The Yankees suck.

There are 4 nationally televised debates scheduled. Plenty of time for John to make a fool of himself.

I don’t Jay. Iffy. I’ve read three stories on it and I haven’t seen a quote where he says ‘Never, under any circumstances, will I allow more offshore drilling. Take it to the bank.’ He said ‘I intend,’ and ‘it won’t drop prices,’ but I can’t find categorical rejection.

Here’s the strongest quote I can find, from Jacksonville, also June–

“When I’m president, I intend to keep in place the moratorium here in Florida and around the country that prevents oil companies from drilling off Florida’s coasts.”

Now here’s another, from a different AP piece (apparently I’m this morning’s cut-n-paster…) –

“If, in order to get [a comprehensive energy policy] passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”

Leaving aside the notion that a certain degree of flexibility might be desirable, since he apparently never categorically rejected lifting the drilling ban, but only said he intended to keep it, he can get away with saying it’s not a new position, can he not? If I “intend” to go the gym, staying home isn’t really a new position, is it? In other words, “I intend” vs. “I will.”

“In 2003, Shevardnadze (who won reelection in 2000) was deposed by the Rose Revolution, after Georgian opposition and international monitors asserted that the 2 November parliamentary elections were marred by fraud. The revolution was led by Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, former members and leaders of Shavarnadze’s ruling party. Mikheil Saakashvili was elected as President of Georgia in 2004. Following the Rose Revolution, a series of reforms was launched to strengthen the country’s military and economic capabilities.”

McCain–

“Following fraudulent parliamentary elections in 2003, a peaceful, democratic revolution took place, led by the U.S.-educated lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili. The Rose Revolution changed things dramatically and, following his election, President Saakashvili embarked on a series of wide-ranging and successful reforms.”

CIA World Factbook–

“An attempt by the incumbent Georgian government to manipulate national legislative elections in November 2003 touched off widespread protests that led to the resignation of Eduard SHEVARDNADZE, president since 1995. New elections in early 2004 swept Mikheil SAAKASHVILI into power along with his National Movement party. Progress on market reforms and democratization has been made in the years since independence …”

Hmm. Near as I can tell the only point not hit in each of the three passages is that the CIA doesn’t mention the words ‘Rose Revolution.’ Other than that, essentially the same information, no?

Porlock seems to suggest here that McCain ought to have already had an expert on Georgian history on staff, in anticipation of a Russian attack and necessary response from the American presidential candidates. I can’t say I’d call that an efficient use of his money. One wonders whether any candidate in history has had people on the staff that knew enough trivia about somewhat obscure (how many Americans could find Georgia on a map before this?) former Soviet Satellites to write its historical background into a speech. I’m gonna guess – no, probably not.

Not that I expect the trolls to have any concept whatever of this advanced stuff, but: Supposing something comes up in a really unexpected part of the world, and the advisers are caught off guard and need to study up on it, they look for information in real sources written by real authors. Wikipedia, though a remarkably useful source for getting a first look at something you’re curious about, doesn’t make it.

Ah, so research is acceptable, but we seem to be taking on faith that wikipedia was the source, and that the writers ‘plagiarized’ their material. Three brief quotes – superficial, frankly, to the current crisis – do not even come close to proving this, even if they are similar. But even if it was, there are any number of explanations. For instance they could have clicked through to the more reputable links at the bottom (the article cites the CIA world factbook, Georgia’s Constitution, etc.) but the original wording may have stuck in the writer’s head.

Further, though, if they used wikipedia to add a little background pretty irrelevant to actual policy, I can’t really bring myself to care. I notice we’re not debating the merits of Sen. McCain’s and Obama’s responses, but rather spending many paragraphs on an issue that is relatively cosmetic in nature.

And remember – if you disagree, you are a troll.

You mean, like “Barack Obama is a studio-produced celebrity, etcetera”?

I’ll drop mine if you guys drop yours.

Well, like I said, he’s claiming that he never changed his position. He has to maintain that viewpoint because any ‘compromise’ would just get the nutroots in an uproar.

What? A politician made a…whaddya call it…a compromise?!?

Somebody call Matt Drudge!

Difference is, he took a hard line stance against drilling and then changed his position. He then tried to bullshit his way out of it by saying he never actually changed his position, but there’s nothing anybody could find that showed he supported drilling in any way.

