Saint Alberic Crescitelli | Favorite President George W. Bush Pictures | Website Home Page/Index | Fr. Seamus Hogan Homilies Archive "All Things Political" Archives, 1999-2004 | "All Things Political" Archives, 2004-2005 | "All Things Political" Archives, 2005-Present "Religion/Culture/Morals" Archives, 1999-2004 | "Religion/Culture/Morals" Archives, 2004-Present | Computer-Related Stuff NEWEST Things Posted Printer-Friendly Page | NEWEST Things Posted | Favorite Websites Religious Denominations In The United States Fall is in bloom.... Here are some links to (2008) election polls on the Internet: RealClear Politics - Polls | RealClear Politics 2008 Primary Delegate Count (Rep/Dem) | Survey USA - Current Election Polls Rasmussen Reports - Election 2008 Presidential Tracking Poll | Polling Report - White House 2008: General Election Polls The Green Papers - United States General Election 2008 | D.C.'s Political Report - 2008 Presidential Race | ElectionProjection.com The Green Papers: State-By-State Summary - 2008 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, And Conventions A QUICK SHORTCUT !!!! CLICK HERE to go straight to "RECENTLY POSTED ARTICLES" + Requiescat In Pace (RIP) + Cardinals fans -- there's always 2009.... GO RAMS!!! (Click on the above picture to go to the Social Security Calculator website.) Were You Counting on Social Security? Enter your age and gender to calculate what an American worker of your same age and gender can expect to receive from Social Security. And See How You¡¯re Missing Out. The Calculator also estimates how much money you could save with a personal retirement account. A Prayer For Our Country's Leaders Heavenly Father, I come to You in the mighty Name of Jesus to ask blessings and mercy on my country and its leaders. Please guide our President and his cabinet, our Congress and courts, and leaders throughout our land in every decision they make. Show them the way of truth and righteousness. In times of stress, Lord, make them steady; in times of hardship, make them strong; in times of success, make them humble. Turn their hearts to You that they will want Your wisdom and be obedient to Your instructions. Let them recognize evil and turn away from it, and let them know good and grasp hold of it. Make them honest, effective and innovative as they run our country, but most of all, cause them to be men and women of high integrity in Your eyes, that under their leadership this nation and its people may prosper. For Your many blessings I praise and thank You - and ask you to grant my prayer: That this nation may truly say "In God We Trust" all the days of our lives. Amen. (Click on the PROUDLY waving American flag to go to the American Heroes website!) Listen to 97.1 FM Talk (in the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area) -- to hear the radio shows of all the radio personalities whose pictures you see -- above. (Click on each photo for a link to each!) Be sure to click on the 97.1 FM On The Air Program Schedule for the NEW & UPDATED listings. And don't forget....one can hear 97.1 FM via LIVE "streaming audio" - over the Internet! Here are several (clickable) links to 9-11 tributes/related material DEBATES: Life Since Sept. 11 | "Can't Cry Hard Enough" | 9-11 Television Archives | America Triumphant | World Trade Center Tribute God Bless America | R.E.M. - "Everybody Hurts" | Tribute To America | WTC Attack Picture Gallery | 9-11 screen savers American Bald Eagle Crying screen saver | "Only Time" | American (War) Bald Eagle screensaver (small version) American (War) Bald Eagle screensaver (large version) | Attack On America | SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 ATTACK ON AMERICA Prayer For The Nation | Free Republic's 9-11 100 Hours of Remembrance | 2001 911 Memorial Accounts From The World Trade Center's South Tower | Heroes Live Forever | Accounts From The World Trade Center's North Tower September 11 News.com The articles that were previously posted at this particular web page continue to be archived: "All Things Political" Archives, 1999-2004 | "All Things Political" Archives, 2004-2005 | "All Things Political" Archives, 2005-Present "Religion/Culture/Morals" Archives, 1999-2004 | "Religion/Culture/Morals" Archives, 2004-Present (Click on the banner to go to the Defend America website.) RECENTLY POSTED ARTICLES If you know of anyone else who might be interested in receiving "All Things Political" and "Religion/Culture/Morals" updates (or if you just want to contact me), click HERE (will open new message in Outlook program) or email me at tmorelli@hotmail.com Grover Weather Forecast, MO (63040) (By the way, here's the most up-to-date weather in Grover, Missouri....) 10-4-08 Saturday 4:00 pm (ET) Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Thirty-one "All Things Political" and four "Religion/Culture/Morals" articles have been posted.... "All Things Political" articles 1) Democratic Analyst: The Party Has Been Hijacked By Secularist Elites - Catholic News Agency 2) House GOP: We Have The Leverage! - Jackie Kucinich 3) A Presidential McCain - McCain's Bold Move Could Reframe The Election -- And Win It - William Kristol 4) $700 Billion Won't Buy What Pro-Market Solutions Can - Deroy Murdock 5) Why We're Floundering: And A Better Way Forward - Lawrence B. Lindsey 6) Why Americans Are More Tolerant [Than Canadians] - Pete Vere 7) Transcript Of Sept 26 Presidential Debate - John McCain & Barack Hussein Obama 8) What Conservatism Isn't - John Hawkins 9) The True Story: What Really Happened At The White House - Rush Limbaugh 10) The Brilliance Of McCain's Move - Dick Morris & Eileen McGann 11) Fight Night! -- Scoring Obama-McCain, Round By Round - Jonathan V. Last 12) McCain's Big Night: Who Won More Votes? - Dean Barnett 13) (Canada's) Harper Edges Closer To Majority - Tonda MacCharles 14) 'Senator McCain Is Absolutely Right.': Barack Obama Plays Mr. Nice Guy - And Loses - In The First Debate - Byron York 15) Obama, ACORN Pressured Banks To Make Unsafe Subprime Loans - Rush Limbaugh 16) Thank You, House Republicans - Mark R. Levin 17) From Which Of These Guys Would You Buy A Used Car? - Kyle-Anne Shiver 18) God Bless The House Republicans - Rush Limbaugh 19) Qualified - Fred Thompson 20) Fannie/Freddie Scandal Dwarfs Enron, WorldCom - Rush Limbaugh 21) NBC Goes To Hanoi To Interview McCain's Torturer For "Real" Story - Rush Limbaugh 22) America's Nervous Breakdown - Should It Continue, A World Breakdown May Follow - Victor Davis Hanson 23) The Blame Game - Cal Thomas 24) Obama's Fishy $200 Million - The American Prowler 25) Wrong For 36 Years - Human Events 26) Transcript Of Vice Presidential Debate - Governor Sarah Palin & Senator Joe Biden 27) Biden's Big Lies: All 14 Of Them - Rick Moran 28) The "Pit Bull" Returns - Jacob Laksin 29) Palin Has Everything That Counts - Kyle-Anne Shiver 30) Factors That Could Lead To Obama's Downfall - Lorie Byrd 31) FULL Text Of The Bailout ("Emergency Economic Stabilization Act Of 2008'') - Government Printing Office "Religion/Culture/Morals" articles 1) New Appointments Mark Bold Papal Move For Liturgical Reform - Catholic News Agency 2) On Paul And The Other Apostles: "He Insists On Fidelity To What He Himself Has Received" - Pope Benedict XVI 3) Both Hands At Elevation Of Host (And More On Sacraments And Intentions) - Father Edward McNamara 4) On Paul's Dealings With Peter: "Only Sincere Dialogue Could Guide The Path Of The Church" - Pope Benedict XVI Take care, Tom "All Things Political" articles Democratic Analyst: The Party Has Been Hijacked By Secularist Elites Catholic News Agency http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13897 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090607/posts 9/25/2008 The Democratic Party has been hijacked by elites hostile to religion, said Mark Stricherz, author of the book "Why Democrats are Blue" and a Democrat himself, during the Casey Lecture