There seems to be an attitude among many TV talking heads that since John McCain didn’t self-destruct in his first
presidential debate against Barack Obama, that the debate should be considered a win for him or at least a tie. But presidential debates are too important to the American people to be judged in that manner. The substance of what a candidate says should be considered much more important than the style (Obama’s style was far superior to McCain’s as well, in my opinion, but that’s more subjective). And the truth is that John McCain’s debate arguments were filled with misleading information, half truths, and outright lies. Here are some of the most important examples:
McCain’s statement of support for the bailout billAfter
helping torpedo the Democratic version of the bailout bill on Thursday, McCain lamely let himself be pressured by debate moderator Jim Lehrer into promising support for the bill.
LEHRER: Are you going to vote for the plan, Senator McCain?
MCCAIN: I – I hope so. And I...
LEHRER: As a United States senator...
MCCAIN: Sure.
LEHRER: You’re going to vote for the plan?
MCCAIN: Sure…
McCain doesn’t even know what the plan is going to look like yet when it comes up for a vote, and yet he let the moderator quickly pressure him into agreeing to vote for whatever it is, instead of having the presence of mind to say that he couldn’t promise to vote for a bill that hasn’t even been written yet.
McCain then went into a lecture about the importance of accountability. Apparently he doesn’t understand the connection between accountability in the private sector and government oversight and regulation, since he has always been unabashedly and ideologically against government regulation of corporations, as he has
previously made clear:
“I’m always for less regulation,” he told The Wall Street Journal last March, “but I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight” in situations like the subprime lending crisis, the problem that has cascaded through Wall Street this year. He concluded, “but I am fundamentally a deregulator.”
Later that month, he gave a speech on the housing crisis in which he called for less regulation, saying, “Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.”
McCain’s claim that Obama voted to increase taxes on people making as low as $42,000 a yearWithout specifying the vote McCain was referring to, it is impossible to evaluate with any confidence his claim that Obama voted to raise taxes on individual making as little as $42,000. Many bills are filled with dozens of unrelated items, where a Congressperson is faced with the choice of voting for all of them or none of them. In such cases, cherry picking specific items with which to criticize someone is often taken out of context and highly misleading.
The salient point is that Obama has put forth a tax plan that will not raise taxes for anyone making less than a quarter million dollars a year. He has been steadfast in sticking to that point, and his tax plans have consistently been displayed
on his website. He has made it quite clear over and over again that he will
reverse the Bush tax cuts on the rich while decreasing taxes on the other 95% of us. For McCain to repeatedly claim that Obama will do otherwise, without pointing to anything in his plan or a specific vote that proves otherwise, is highly disingenuous.
McCain’s claim to have saved taxpayers $6.8 billion by killing a Boeing contractTo display his fiscal credentials McCain noted during the debate:
I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion by fighting a contract that was negotiated between Boeing and DOD that was completely wrong. And we fixed it and we killed it…
But what McCain didn’t mention were the ties of his campaign staffers to a Boeing competitor. From an article titled “
John McCain: Did his Lobbyist Ties to Airbus Cost American Jobs?”:
The Pentagon announced last month that it would award a $35 billion contract for new Air Force tankers to European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp., instead of to Seattle-based Boeing Co.
McCain had pushed the Pentagon to open the bidding process to EADS, and some question whether the three former EADS lobbyists who are on his campaign staff had anything to do with that. “Mr. Clean has a bunch of lobbyists that work for a company that won that contract,” House Democratic Caucus chairman Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) said. “Some people claim the way the specs were written, it was all but certain that the company that his campaign lobbyists worked for couldn’t but get that contract.”
McCain’s claim that Obama’s health care plan would hand health care decisions to the federal governmentMcCain said during the debate:
Well, I want to make sure we're not handing the health care system over to the federal government which is basically what would ultimately happen with Senator Obama's health care plan. I want the families to make decisions between themselves and their doctors. Not the federal government.