Here is quote as early as June talking about doing offshore drilling Florida:

“And when I am president,” Obama said in June in Chicago, “I will keep the moratorium in place and prevent oil companies from drilling off Florida’s coasts. That’s how we can protect our coasts and still make the investments that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and bring down gas prices for good.”

Now if he had said that he was altering his position for the sake of compromise, that would be one thing. But he’s attempting to say this has always been his viewpoint and that’s just not the case.

No, Spider. That is the nothing more than a Democratic party talking point. And when one considers that McCain and Bush are polar opposites when it comes to their feelings about Vladimir Putin, then bringing up Bush’s name is nothing but a deflection.

Whether you plagiarize it or manage to paraphrase successfully, using Wikipedia shows a complete lack of the expertise that you hope a candidate (himself pig-ignorant, of course) will bring with him to the White House.

The funny thing is that McCain’s main advisor is a retired paid lobbyist for Georgia, as everybody has heard by now. So who is the ignoramus on the staff who wrote this thing rather than let the expert ex-lobbyist write it? Wheels within wheels of incompetence.

This is the stupidest thing I’ve read in a long time. First of all, the speech gave some basic historical background on Georgia. So what if the guy who prepared the remarks such text took some basic information about Georgia from Wikipedia?

McCain’s suggestions about what should be done were not taken from Wikipedia and chances are, McCain relied upon Randy Scheunemann in that regard. Scheunemann btw, is not a speech writer, so it is completely asinine to have him write the speech. Good grief.

In addition, the “plagiarism” accusation is just stupid. As I said, you cannot plagiarize historical facts, only the expression of said facts and a basic standard comment about Georgia and Christianity doesn’t cut it. Of course, the biggest blow to the entire plagiarism charge is the third example which people are holding up. It contains information that’s not even in the Wikipedia entry. Is the left going to complain that somebody did additional research next?

The real issue here of course has nothing to do with McCain but rather Barack Obama who issued a half-assed statement that was barely sizzle and definitely no steak. All of a sudden, the next day he’s playing “ME TOO!!” by basically revising his remarks so that they fall in line with what McCain had said.

“John McCain’s “policy” on the current crisis in Georgia was apparently lifted from Wikipedia.”

1) The actual complaint is that a couple of sentences of background on the situation were adapted from Wikipedia. Not the policy itself, but a smidgen of the context.

The sentences in question:

In 2003, Shevardnadze (who won reelection in 2000) was deposed by the Rose Revolution, after Georgian opposition and international monitors asserted that the 2 November parliamentary elections were marred by fraud. The revolution was led by Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, former members and leaders of Shavarnadze’s ruling party. Mikheil Saakashvili was elected as President of Georgia in 2004. Following the Rose Revolution, a series of reforms was launched to strengthen the country’s military and economic capabilities. (Wikipedia)

Following fraudulent parliamentary elections in 2003, a peaceful, democratic revolution took place, led by the U.S.-educated lawyer Mikheil Saakashvili. The Rose Revolution changed things dramatically and, following his election, President Saakashvili embarked on a series of wide-ranging and successful reforms.(McCain)

A couple of phrases, at most. “A series of reforms” becomes “a series of wide-ranging and successful reforms.”

Beyond weak. Beyond lame. This whole article is downright fraudulent.

J.

“America …uh, is …, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”

As anyone who has spent any time at all studying presidential elections, it was precisely that question from Roger Mudd that put the final nail in the coffin of Ted Kennedy’s presidential ambitions. It’s probably the most fundamental and simple questions, and Obama couldn’t handle it — from a child.

J.

Here and in other blogs there’s a really impressive and successful effort to miss the point of the Wikipedia thing. It’s not whether McCain would get his term paper downgraded for plagiarism (assuming he wrote that thing, which of course he did not). It’s that a candidate for President is supposed to have foreign policy advisors who, like, know things. People who know things about international affairs do not have to rely on a hasty lookup in Wikipedia.

Not that I expect the trolls to have any concept whatever of this advanced stuff, but: Supposing something comes up in a really unexpected part of the world, and the advisers are caught off guard and need to study up on it, they look for information in real sources written by real authors. Wikipedia, though a remarkably useful source for getting a first look at something you’re curious about, doesn’t make it.

Whether you plagiarize it or manage to paraphrase successfully, using Wikipedia shows a complete lack of the expertise that you hope a candidate (himself pig-ignorant, of course) will bring with him to the White House.