delivered on Tuesday at the Archdiocese of Denver. The Casey Series of Lectures was started by the Archdiocese of Denver in 2006 to promote Catholic thinking in political life, inspired by the life and political activism of the late Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, a devout Catholic and a Democrat. Stricherz, who has focused his investigation on the historical transition that turned the Democrats from a Catholic-friendly organization to the pro-abortion rights party it is today, explained the decisive role played in American politics by staunch Catholic Democrats like Gov. Casey, Robert Kennedy and David Lawrence. "These politicians provided a political leadership and a push for human rights based on religious convictions and personal prayer life, thus becoming promoters of Christian Humanist values," he said. Explaining an argument he makes in his book, Stricherz said that the Democratic Party created internal rules that favor Secular elites and limit the participation of common people. He mentioned caucuses in Iowa as an example: they are established to run from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., "preventing the participation of common people like third-shifters, military men and women or young mothers." As a consequence, "56% of those attending the caucuses are pro- choice folks," he said. Thus, Secularism and hostility to religion have become the dividing line between the Democratic Party of the past and today's Democratic leaders. Asked about how to change the Democratic Party back to its original connection with average Americans, Stricherz said that is was critical to democratize the internal process, but added that, "I just don't see the constituency, the drive to bring that change... those with college degrees, who tend to be more secular are in control of the party, whereas more religious, working folks are kept out of the loop." "There have been some small victories from the pro-life people inside the Democratic Party, they are very small, but I encourage people to take up the fight... even if I am very skeptical about the results." Stricherz highlighted the importance of bringing the common people back to power. "I think the average folks are more commonsensical and less inclined to corruption than the elites." "I would take the first hundred people from the phone book in Boston rather than the first 100 academics from Harvard to run the country." Finally, he said that, despite current polls, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a greater chance to win the election because "the Republican party has a more democratic process of candidate-selection, and therefore have chosen the strongest candidate; whereas the Democratic Party's system promotes the desires of the political leadership and [they] have selected the weakest candidate." House GOP: We Have The Leverage! TheHill.Com http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/house-gop-we-have-leverage-on-bailout-2008-09-25.html http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090459/posts 9/25/08 Jackie Kucinich House Republicans say they have significant leverage on the revamped bailout package, claiming that Democrats will scramble for votes unless they make changes to it. Republicans in the lower chamber are balking at the bailout package, saying that Democrats will be solely responsible for the ramifications of what they see as a flawed compromise. Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are leading an effort by House Republicans to circulate the set of principles to their colleagues and like-minded Democrats, according to a senior Republican. Asked whether the effort comes too late, the GOP official said the votes would be leverage enough to have the principles considered by congressional negotiators. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has indicated that a bill will not be brought to the floor without broad Republican support. GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and the White House have been made aware of their alternative. Reps. Cantor, Ryan and Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) discussed the proposal at a press conference Thursday afternoon. Other Republicans involved in this effort include Reps. Mike Castle (Del.), Judy Biggert (Ill.) and Spencer Bachus (Ala.), who is the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee. During a meeting of the Republican Conference on Thursday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) made it clear that, although Democrats have announced they have brokered a deal, House Republicans would not be a part of it. "As I told our conference this morning, there is no bipartisan deal at this time," Boehner said. "There may be a deal among some Democrats, but House Republicans are not a part of it." The GOP's "economic rescue principles" advocate adopting a mortgage insurance approach to solve the financial problems facing the country, according to a fact sheet obtained by The Hill. Roughly half of all mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are insured by the government, and House Republicans have advocated that the other half also become insured by the Treasury Department. "We can ensure the rest of the current outstanding MBS; however, rather than the taxpayers funding insurance, the owners of these assets should pay for it," the fact sheet says. The Republican proposal backs the removal of regulatory and tax barriers to help facilitate the use of private capital to produce liquidity; temporary tax relief provision to help companies free up capital; and temporary suspension of dividend payments by financial institutions. The proposals call for Wall Street executives to "not benefit excessively"; for the creation of a "blue ribbon panel" of officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); and for the Federal Reserve to make recommendations for reform of the financial sector by Jan. 1, 2009. Additionally, they direct the SEC to report to Congress on the ability of credit rating agencies to assess the risks of the failed investment securities and to audit the books of the failed financial institutions so that their standing is accurately portrayed. A Presidential McCain - McCain's Bold Move Could Reframe The Election -- And Win It The Weekly Standard http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/606rmpbt.asp http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090436/posts September 25, 2008 William Kristol There's a reason voters in presidential races tend to shy away from electing senators. The primary skills of a legislator--talking, compromising, "representing"--are different from those of an executive--deciding, choosing, "executing." There are individuals who have the ability both to deliberate patiently and act energetically--but it's a rare combination. The best legislators tend not to be great executives, and vice-versa. This year, for the first time in U.S. history, both major party nominees for president are sitting senators. The winner may be the one who can convince some portion of the electorate that he's less "senatorial," and more "presidential," than the other. That's why McCain's action Wednesday--announcing he would come back to Washington to try to broker a deal to save our financial system--could prove so important. The rescue package that was so poorly crafted and defended by the Bush administration seemed to be sliding toward defeat. The presidential candidates were on the sidelines, carping and opining and commenting. But one of them, John McCain, intervened suddenly and boldly, taking a risk in order to change the situation, and to rearrange the landscape. Of course his motives were partly election-related. But "the interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place." If candidate McCain, for whatever mixed motives, ends up acting in a way that results in a deal that is viewed as better