-Lindsay Graham
"Barack Obama never sat down with General Petreaus" - This is just false. Ever since Barack Obama questioned Patreus what the minimal conditions were for success in Iraq, petraeus has wanted to sit down and talk with Obama. He got that chance not more than six weeks ago when Obama flew to Iraq. At that time Obama sat down with Prime minister Maliki, Petraeus, and Ryan Crocker the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq to discuss the state of the Iraq war. After this meeting Obama held strong to his convictions to draw troops out of Iraq just over a year after he would take office. Both Maliki and Bush later made similar statements about drawing out in a similar time period.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/21/obama.mideast/index.html
"Barack Obama will not support our returning troops" - Well, I can assure you that John McCain will not support our troops. His plan for Veterans who live far from VA hospitals is atrocious. His plan is to give them a card to use at private hospitals. The only problem is that private hospitals are generally more expensive that VA hospitals. The benefit of these cards would not outweight the cost. Additionally, VA hospitals specialize in the needs of veterans including special care for both physical and mental (a more and more pressing consideration after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) health. Barack Obama has laid out his plan for veteran's which can be found at the following link http://www.barackobama.com/issues/veterans/
Other links you should check out on this issue:
http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/08/mccain_falls_fl_1.php
-Palin video
Yes, there were even lies in the video on Sarah Palin. Most of these were the same lies that Palin herself told the night before, so I won't go into those. But a new one emerged. Specifically, the video said that Governor Palin has a love for the environment. Governor Palin does not believe that global warming is a human made problem and supports off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWAR, both of which would have drastic effects on our environment. Additionally, Governor Palin opposed the Bush campaign when the sought to classify Polar Bears as an endangered species. Why? She said it had nothing to do with resource development. But I challenge Palin to come up with a good reason why she would fight so hard to limit protection of an animal that will soon be gone.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h3EH5jd_uyWAFtvLAUaky_bDGBhgD93011S81
- Tom Ridge
Actually wasn't much here. But that's because Tom Ridge's speech didn't really touch on the issues. Rather it focused on why John McCain is so great for America. But let's borrow a line from his speech to cover our next speaker.
"It's not about talking pretty, it's about talkin' straight!"
-John McCain
Besides the annoying silencing of the 'g' at the end of talking to suggest that he and John McCain are down to earth kind of guys, this statement suggests that John McCain doesn't care about sounding good. Rather, he cares about telling it like it is. So were their any false statements in the McCain speech? I think you know the answer.
John McCain says that he has fought lobbyists. Now this is somewhat true. John McCain has stood up to lobbyists in the past and has refused to take money to take on issues. That being said, both John McCain and Barack Obama (sorry folks) have former lobbyists on their staff. Although it doesn't excuse Obama from the same error, John McCain does have significantly more of these former lobbyists on his campaign committee.
Additionally, John McCain pushed on with same talking points as Palin about taxes, saying that Obama's tax plan would raise taxes while his plan would cut them. Well, I don't think I have to do any more than what was done so eloquently in an independent non-partisan assessment of the two tax plans: http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1031268,CST-NWS-tax30.article
I won't go into too much more here. I'm sure we'll be seeing lots of other people pointing out the errors in the speeches of this week. But let me draw up one more thing that I think John McCain has been saying that is misleading america. He constantly calls out other politicians for their "Me first, Country second attitude". He claims that he is not interested in partisan politics and will serve "you" and not any political party. If this is true, and John McCain does not care about partisanship and does not work to serve himself, then why has he flopped his position on so many issues in the last 8 years to fit with his party?
As John Kerry pointed out at the DNC last week, candidate McCain is very different than Senator McCain. Although Senator McCain was a maverick, stood up against his party, reached across party lines, and put country first and himself second, candidate McCain is very different. Candidate McCain has given in to the Republican party and changed his issues to gain both their favor and nomination to candidacy for the President of the United States. About the only thing that Candidate McCain did that went against his party was to continually support escalating troop levels in Iraq. A position that was very unpopular. But one could question directly, how does someone serves his country when he stands for a position that is unpopular and therefore, a position that his country, who he supposedly serves, directly opposes?
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