The funny thing is that McCain’s main advisor is a retired paid lobbyist for Georgia, as everybody has heard by now. So who is the ignoramus on the staff who wrote this thing rather than let the expert ex-lobbyist write it? Wheels within wheels of incompetence.

For myself, I actually appreciate the idea of an executive willing to do the horse-trading necessary to make government’s wheels turn. If I recall correctly, I don’t think Obama was all of a sudden saying, ‘Drill here! Drill now!’ Rather, it was more like he was saying he’d grudgingly accept minimal new drilling as an acceptable compromise. If somebody knows otherwise, please, throw up a link.

If and when somebody is willing to present credible evidence for this, I’ll cheerfully entertain the notion. However the evidence presented is typically a handful of instances where Sen. Obama, like any human whose connection from brain to mouth is imperfect, loses his train of thought or flubs a comment. A handful of instances, by the way, out of probably thousands of hours spoken on the campaign trail.

Not good enough, those of you who believe this. The very definition of anecdotal. You cannot treat as gospel the combined sixty seconds of Obama sounding silly while ignoring, as OW helpfully pointed out, the 20 debates where he did just fine (some would say excelled) sans teleprompter.

Cleanup, please. False equivalency in aisle five.

McCain is running on a platform that promises to continue the policies of the past eight years. He is, in effect, campaigning to be Bush’s protege and unofficial steward of a third Bush term.

Obama is not running a campaign based on the thirty year-old administration of Jimmy Carter. If you were to start “throwing out some beauties from the Carter administration” as a way of connecting them to Obama, I’d be forced to counter with some beauties from the Harding and Hoover administrations.

Hey Mike, ever going to show me where that ad exists that supposedly showed Max Cleland’s face morphing into Osama bin Laden’s? I am guessing not, so why don’t you go have a nice big filling of STFU?

Twit.

Because the right only now seems to have discovered that decent verbal communication skills are something we should value in a president.

Really? And can you show me where you’ve seen this? I’d be interesting in seeing where “the right only now seems to have discovered that decent verbal communication skills are something we should value in a president.” What is being said is that Obama is basically a studio produced candidate that does excellent with well rehearsed speeches but doesn’t do well the kind of format that McCain wants.

Any other strawman arguments you want to erect?

Obama is by far a more eloquent and composed speaker than either Bush or McCain, off the teleprompter and on.

That’s a matter of opinion and again, comparisons to Bush are irrelevant as he’s not running against Bush.

There are plenty of strategic reasons for Obama to reject McCain’s call for a series of townhall style debates, none of which have anything to do with Obama’s comfort level with the format.

Oh that’s a load of horseshit. Obama had initially agreed to the format (”I think that is a great idea” and “If John McCain wants to meet me anywhere, anytime….that is a conversation I am willing to have.”) until a string of gaffes when speaking off the cuff and policy position changes showed that Obama wasn’t ready for such a format.

So give me a break with the “strategic” nonsense because if McCain were truly the doddering old marble mouth fool Democratic operatives are making him out to be, then what better way to reveal that to the public than by showing him up in front of actual American citizens asking questions.

Bush spent the last eight years looking woefully uncomfortable speaking off the cuff AND speaking from prepared remarks. Does the phrase “tribal sovereignty” ring any bells? To save the poor president from this awkwardness, he spent much of his public speaking at carefully screened, carefully orchestrated faux-town hall meetings where he was a mix of softball fawning and planted questions.

Why is any of this relevant now, while talking about McCain and Obama? Because the right only now seems to have discovered that decent verbal communication skills are something we should value in a president. Can anyone point to a right-wing conservative who didn’t spin Bush’s malapropisms and rambling non-answers as some kind of folksy stew of American goodness, instead of the nonsensical drivel it really was? Anyone that bothered to point out Bush’s clear awkwardness with public speaking of any kind, was accused of being some kind of elitist afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Obama is by far a more eloquent and composed speaker than either Bush or McCain, off the teleprompter and on.

There are plenty of strategic reasons for Obama to reject McCain’s call for a series of townhall style debates, none of which have anything to do with Obama’s comfort level with the format.

The only people saying that are idiots like you. I’ve met the man, seen him speak in small settings, and have listened to him speak off the cuff. He’s always comfortable. You are either lying or are too stupid to understand human discourse. Actually, you’re likely both.