than the original proposal, and that seems to stabilize the markets and avert a meltdown--he'll benefit politically, and he deserves to. For McCain will have acted presidentially in the campaign--which some voters, quite reasonably, will think speaks to his qualifications to be president. As for the question of Friday night's debate, which some in the media seem to think more important than saving the financial system--if the negotiations are still going on in D.C., McCain should offer to send Palin to debate Obama! Or he can take a break from the meetings, fly down at the last minute himself, and turn a boring foreign policy debate, in which he and Obama would repeat well-rehearsed arguments, into a discussion about leadership and decisiveness. And if the negotiations are clearly on a path to success, then McCain can say he can now afford to leave D.C., fly down, and the debate would become a victory lap for McCain. So the action of these few days becomes more important than the talk of that hour and a half Friday night. One could even say the contrast between the two men in action becomes the true debate over who should be president. The media, being talkers and debaters, love debates, overestimate their importance, and are underestimating the possible effect of McCain's dramatic action. In the debate itself, McCain should mock the media's greater concern for gabbing than solving our economic problems, and should associate Obama with such a talk-heavy media-type approach to politics. If the race is between an energetic executive and an indecisive talker, the energetic executive should win. $700 Billion Won't Buy What Pro-Market Solutions Can Human Events http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28700 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090245/posts September 25, 2008 Deroy Murdock New York -- It is beyond irritating to watch President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gift-wrap their $700 billion early Christmas present for financially irresponsible bankers and the overleveraged borrowers who love them. These "three wise men" consider theirs the only method to stop the turmoil roiling trading desks from Gotham to Tokyo. "Action by the Congress is urgently required to stabilize the situation and avert what otherwise could be very serious consequences for our financial markets and for our economy," Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday. But this mother of all government interventions is unlike a long, cold hypodermic needle in the belly: an inescapable misery, but preferable to death by rabies. There actually are desirable alternatives to building socialism and saddling every American man, woman, and child with another $2,300 in unjustified federal spending. One option is to instruct the geniuses from Fannie Mae to Wall Street to deal with it. They made this mess; they should mop it up. Cut back, sell assets, develop fresh services, or get new jobs. Absent a federal bailout, Lehman Brothers sold parts of itself to Barclay's Bank. Facing Uncle Sam's cold shoulder, Merrill Lynch ran into the loving arms of Bank of America. Merrill's customers will survive, and its employees will work for B of A or seek their fortunes elsewhere. It may take time and tightened belts, but padlocking Washington's bailout window will offer a generation of "masters of the universe" lessons that America's Mr. Rogers-in-Chief cannot teach: -- Keep your winnings, but own your losses. -- If you fall on your face, especially after dancing drunk on the roof, Uncle Sam may empathize, but he no longer will rush in to swaddle you in silk sheets and place your bruised head on pillows stuffed with crisp $100 bills. While it lacks the bracing appeal of this sort of financial Darwinism, another option is highly attractive. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R -Texas) chairs the Republican Study Committee, the congressional caucus of idea-driven, free-market stalwarts. These practicing Reaganites seem appalled to watch their GOP president morph before their eyes from GWB to LBJ to FDR. At a Capitol Hill press conference at high noon Tuesday, Hensarling and a dozen RSC members expressed deep misgivings about Bush's $700 billion baby. Preferring to drown it in the bathwater, Hensarling and his band of true believers rejected Bush's collectivism and offered their own proposals for escaping this rubble and returning America to a path of robust growth: -- Give the capital-gains tax a two-year vacation. "Suspending capital gains taxes would bring as much as a trillion dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines back into the market," Hensarling said. Also, as the Tax Foundation proposes, cutting America's 35 percent corporate tax -- the industrialized world's second highest, after Japan's -- would boost U.S. global competitiveness. Since equity prices partially reflect long-term after-tax profits, lowering corporate levies should buoy stock markets. -- Denationalize then privatize Fannie and Freddie. "These troubled financial Frankensteins -- created in a government laboratory -- are not creatures of the free enterprise system," Hensarling said. "We must ultimately take their monopoly powers away and return them to the marketplace." Why not array Fannie's and Freddie's loans according to mortgage holders' surnames? They then could be divided alphabetically into 26 units and auctioned off. -- Waive "mark-to-market" accounting. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute's John Berlau argues, when distressed mortgage-backed securities sell at bargain-basement prices, unhelpful new bookkeeping regulations require that similar instruments elsewhere -- including viable loans -- be valued at equally low prices. This needlessly stains balance sheets. -- Strengthen the dollar. Bernanke should boost U.S. currency, not pose as America's uber-stock broker. A strong dollar lowers inflation, cheapens oil, and soothes world markets. Bush's bailout bonanza began with $29 billion for Bear Sterns and has reached $700 billion, seemingly for the entire financial-services sector. (Now the credit-card and auto industries await their slabs of bacon.) This cavalcade of giveaways and takeovers monumentally betrays the Republican Party's most sacred tenets. Even worse, Bush's hyper-statism offers nothing imaginative. It takes brains to generate interesting ideas like Hensarling & Co.'s. It takes mere muscle to nationalize companies and toss handfuls of cash into the air. Just ask Eva Peron. Why We're Floundering: And A Better Way Forward The Weekly Standard http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=15604&R=13C1D1B46D http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090238/posts September 25, 2008 Lawrence B. Lindsey Last Thursday night Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke stood surrounded by the bipartisan leadership of Congress to announce that a consensus had emerged that drastic action was needed to save our financial system. On Saturday the first vague details of that action began to emerge. By the time of the first hearings on Tuesday a groundswell of popular opposition produced some of the most broad-based skeptical questioning of the nation's economic leadership that I can remember. What happened? First, it is now obvious that the Thursday consensus to pass a bill was not backed by the reality of legislation, or even a coherent plan of action. When Washington let Lehman Brothers fail (after a century and a half of operations), many in Washington said that Lehman had had six months to get its problems revolved--since being put on notice when its sister firm Bear Stearns was bailed out--and had not done so. Hence it was denied the assistance Bear had gotten. But what had Washington been doing in the intervening six months to get ahead of the developing financial crisis? By the weekend it appeared that the answer was: about as