaign last week had to return $50,000 in contributions from donors due to the fact that the donations were in fact collected by a foreign national, Mr. Mustafa Abu Naba’a, a man who is a citizen of both Jordan and the Dominican Republic. This is seen as potentially conflicting with election laws, because it is illegal for foreign nationals to give to American political campaigns. Not to mention that the money came from donors who do not even back Senator McCain.

Mister Abu Naba’a owns a 1/3 share of Mister Sargent’s company, which supplies oil to the U.S. military in Iraq, and has contracts that could be worth up $1,400,000,000 with the U.S. military.

That’s a nice piece of change.

Also of some interest here was the amount given and the people who wrote the checks that Mister Naba’a allegedly picked up for Mister Sargent for the McCain campaign. The amount given? The most allowable to give, by law. $2,300 per person. It is HIGHLY unlikely that an Auto Mechanic, a Taco Bell Manager, and a couple that at one time ran a liquor store would have that kind of money to give to a political campaign. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not exactly the people you would normally imagine giving this much, and I severely doubt that any of these people actually have that kind of money to give to a political campaign. I know auto mechanics. They don’t make enough money to actually be able to give that kind of money to a political campaign. The guy doing your brakes doesn’t make enough to give like that. Trust me on this one.

And if Taco bell pays that much, I’m leaving the copy center of the Law Firm I work at and going to taco bell to chase my dream of wealth and success. Oh wait. They don’t…pay.. that much…. Hmmmm… Neither does working a Liquor store. That job is more likely to get you on TV as a shooting victim than any real prosperity.

But Wait there’s More!

Mister Sargent is also being looked at by Rep. Henry Waxman, the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, for overcharging the military for the fuel he sold them. And the contract that he signed with the Military is interesting, insofar as it was not the lowest bid for the supplying of oil used by the American military in Iraq.

Another Bundler of joy is a man named Randy Scheunemann. He is former President of the committee for the liberation of iraq, of which John McCain was a member, which was widely seen as a PR organization for the Iraq war push back in 2002. He was also closely linked to the Project for the New American Century, A Neo-conservative think tank, which is stated as an important shaper of American Foreign policy. Other Members of this Think tank Included Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz.

He was also an Advisor to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq. He is now foreign policy aide to John McCain.

This man, Scheunemann, has been linked to Ahmed Chalabi, The First Iraqi Oil Minister, who has given state secrets to Iran and has been accused of fraud involving Iraqi currency as well as grand theft of both national and private assets in Iraq.

Scheunemann has also been linked to, and in fact worked for, Stephen Payne, the disgraced former lobbyist who offered access to Senior administration officials in exchange for large amounts of cash for the George W. Bush Public Library.

And Until March of this year, Mister Scheunemann had been a lobbyist for the nation of Georgia, who were recently attacked and mauled by the Russian bear. Could this be the reason for John McCain’s rush to take the Georgian’s side in the recent Georgia-Russian conflict?

This is very fertile ground for analysis. There are TONS more Lobbyists, and not just McCain’s men who I can skewer. Are there any shady dealings going on anywhere that you would like to be brought to light? Anyone out there you think needs to get the third degree? Drop me a Line and Let me know!

Uncle Mikey