McCain has repeated this statement many times in the past. He either hasn’t read Obama’s health care plan, doesn’t understand it, or else (more likely) he is outright lying about it.
Obama’s health care plan is
explained on his website. The plan would make health care affordable to tens of millions of Americans who currently can’t afford health insurance, by giving them government subsidies to purchase health insurance. The plan has nothing in it that would give the federal government the responsibility of providing health care or would in any way interfere with a person’s choice of physician or type of care. It would be run on the same principle that Medicare is now run.
McCain’s claim to have opposed President Bush on torture of our prisonersMcCain’s repeated claims to have opposed George Bush’s torture policies are partially true. Though McCain has achieved a reputation for challenging George Bush’s torture program, and he has in fact said that torture “
should never be condoned”, for which he deserves credit, when push comes to shove, he almost always
votes with Bush on supporting his torture plans. The most recent example was when McCain not only voted against a bill that would have required CIA interrogations to conform to the U.S. Army Field Manual, but he
urged George Bush to veto the bill when Congress passed it.
McCain’s support for the Iraq surgeIn order to brag about how well the “surge” that McCain supported turned out, he said:
There is social, economic progress, and a strategy, a strategy of going into an area, clearing and holding, and the people of the country then become allied with you. They inform on the bad guys. And peace comes to the country, and prosperity.
That's what's happening in Iraq…
Peace comes to the country? This year alone, long after the McCain/Bush surge was initiated, there have been
266 American military deaths, nearly two thousand American soldiers wounded, and many times that many Iraqi civilians killed. Granted, the American military death toll is less now than it was prior to the surge. We have more soldiers there to keep the violence down, and the violence is indeed down. But American soldiers are still being killed, and the reason they’re being killed is because Iraqis deeply resent the U.S. occupation of their country. We have killed over a million of them, created more than four million refugees, and destroyed the infrastructure of their country. They have quite understandably wanted us to leave for a long time. Where is the “honor” in all that, which John McCain so often invokes to justify our imperial occupation? Furthermore, this is how the editors of
The Nation explain the apparent “success” of the surge:
Second, the surge has had an ugly flip side. To reduce the violence, the US military built concrete walls to separate Sunnis and Shiites, which facilitated ethnic cleansing by both sides but especially by Shiite militias against Sunni residents of Baghdad. The drop-off in violence reflects the fact that ethnic cleansing led to the internal partition of Iraqi cities and regions, reducing the opportunity for sectarian killing.
Third, the surge has not created the conditions for political reconciliation or a stable Iraq, which, after all, was its main purpose. The "success" of the surge was based on Sunni repression of jihadi extremists, ethnic cleansing and separation walls, not compromise. The Shiite-led government seems no more willing to compromise on key issues than it was before the surge…
McCain’s claim to have opposed Bush on global warming and clean energy developmentMcCain said that he has opposed Bush on the issue of global warming, and he claimed to have supported the use of clean alternative energy. The truth is quite a bit different.
Words are cheap. McCain often uses populist rhetoric in an attempt to gain the allegiance of independent voters. But when it comes to his voting record, his corporate backers know where he stands.
Though McCain has made a big deal of
pretending to go against George Bush on the issue of global warming (I have received e-mails from him noting the necessity of doing something to combat it), in an attempt maintain his reputation as a “maverick” and vie for the votes of Independents, his actions speak otherwise. The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) gives him a
24% lifetime score for his global warming policies, and a 0% score for 2007. His
overall environmental score with the League of Conservation voters is 0%. And in an act of political cowardice, he was the
only Senator to fail to show up for a recent vote on a clean energy bill that failed to pass by one vote.
When McCain was asked his opinion on subsidies for clean energy technology such as wind and solar,
he said:
I'm not one who believes that we need to subsidize things. The wind industry is doing fine, the solar industry is doing fine. In the '70s, we gave too many subsidies and too much help, and we had substandard products sold to the American people, which then made them disenchanted with solar for a long time… There’s a point where you should let the free-enterprise system take over.