much as Lehman. Second, when the first details emerged, the focus of the plan was for the government to buy the assets in the financial system that were not easily valued and therefore could not be sold. They were clogging up the books and thereby consuming most of the spare capital in the system. Those that could be sold were being sold out of desperation at fire sale prices. For example, Merrill Lynch had sold assets at 22 cents on the dollar, and had to lend three-quarters of that amount to the buyer. Trouble was, if the government bought at those prices, the financial industry would take massive losses and many firms might go under. That meant that the only way the plan made sense was for the government to buy assets at prices well above current market values. Not even the most talented wordsmith could find a way of getting around the word "bailout" for this type of action. This meant bailing out the same gigantic firms which government regulators and prosecutors had been saying for months had used shady accounting practices and paid their CEOs tens of millions of dollars per year. I'm just an economist, but that hardly seems like a political winner to me. Third, to make these purchases the government would have to set a price on assets that are so opaque and differentiated that no market price had been determined for over a year. This opacity led Wall Street to employ some of the smartest people in the world to come up with computer models to determine these prices, and when they did, the prices were so subject to small changes in underlying assumptions that they proved wildly volatile. Passing the plan meant asking members of Congress, most of whom would have to ask a staffer what the formula was for compound interest, to either figure out a fair price or trust the same geeks who got us into this mess in the first place to figure one out instead. The most likely end game of this approach is passage of a bill that hands the job over to the geeks with so many constraints and conflicting objectives that the entire enterprise runs up against Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. (Kenneth Arrow got a Nobel Prize for formalizing a way of saying "you can't get there from here.") The resulting process would be open to manipulation by private players who could hire their own geeks to figure it out, and therefore almost certain to produce instant billionaires in the process. But, this outcome will still allow congressmen to go home to campaign and tell voters that they have both solved the problem and protected the taxpayer. After the process collapses and the Congress returns in January, the blame will be dumped on the appointed officials who were supposed to oversee the geeks assigned to complete the impossible task. A new process will then be created in January by people with even less experience and with the deterioration in the system much further advanced. One likely way the new folks could proceed is to stay away from the tar pit of trying to bail out institutions directly and instead opt for an indirect approach. Specifically, the government might choose to bail out homeowners instead. Suppose all homeowners were allowed to refinance their existing mortgage at some low subsidized rate that was also extended to all new buyers, say 4 percent. One catch--the government would have recourse to the borrower and not just the house in the case of default. This is a huge broadening of the plan originally suggested by Martin Feldstein. Not everyone would take this up because it would mean they would have to pay the money back and not just default on their mortgage. So, it would quickly separate the good mortgages from the bad ones that are creating problems in the system. For those who did take up the plan, a wave of prepayments would begin that would trigger positive cash flow and reduce the risk to all that derivative paper the financial service industry now holds. Prices on that paper would quickly rise and firms would enjoy both more liquidity and more capital. For those who did not refinance, the expectation would be that the house was so far under water that it will ultimately produce a loss. This would help clarify precisely just how much the losses were in the system and on each of the many securitized products and mortgage derivatives as well. But the biggest advantage is that it avoids the quagmire in which the political class now finds itself. No need for direct bailouts, no need to warehouse paper, no need to hire geeks to figure it all out, and no instant billionaires who simply gamed the system. Better yet for those up for election, no political complaints since it is the voters themselves who were being bailed out. Why Americans Are More Tolerant [Than Canadians] The Western Standard http://westernstandard.ca/website/article.php?id=2868 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2090131/posts September 23, 2008 Pete Vere Why Americans are more tolerant Canadians often consider themselves to be more tolerant than their "backwards" neighbours to the south. But is this simply a myth? America taught me the hard way to value freedom of speech. Even speech that is hateful and abhorrent, provided it does not incite violence, should be allowed in free and open democracy. Like every other Canadian who grew up during the 1980's and 90's, my concept of 'freedom of expression' was vague. It was something contained in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet I was taught to subject this freedom to 'tolerance' and 'multi-culturalism'. After all, the latter were 'Canadian values' that distinguished us from Americans and their free-speech absolutism. Thus my wife and I brought 'Canadian values' to Florida shortly after 9-11. This was no fall vacation, as I had accepted a job down there with the Catholic Church. 'Bill,' our new next-door neighbor, welcomed us to the Deep South. His daughter 'Sarah' was about a year older than Alexandria, my oldest child. The two girls became inseparable. Inseparable, that is, until an incident a year later involving racist speech. It was from this incident that I learned to appreciate American absolutism in protecting free speech. Since that incident, I have similarly concluded that Americans are also more tolerant and more multicultural. The incident began with an African-American family moving into our semi-rural, previously all-white cul-de-sac. Their daughter 'Nadine' was about the same age as Alexandria. My wife and I introduced ourselves to 'Mike,' the patriarch of the family, and with the same southern hospitality we had been shown, invited Nadine to spend the afternoon with Alexandria while Mike and his wife unpacked. After sending Nadine home for supper, we heard a banging at our door. "If you let your kids play with niggers, then you're niggers too." Bill stood at my doorstep, angry, shielding his daughter. I returned the glare. Shuffling Alexandria back indoors, I said: "Don't use the 'n word' in front of my children." "Fine. Sarah's not allowed to play with Alexandria if you're letting her play with..." "I won't permit racism on my property," I interrupted. "I'm Catholic. I don't care what color someone's skin is. They're human like you and me." Sarah and Alexandria were bawling. Each knew where her father stood; Bill and I had expressed ourselves freely. This was not Canada where the fear of giving offence forces one to invent excuses when withdrawing from social contact. Canada's human rights adjudicators may think of themselves as the robed masters of the universe, but their jurisdiction does not extend below the 49th parallel. Thus I couldn't lodge a human rights complaint. But suppose there was no First Amendment protection in the U.S. Over six years later, a Canadian-style human rights commission would still be investigating this incident. And Bill would feel even more justified in his racism. After all, those nasty African-Americans (for any human rights investigator reading this, I'm using a literary device called sarcasm) dragged him through countless hours of procedural harassment and bankrupted him under a mountain of legal bills. Bill might be more reluctant to express his views, but he would remain a racist. And there would be no opportunity for me to challenge his racial prejudices. The moment I expressed the least bit of sympathy for the civil rights movement, he would withdraw from all social contact with the exception of the occasional 'hi' and 'goodbye'. When you're feeling persecuted, you tend to stick to your own kind. Fortunately, our confrontation happened in the United States (or from Bill's perspective, the Confederacy currently occupied by those damn Yankees). The impasse ended three days later. No government agency or program required. I pulled into my driveway after work, glanced over to Bill's front yard, and saw Alexandria, Sarah and Nadine splashing in a kids pool. Having cracked open a couple of cold ones, Mike and Bill were commiserating about their common nemesis as civil rights activists and unreconstructed southerners - those bloody Republicans. As a low-level contributor to Bush's Catholic strategy during the 2000 presidential election, I was now the odd man out. Freedom of speech had won. It won because it allowed Bill and Mike to voice their worst fears about 'the other'. (In those intervening days, Mike told me how all white men put down the black man - an experience in racism against Caucasians just as shocking to my Canadian naivety.) When 'the other' failed to meet those worst expectations, each felt a little sheepish and conscience took over. So they put it behind them, shook hands, and found something else to gripe about. The government can seal a person's lips, but it cannot change a person's heart. Freedom of speech also won me over. I realized I was accountable for my anti-racist viewpoint, just as Bill and Mike were accountable for their racist viewpoint. Truth be told, I had never given racism much thought prior to this incident. There's no need for ordinary citizens to confront racism in Canada - that's the government's job. So whenever I encountered racism while growing up, I ignored it as none of my business. Or I found some excuse to convince myself it wasn't really racism. Truth be told, had Bill not expressed himself within earshot of my daughter, I probably would have done the Canadian thing: Ignore his rant while he was on my doorstep, gripe to my wife how superior we Canadians are afterward, and find some excuse afterward to avoid future social contact. Moreover, I probably would have used these same excuses with Alexandria. Don't want her telling the neighbors why we're avoiding them. It's almost as discomforting as racism. Better not to trouble the young girl with reality. However, this option was no longer open to me. By speaking up I was forced to explain my principles not only to my neighbors, but to my children. Thus freedom of speech forces one to understand, defend and correct one's viewpoint. Which brings me to the second reason the American concept of freedom of speech won me over. With free speech comes responsibility. This is not a leftist cliche, although it's often misapplied by leftists. What this really means is that freedom of speech is every citizen's responsibility. That's you and me. If your neighbor says something hateful or abhorrent, speak up about it! Americans feel more secure speaking up. This is what makes them more tolerant than Canadians. Ingrained in their psychology is the belief that every individual is equal under the law, and rights and freedoms are every individual's responsibility. Thus they might gripe about minorities, but in the end Americans accept them. Look no further than our parallel elections. With the exception of Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's fifth party, every major party leader north of the border is a middle-aged, middle-class, mild-mannered white male. And when gender is excluded, Ms. May fits the stereotype perfectly. Yet even then she is not projected to win any seats. In contrast, the U.S. election has produced two strong female candidates - one of whom is married to a snowmobile-racing champion from a First Nations community. One of the presidential candidates is an African-American born of a Muslim father. The other a tough-talking former Navy pilot and senior citizen who often bucks his own party. Only Joe Biden fits the Canadian stereotype of national leader. We talk about tolerance in Canada. More often than not, as our electoral choices show, Canadian tolerance is just an excuse to avoid discussing our differences. Thus Canadians stick to what's comfortable, what's least likely to offend the most people. We don't want our differences to cause division and disrupt the social peace. Americans, on the other hand, relish their differences. Tolerance is created by confronting their differences, then discovering that they share many of the same values and concerns. Americans understand, rightly, that tolerance is a product of free speech. The First Amendment allows them to get past their differences, correct misconceptions, and move on to more pressing issues. As an aside, I recently spoke with a former neighbor who was even more segregationist than Bill. Yet he's voting for Obama. I won't repeat what he said about the Democratic nominee, "but at least he ain't a Republican. I don't have to visit the White House while he's president." On the other hand, the folly of subjecting free speech to tolerance and multiculturalism was demonstrated to me during my undergraduate years at a small university in Northern Ontario. During multiculturalism and tolerance week, the university brought in a human rights 'expert' from Toronto. She worked for the government, if I recall correctly. She had come to address 'lingering and systematic discrimination' among the student body. Her two prime examples? Two jewels of our Northeastern Ontario geography. Lake Nipissing contained the word 'nip' in it, this white woman said, which was a derogatory term for Asians. Obviously whoever named this lake was insensitive to the local Asian community. The other example was Manitoulin Island, which she cited as a misogynous reference to the first white males to settle the island. Wrong on both counts, something she would have discovered had she brushed up on her local history before pontificating to us rubes living outside of the Greater Toronto Area. But as is so often the case, history and local culture are ignored by government bureaucrats seeking to impose by fiat their enlightened ideology. In reality, both words are First Nations in origin. Nipissing is the Algonquin word for 'big water' and Manitoulin is the Ojibwe word for 'spirit island'. In retrospect, it's unfortunate our local First Nations communities did not lodge a human rights complaint over this. This is one complaint I would have supported. The weeks following this incident were typical of Canadian tolerance and multiculturalism: Everybody avoided everyone different, for fear of giving offense. The Asians, who often visited the lake and who took no offense to the name, felt awkward around the First Nations students. The First Nations students felt persecuted by white people who had once again failed to understand their culture. And feminists and Caucasians didn't disagree. The latter were horrified that this so-called 'expert' was one of them. But how to maneuver these tricky waters without further provoking the First Nations students or causing additional embarrassment to Asian students? Everyone knew what the problem was. Yet nobody wanted to address it, less they be misinterpreted as intolerant. As for our human rights 'expert', she returned to Toronto, blissfully unaware of the division she had sowed among the student body. Finally, two American students - both black, and both female - said what everyone else was thinking. "This is bullshit, and the only way to end it is to speak freely." Transcript Of Sept 26 Presidential Debate Clips And Comment http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2008/09/26/full-transcript-first-presidential-debatebarack-obama-john-mccainoxford-ms-september-26-2008/ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2091612/posts September 26, 2008 John McCain & Barack Hussein Obama LEHRER: Gentlemen, at this very moment tonight, where do you stand on the financial recovery plan? First response to you, Senator Obama. You have two minutes. OBAMA: Well, thank you very much, Jim, and thanks to the commission and the University of Mississippi, "Ole Miss," for hosting us tonight. I can't think of a more important time for us to talk about the future of the country. You know, we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is involved in two wars, and we are going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And although we've heard a lot about Wall Street, those of you on Main Street I think have been struggling for a while, and you recognize that this could have an impact on all sectors of the economy. And you're wondering, how's it going to affect me? How's it going to affect my job? How's it going to affect my house? How's it going to affect my retirement savings or my ability to send my children to college? So we have to move swiftly, and we have to move wisely. And I've put forward a series of proposals that make sure that we protect taxpayers as we engage in this important rescue effort. No. 1, we've got to make sure that we've got oversight over this whole process; $700 billion, potentially, is a lot of money. No. 2, we've got to make sure that taxpayers, when they are putting their money at risk, have the possibility of getting that money back and gains, if the market -- and when the market returns. No. 3, we've got to make sure that none of that money is going to pad CEO bank accounts or to promote golden parachutes. And, No. 4, we've got to make sure that we're helping homeowners, because the root problem here has to do with the foreclosures that are taking place all across the country. Now, we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down. It hasn't worked. And I think that the fundamentals of the economy have to be measured by whether or not the middle class is getting a fair shake. That's why I'm running for president, and that's what I hope we're going to be talking about tonight. LEHRER: Senator McCain, two minutes. MCCAIN: Well, thank you, Jim. And thanks to everybody. And I do have a sad note tonight. Senator Kennedy is in the hospital. He's a dear and beloved friend to all of us. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the lion of the Senate. I also want to thank the University of Mississippi for hosting us tonight. And, Jim, I -- I've been not feeling too great about a lot of things lately. So have a lot of Americans who are facing challenges. But I'm feeling a little better tonight, and I'll tell you why. Because as we're here tonight in this debate, we are seeing, for the first time in a long time, Republicans and Democrats together, sitting down, trying to work out a solution to this fiscal crisis that we're in. And have no doubt about the magnitude of this crisis. And we're not talking about failure of institutions on Wall Street. We're talking about failures on Main Street, and people who will lose their jobs, and their credits, and their homes, if we don't fix the greatest fiscal crisis, probably in -- certainly in our time, and I've been around a little while. But the point is -- the point is, we have finally seen Republicans and Democrats sitting down and negotiating together and coming up with a package. This package has transparency in it. It has to have accountability and oversight. It has to have options for loans to failing businesses, rather than the government taking over those loans. We have to -- it has to have a package with a number of other essential elements to it. And, yes, I went back to Washington, and I met with my Republicans in the House of Representatives. And they weren't part of the negotiations, and I understand that. And it was the House Republicans that decided that they would be part of the solution to this problem. But I want to emphasize one point to all Americans tonight. This isn't the beginning of the end of this crisis. This is the end of the beginning, if we come out with a package that will keep these institutions stable. And we've got a lot of work to do. And we've got to create jobs. And one of the areas, of course, is to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. LEHRER: All right, let's go back to my question. How do you all stand on the recovery plan? And talk to each other about it. We've got five minutes. We can negotiate a deal right here. But, I mean, are you -- do you favor this plan, Senator Obama, and you, Senator McCain? Do you -- are you in favor of this plan? OBAMA: We haven't seen the language yet. And I do think that there's constructive work being done out there. So, for the viewers who are watching, I am optimistic about the capacity of us to come together with a plan. The question, I think, that we have to ask ourselves is, how did we get into this situation in the first place? Two years ago, I warned that, because of the subprime lending mess, because of the lax regulation, that we were potentially going to have a problem and tried to stop some of the abuses in mortgages that were taking place at the time. Last year, I wrote to the secretary of the Treasury to make sure that he understood the magnitude of this problem and to call on him to bring all the stakeholders together to try to deal with it. So -- so the question, I think, that we've got to ask ourselves is, yes, we've got to solve this problem short term. And we are going to have to intervene; there's no doubt about that. But we're also going to have to look at, how is it that we shredded so many regulations? We did not set up a 21st-century regulatory framework to deal with these problems. And that in part has to do with an economic philosophy that says that regulation is always bad. 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. But -- but let me -- let me point out, I also warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and warned about corporate greed and excess, and CEO pay, and all that. A lot of us saw this train wreck coming. But there's also the issue of responsibility. You've mentioned President Dwight David Eisenhower. President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letters. One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history, still to this day, and forever. And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation from the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy. Somehow we've lost that accountability. I've been heavily criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We've got to start also holding people accountable, and we've got to reward people who succeed. But somehow in Washington today -- and I'm afraid on Wall Street -- greed is rewarded, excess is rewarded, and corruption -- or certainly failure to carry out our responsibility is rewarded. As president of the United States, people are going to be held accountable in my administration. And I promise you that that will happen. LEHRER: Do you have something directly to say, Senator Obama, to Senator McCain about what he just said? OBAMA: Well, I think Senator McCain's absolutely right that we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there's a crisis. I mean, we've had years in which the reigning economic ideology has been what's good for Wall Street, but not what's good for Main Street. And there are folks out there who've been struggling before this crisis took place. And that's why it's so important, as we solve this short-term problem, that we look at some of the underlying issues that have led to wages and incomes for ordinary Americans to go down, the -- a health care system that is broken, energy policies that are not working, because, you know, 10 days ago, John said that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. LEHRER: Say it directly to him. OBAMA: I do not think that they are. LEHRER: Say it directly to him. OBAMA: Well, the -- John, 10 days ago, you said that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. And... MCCAIN: Are you afraid I couldn't hear him? LEHRER: I'm just determined to get you all to talk to each other. I'm going to try. OBAMA: The -- and I just fundamentally disagree. And unless we are holding ourselves accountable day in, day out, not just when there's a crisis for folks who have power and influence and can hire lobbyists, but for the nurse, the teacher, the police officer, who, frankly, at the end of each month, they've got a little financial crisis going on. They're having to take out extra debt just to make their mortgage payments. We haven't been paying attention to them. And if you look at our tax policies, it's a classic example. LEHRER: So, Senator McCain, do you agree with what Senator Obama just said? And, if you don't, tell him what you disagree with. MCCAIN: No, I -- look, we've got to fix the system. We've got fundamental problems in the system. And Main Street is paying a penalty for the excesses and greed in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street. So there's no doubt that we have a long way to go. And, obviously, stricter interpretation and consolidation of the various regulatory agencies that weren't doing their job, that has brought on this crisis. But I have a fundamental belief in the goodness and strength of the American worker. And the American worker is the most productive, the most innovative. America is still the greatest producer, exporter and importer. But we've got to get through these times, but I have a fundamental belief in the United States of America. And I still believe, under the right leadership, our best days are ahead of us. LEHRER: All right, let's go to the next lead question, which is essentially following up on this same subject. And you get two minutes to begin with, Senator McCain. And using your word "fundamental," are there fundamental differences between your approach and Senator Obama's approach to what you would do as president to lead this country out of the financial crisis? MCCAIN: Well, the first thing we have to do is get spending under control in Washington. It's completely out of control. It's gone -- we have now presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society. We Republicans came to power to change government, and government changed us. And the -- the worst symptom on this disease is what my friend, Tom Coburn, calls earmarking as a gateway drug, because it's a gateway. It's a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption. And we have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending. You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don't know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue, but the fact is that it was $3 million of our taxpayers' money. And it has got to be brought under control. As president of the United States, I want to assure you, I've got a pen. This one's kind of old. I've got a pen, and I'm going to veto every single spending bill that comes across my desk. I will make them famous. You will know their names. Now, Senator Obama, you wanted to know one of the differences. a million dollars for every day that he's been in the United States Senate. I suggest that people go up on the Web site of Citizens Against Government Waste, and they'll look at those projects. That kind of thing is not the way to rein in runaway spending in Washington, D.C. That's one of the fundamental differences that Senator Obama and I have. LEHRER: Senator Obama, two minutes. OBAMA: Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up. And he's also right that oftentimes lobbyists and special interests are the ones that are introducing these kinds of requests, although that wasn't the case with me. But let's be clear: Earmarks account for $18 billion in last year's budget. Senator McCain is proposing -- and this is a fundamental difference between us -- $300 billion in tax cuts to some of the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country, $300 billion. Now, $18 billion is important; $300 billion is really important. And in his tax plan, you would have CEOs of Fortune 500 companies getting an average of $700,000 in reduced taxes, while leaving 100 million Americans out. So my attitude is, we've got to grow the economy from the bottom up. What I've called for is a tax cut for 95 percent of working families, 95 percent. And that means that the ordinary American out there who's collecting a paycheck every day, they've got a little extra money to be able to buy a computer for their kid, to fill up on this gas that is killing them. And over time, that, I think, is going to be a better recipe for economic growth than the -- the policies of President Bush that John McCain wants to -- wants to follow. LEHRER: Senator McCain? MCCAIN: Well, again, I don't mean to go back and forth, but he... LEHRER: No, that's fine. MCCAIN: Senator Obama suspended those requests for pork-barrel projects after he was running for president of the United States. He didn't happen to see that light during the first three years as a member of the United States Senate, $932 million in requests. Maybe to Senator Obama it's not a lot of money. But the point is that -- you see, I hear this all the time. "It's only $18 billion." Do you know that it's tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it's gone completely out of control to the point where it corrupts people? It corrupts people. That's why we have, as I said, people under federal indictment and charges. It's a system that's got to be cleaned up. I have fought against it my career. I have fought against it. I was called the sheriff, by the -- one of the senior members of the Appropriations Committee. I didn't win Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate. Now, Senator Obama didn't mention that, along with his tax cuts, he is also proposing some $800 billion in new spending on new programs. Now, that's a fundamental difference between myself and Senator Obama. I want to cut spending. I want to keep taxes low. The worst thing we could do in this economic climate is to raise people's taxes. OBAMA: I -- I don't know where John is getting his figures. Let's just be clear. What I do is I close corporate loopholes, stop providing tax cuts to corporations that are shipping jobs overseas so that we're giving tax breaks to companies that are investing here in the United States. I make sure that we have a health care system that allows for everyone to have basic coverage. I think those are pretty important priorities. And I pay for every dime of it. But let's go back to the original point. John, nobody is denying that $18 billion is important. And, absolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely. But the fact is that eliminating earmarks alone is not a recipe for how we're going to get the middle class back on track. OBAMA: And when you look at your tax policies that are directed primarily at those who are doing well, and you are neglecting people who are really struggling right now, I think that is a continuation of the last eight years, and we can't afford another four. LEHRER: Respond directly to him about that, to Senator Obama about that, about the -- he's made it twice now, about your tax -- your policies about tax cuts. MCCAIN: Well -- well, let me give you an example of what Senator Obama finds objectionable, the business tax. Right now, the United States of American business pays the