Huffington Post: McCain Recycles Bush Talking Points To Hit Obama On Terrorism

[Amerigo Vespucci]

McCain Recycles Bush Talking Points To Hit Obama On Terrorism

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/17/mccain-recycles-bush-talk_n_107538.html



John McCain and his aides took a fairly sharp jab at Barack Obama on Tuesday, accusing the presumptive Democratic nominee of downplaying the threat of terrorism by viewing it as a criminal activity.

If the attack line strikes political observers as familiar, that's because it is all but lifted from the playbook of George W. Bush.

Late Monday evening and Tuesday morning, the McCain campaign hit Obama for statements he made to ABC News arguing that the United States was able to arrest and put on trial those responsible for the first World Trade Center attack and could do the same for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Such logic, McCain's aides asserted, demonstrated a "stunning and alarming misunderstanding of the threat we face from radical Islamic extremism." Obama, they concluded, represented "the 9/10 Candidate."

(For full audio of the McCain campaign's Tuesday conference call on the topic: click here)

Put aside, for the time being, the fact that what Obama said was historical fact (the McCain campaign didn't dispute that, but argued that using the criminal justice system to help combat terrorism was a "policy of delusion"); or that McCain himself advocates closing the prison camp at Guantanamo and moving the detainees to the U.S. mainland; or that the Illinois Democrat never said anything about not using military force (Obama, after all, has advocated going after Bin Laden in Pakistan even without that government's sign-off). And consider how similar McCain's talking points are to those Bush deployed in the run-up to the 2004 election.

[damntexdem]

1. Hey, it's all he has.

And he barely has that. ;-)

[blondeatlast]

2. What more is there to say about it? "I would have addressed the 8/6/01 memo" is about

all he could use to distance himself from W on the issue. Somehow I don't think the RNC will allow him to go there, though.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. He "would have addressed the 8/6/01 memo"...

...and he would have handled Katrina differently, too...as he said recently...or MAYBE not:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/30/how-mccains-katrina-recor_n_104176.html

:patriot: