Thursday, November 29, 2007

McCain vs. Romney on Torture

It's amazing how eloquent and sincere one can be when he's on the right side of an issue:



Romney just comes off as a weasel.

I don't understand why McCain isn't doing better in the polls. He comes off as honest and decent. Although he's not a religious fanatic, he is a mostly consistent conservative, unlike Rudy and Romney. Huckabee also strikes me as honest and decent, and he's an ordained minister! Does Romney have anything besides looks and money? Does Rudy have anything besides 9/11?

28 comments:

Holy Hyrax said...

>It's amazing how eloquent and sincere one can be when he's on the right side of an issue:

right side of an issue???

Holy Hyrax said...

Romney can be just as sincere, if he had the backbone to say what he really wants to.

Ezzie said...

Are you serious on Rudy? I remember the NYers in my school in Milwaukee going on about Rudy... and I was out of Milwaukee by 9/11. He was well-respected and loved well before that. That 9/11 far eclipsed all that doesn't mean that's "all" he has; it's just the best thing he has going for him on a national scale.

Anonymous said...

wow that was crazy I was wondering what your political views where and here the first post was a political one.

Who is your favored candidate? I'm currently leaning towards ron paul after seeing this video > http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=3hn185x6g4 and then this video on his position regarding marijuana > http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=glvkvbeqka

Mark said...

JA,
McCain's bugaboo for me is McCain/Feingold.

Jewish Atheist said...

HH:

Romney can be just as sincere, if he had the backbone to say what he really wants to.

What do you think he really wants to say? My guess is that he thinks waterboarding is torture but doesn't want to say so.


Ezzie:

Are you serious on Rudy? I remember the NYers in my school in Milwaukee going on about Rudy...

I'm not sure Orthodox Jews are a representative sample. ;-) I guess it would be fair to say that Giualiani has legitimately earned the "law and order" vote.


Politics:

wow that was crazy I was wondering what your political views where and here the first post was a political one.

I'm a liberal on most issues and I'm supporting Obama right now. I've written about him a lot, if you're interested.

Jewish Atheist said...

Mark:

McCain's bugaboo for me is McCain/Feingold.

Yeah, I figure that and immigration are his two problems with GOP voters.

Anonymous said...

Rudy has NYC- population 8 million. Thanks to him, it's a great place to live and work.

Jewish Atheist said...

mushroomjew:

Rudy has NYC- population 8 million. Thanks to him, it's a great place to live and work.

I'm not sure that a large chunk of the GOP looks at New York City as a great place to live and work, though. :-)

That's another thing. The two front-runners in the GOP are from New York City and Taxachusetts!

Anonymous said...

I didn't see all those posts thanks for the link.

Although in some ways

"A brown-skinned man, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy"

would help Americas public opinion, I hardly think that would stop a devoted radical terrorist.

On the flipside, do you think that maybe his "majority muslim school" upbringing would skew his vision of the threat from radical Islam and cause him to behave unjustly toward Israel?

Jewish Atheist said...

I doubt it.

Scott said...

John McCain get +2 points for saying nice things about how torture is bad and gets -10,000 points for being a warmonger.

Not torturing is good, but bombing Iran is really, REALLY bad. It's not okay to kill innocent children even if you do oppose torturing Muslims. The torture debate against Romney was nice, but did you see him tell Ron Paul that not preemptively invading countries produces Hitlers? WTF?

Jewish Atheist said...

Scott:

You're right about that.

Jack Steiner said...

but bombing Iran is really, REALLY bad. It's not okay to kill innocent children

When you remove all context any sort of military operation sounds bad.

Scott said...

Surely you're not suggesting there is a context within which bombing Iran would sound good.

TabooTruth said...

Ron Paul, despite his assertions, is an isolationist. McCain was fair to cross him on the issue.

Mitt Romney is a classic alpha male. He won't embarrass America like Bush, but he won't be a waffle like Kerry or Hillary. Either way, he doesn't seem to have anything original to say on any issue.

Can anyone tell me why we don't have any joint Democratic-Republican debates, where Romney, Guiliani, and McCain face off against Hillary, Obama, and Edwards?

That would be extremely interesting.

Scott said...

Ron Paul, despite his assertions, is an isolationist.

Wow, that's a tough argument you make, but I'm not convinced. Being against war and occupation is still not isolationism. It's just confusing for some people because the United States has been so interventionist for so, and well, people aren't all that smart.

Still, even if he WAS an isolationist, it'd still be better than what any of the other warmongering Republicans had to offer.

Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka said...

Ron Paul's an isolationist, there's no way around it. His foreign policy is basically, "to hell with the rest of the world".

McCain won't get my vote because of McCain/Feingold. And Bush will never get my forgiveness for signing it.

Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka said...

Surely you're not suggesting there is a context within which bombing Iran would sound good.

Here's a context:

We bomb Iran, and prevent them from producing atomic weapons. If we don't bomb them, they produce nukes.

Sounds good to me.

Independent Accountant said...

I would just as soon see Hillary elected as McCain. His immigration position alone makes it impossible for me to support him. I am a refugee from Los Angeles, Alta California. If you want to see where the US is going, go to California.

Scott said...

"Ron Paul's an isolationist, there's no way around it. His foreign policy is basically, "to hell with the rest of the world"."

I'm quite sure you've no clue what the term isolationism means. It's funny who those who would indiscriminately bomb foreign nations claim that Ron Paul's foreign policy is "to hell with the rest of the world". I'd love to see the logic that spells that out, but then there is none.

TabooTruth said...

Paul didn't even know the name of the ethnic group in northern Iraq(kurds) during the debate.

He seems to believe that our presence abroad is the sole cause of islamic hatred of america and wants us to bury our heads in the sand and ignore what's going on in the rest of the world. He said absolutely no intervention in Darfur, no intervention with Iran, withdrawal from the UN.

I still admire him on immigration, civil liberties, and gay marriage through, affirmative action,

but not on bioethics, mixed on environment/energy independence.

It's still great to see him challenge typical republican orthodoxy.

BTA said...

"I don't understand why McCain isn't doing better in the polls."

Because he's too old and seems a bit off. His time was against W the first time and he unfortunately lost.

Hyrax, if you think waterboarding is morally fine, you are proof of how religious status has no correlation with the morality of a person.

BTA said...

"The torture debate against Romney was nice, but did you see him tell Ron Paul that not preemptively invading countries produces Hitlers? WTF?"

I second that. Like I said, he's a bit loopy. That was grandstanding. However, if we were going to attack anyone preemptively Iran would have been a better choice. They have the self-professed plan to go nuclear, whereas Saddam was denying it and let inspectors in and had nothing built.

Scott said...

Paul didn't even know the name of the ethnic group in northern Iraq(kurds) during the debate.

Oh please, a simple mental blank. The man is probably the most knowledgeable person on foreign affairs of all the presidential candidates.

He seems to believe that our presence abroad is the sole cause of islamic hatred of america and wants us to bury our heads in the sand and ignore what's going on in the rest of the world.

Being reasonable about terrorism is not "burying your head in the sand". Look if you really want to know something about what he believes just read what he's written. He's written a book on foreign policy. He's written for anti-war.com about foreign policy since 2002.

http://antiwar.com/paul/archives.php

He said absolutely no intervention in Darfur, no intervention with Iran, withdrawal from the UN.

Well yes, he's a non-interventionist.

Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka said...

I'm quite sure you've no clue what the term isolationism means.

I'm quite familiar with what the term means. It's basically the forign policy pushed by Charles Linbergh and the like during the run up to WW2.

It's funny who those who would indiscriminately bomb foreign nations claim that Ron Paul's foreign policy is "to hell with the rest of the world". I'd love to see the logic that spells that out, but then there is none.

Who is arguing for indiscriminate bombing? I'm calling quite specific bombings of nuclear and other military targets. JDAM's are quite accurate, you know.

G said...

Surely you're not suggesting there is NO context within which bombing Iran would sound good.

Scott said...

I'm quite familiar with what the term means. It's basically the forign policy pushed by Charles Linbergh and the like during the run up to WW2.

Isolationism is not a foreign policy alone. It's also an economic policy. The foreign policy of isolationism is non-intervention, which Ron Paul is. The economic policy of isolationism is protectionism, which Ron Paul isn't.


Surely you're not suggesting there is NO context within which bombing Iran would sound good.

There's NO context in our present reality in which bombing Iran would sound good. None.