Saddleback Bloopers
Obama makes misleading claims about ethics legislation and abortion at a church-sponsored forum. McCain exaggerates his tax-cut proposals.
Summary
At a nationally televised forum at a mega-church in Southern California, we found these misrepresentations:
Obama claimed that "I worked with John McCain" on ethics legislation. In fact, the two worked together for barely a week, after which McCain accused Obama of "partisan posturing" and added, "I won't make the same mistake again." McCain later voted against the ethics bill that Obama supported, stating that it was written by Democrats with "no input" from Republicans.
Obama wrongly claimed that abortions "have not gone down" under President Bush. In fact, the abortion rate has gone down 9 percent, and the annual total has declined by more than 100,000.
McCain exaggerated the extent of his proposals to cut taxes. He incorrectly claimed he would give a "tax credit" of $7,000 per child, which would be seven times as high as the current credit. His actual proposal would gradually increase the current $3,500 exemption, which benefits high-bracket taxpayers most.
Analysis
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain appeared one after the other Aug. 16 at the "Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency" at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. The event was televised nationally on CNN and Fox News.
Twisted Ethics History
Obama offered a twisted account of his working with a Republican and "against party loyalty." He said he "worked with John McCain" on ethics legislation, when in fact their short-lived collaboration collapsed into bitter public wrangling long before any bill resulted. And the legislation that became law was backed by Democrats and only opposed by Republicans in the Senate, including McCain.
Warren: Can you give me a good example where you went against party loyalty, and maybe even went against your own best interest, for the good of America?
Obama: Well, you know, I'll give you an example that, in fact, I worked with John McCain on, and that was the issue of campaign ethics reform and finance reform. That wasn't probably in my interest or his, for that matter, because the truth was that both Democrats and Republicans sort of like the status quo.
It's true that Obama approached McCain on the floor of the Senate in early 2006, amid the unfolding Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, and suggested that they work together on an ethics bill. But their joint efforts quickly produced a remarkable public falling-out. Obama backed out of the effort, saying to McCain in a letter dated Feb. 2, 2006, that he and other Senate Democrats had decided against McCain's idea of a "task force" on ethics, preferring to let standing Senate committees work on the matter.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/16/2008 1:00:54 PM
Comment: Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!
Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.
The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."
Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.
Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.
Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.
Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.
It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.
Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}
Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.
Posted By: Krohn @ 10/12/2008 8:33:43 PM
Comment: THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CANDIDATE!
NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY HAS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BEEN GIVEN SUCH A FREE PASS BY THE PRESS AND JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE!
I AM WAITING FOR A BLACK PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TO MAKE IT ON HIS OWN MERIT.
COLIN POWELL COMES TO MIND!
Posted By: Krohn @ 10/09/2008 7:26:28 PM
Comment: They harassed her until she registered to vote six times!:
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3145562&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/politics/