McCain’s concern for our veteransAs he always does, McCain made a big deal about how much he cares about our veterans:
I know the veterans. I know them well. And I know that they know that I'll take care of them. And I've been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans. And I love them. And I'll take care of them. And they know that I'll take care of them. And that's going to be my job.
But the truth is that McCain almost always votes
against veterans’ benefits. Here is a listing of some of his most important votes, compared with Obama’s votes (pro-veteran votes are in blue, anti-veteran votes are in red).
Aug-01: Bill to increase the amount of medical care available to veterans by $650 million McCain:
NayApril-03: Vote to table bill to provide $1 billion in make up for shortfall in equipment for Air National Guard and Reserves fighting in IraqMcCain:
Yea October-03: Vote to table bill to provide $322 million for safety equipment for forces in IraqMcCain:
Yea March-04: Bill to increase medical care for veterans by $1.8 billionMcCain:
Nay April-05: Vote on $2 billion for veterans’ health careMcCain:
Nay Obama:
Yea March-06: Bill to increase medical care for veterans by $1.5 billionMcCain:
Nay Obama:
Yea April-06: Bill to increase outpatient care for veterans by $430 millionMcCain:
Nay Obama:
Yea May-06: Bill to provide $20 million for veterans’ medical facilitiesMcCain:
Nay Obama:
Nay June-06: Resolution for withdrawal of troops from IraqMcCain:
Nay Obama
Yea July-07: Vote on cloture of bill to specify minimum rest periods for troops in IraqMcCain:
Nay Obama:
Yea And it is not true that veterans groups generally support him. Because of his anti-veteran voting record, the opposite is often true. Here is what
Hispanic veterans have to say about this issue:
We Hispanic Veterans want to know why McCain voted against health care funding for our troops and veterans in 2004, 2005, 2006 & 2007. We want to know why John McCain did not vote for the new G.I. Bill for our troops and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars…. Why doesn’t John McCain want our troops and veterans to have health care or the opportunity for education? John McCain gets his health care provided by the US taxpayer and his education was provided by the US taxpayer…. These are questions John McCain will not allow or give a straight answer to. John McCain likes to USE our Troops and Veterans as puppets and photos opportunities.
Obama’s willingness to meet with foreign leaders without preconditionsMcCain repeatedly made a big deal about Obama’s willingness to meet with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. He said:
What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a "stinking corpse," and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments.
Dangerous? Legitimize Ahmadinejad’s comments about Israel? So, I suppose that Churchill and FDR legitimized Stalin’s actions when they met with him? And Nixon legitimized Mao’s actions when he met with him. Or did FDR, Churchill and Nixon require Stalin and Mao to apologize for their massive slaughter of their respective countrypersons before they met with them?
Who’s the naïve one here? Enemies have met to discuss and negotiate their mutual problems throughout history. As Obama said during the debate, “I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it's going to keep America safe.”
Debate summaryBarack Obama did a thoroughly credible job during the debate, demonstrating a solid grasp of every issue he was asked to speak about. Though some talking heads incredibly criticized him for agreeing with McCain on too many issues, thus appearing “weak”, I think that most Americans want a president who is level-headed, not quick to anger, and willing to find areas of agreement with his opponents. To reflexively criticize everything McCain said would have been un-presidential and dishonest. I do, however, acknowledge that Obama could have (and should have) done a more aggressive job of calling McCain out on his many lies and distortions.
John McCain, on the other hand, came across as incredibly condescending, arrogant, and hostile towards Obama, and he exhibited some very ugly and weird facial expressions. I don’t like or expect to see our leaders use that kind of behavior to make their points, in place of reasoned argument.
But McCain’s style was not by any means the worst aspect of his debate performance. His numerous attempts to mislead and outright lie to the American people clearly brand him as the debate loser. But the truth of the matter is that he has little choice. He can’t afford to be honest with the American people about his long record in Congress because he has consistently followed a pro-corporate and far right ideological agenda, to the great detriment of the American people.
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