second-highest business taxes in the world, 35 percent. Ireland pays 11 percent. Now, if you're a business person, and you can locate any place in the world, then, obviously, if you go to the country where it's 11 percent tax versus 35 percent, you're going to be able to create jobs, increase your business, make more investment, et cetera. I want to cut that business tax. I want to cut it so that businesses will remain in -- in the United States of America and create jobs. But, again, I want to return. It's a lot more than $18 billion in pork-barrel spending. I can tell you, it's rife. It's throughout. The United States Senate will take up a continuing resolution tomorrow or the next day, sometime next week, with 2,000 -- 2,000 -- look at them, my friends. Look at them. You'll be appalled. And Senator Obama is a recent convert, after requesting $932 million worth of pork-barrel spending projects. So the point is, I want people to have tax cuts. I want every family to have a $5,000 refundable tax credit so they can go out and purchase their own health care. I want to double the dividend from $3,500 to $7,000 for every dependent child in America. I know that the worst thing we could possibly do is to raise taxes on anybody, and a lot of people might be interested in Senator Obama's definition of "rich." LEHRER: Senator Obama, you have a question for Senator McCain on that? OBAMA: Well, let me just make a couple of points. LEHRER: All right. OBAMA: My definition -- here's what I can tell the American people: 95 percent of you will get a tax cut. And if you make less than $250,000, less than a quarter-million dollars a year, then you will not see one dime's worth of tax increase. Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he's absolutely right. Here's the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world. And what that means, then, is that there are people out there who are working every day, who are not getting a tax cut, and you want to give them more. It's not like you want to close the loopholes. You just want to add an additional tax cut over the loopholes. And that's a problem. Just one last point I want to make, since Senator McCain talked about providing a $5,000 health credit. Now, what he doesn't tell you is that he intends to, for the first time in history, tax health benefits. So you may end up getting a $5,000 tax credit. Here's the only problem: Your employer now has to pay taxes on the health care that you're getting from your employer. And if you end up losing your health care from your employer, you've got to go out on the open market and try to buy it. It is not a good deal for the American people. But it's an example of this notion that the market can always solve everything and that the less regulation we have, the better off we're going to be. MCCAIN: Well, you know, let me just... LEHRER: We've got to go to another lead question. MCCAIN: I know we have to, but this is a classic example of walking the walk and talking the talk. We had an energy bill before the United States Senate. It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments. It had all kinds of breaks for the oil companies, I mean, billions of dollars worth. I voted against it; Senator Obama voted for it. OBAMA: John, you want to give oil companies another $4 billion. MCCAIN: You've got to look at our record. You've got to look at our records. That's the important thing. Who fought against wasteful and earmark spending? Who has been the person who has tried to keep spending under control? Who's the person who has believed that the best thing for America is -- is to have a tax system that is fundamentally fair? And I've fought to simplify it, and I have proposals to simplify it. Let's give every American a choice: two tax brackets, generous dividends, and, two -- and let Americans choose whether they want the -- the existing tax code or they want a new tax code. And so, again, look at the record, particularly the energy bill. But, again, Senator Obama has shifted on a number of occasions. He has voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes on people who make as low as $42,000 a year. OBAMA: That's not true, John. That's not true. MCCAIN: And that's just a fact. Again, you can look it up. OBAMA: Look, it's just not true. And if we want to talk about oil company profits, under your tax plan, John -- this is undeniable -- oil companies would get an additional $4 billion in tax breaks. Now, look, we all would love to lower taxes on everybody. But here's the problem: If we are giving them to oil companies, then that means that there are those who are not going to be getting them. And... MCCAIN: With all due respect, you already gave them to the oil companies. OBAMA: No, but, John, the fact of the matter is, is that I was opposed to those tax breaks, tried to strip them out. We've got an emergency bill on the Senate floor right now that contains some good stuff, some stuff you want, including drilling off-shore, but you're opposed to it because it would strip away those tax breaks that have gone to oil companies. LEHRER: All right. All right, speaking of things that both of you want, another lead question, and it has to do with the rescue -- the financial rescue thing that we started -- started asking about. And what -- and the first answer is to you, Senator Obama. As president, as a result of whatever financial rescue plan comes about and the billion, $700 billion, whatever it is it's going to cost, what are you going to have to give up, in terms of the priorities that you would bring as president of the United States, as a result of having to pay for the financial rescue plan? OBAMA: Well, there are a range of things that are probably going to have to be delayed. We don't yet know what our tax revenues are going to be. The economy is slowing down, so it's hard to anticipate right now what the budget is going to look like next year. But there's no doubt that we're not going to be able to do everything that I think needs to be done. There are some things that I think have to be done. We have to have energy independence, so I've put forward a plan to make sure that, in 10 years' time, we have freed ourselves from dependence on Middle Eastern oil by increasing production at home, but most importantly by starting to invest in alternative energy, solar, wind, biodiesel, making sure that we're developing the fuel-efficient cars of the future right here in the United States, in Ohio and Michigan, instead of Japan and South Korea. We have to fix our health care system, which is putting an enormous burden on families. Just -- a report just came out that the average deductible went up 30 percent on American families. They are getting crushed, and many of them are going bankrupt as a consequence of health care. I'm meeting folks all over the country. We have to do that now, because it will actually make our businesses and our families better off. The third thing we have to do is we've got to make sure that we're competing in education. We've got to invest in science and technology. China had a space launch and a space walk. We've got to make sure that our children are keeping pace in math and in science. And one of the things I think we have to do is make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America. And I also think that we're going to have to rebuild our infrastructure, which is falling behind, our roads, our bridges, but also broadband lines that reach into rural communities. Also, making sure that we have a new electricity grid to get the alternative energy to population centers that are using them. So there are some -- some things that we've got to do structurally to make sure that we can compete in this global economy. We can't shortchange those things. We've got to eliminate programs that don't work, and we've got to make sure that the programs that we do have are more efficient and cost less. LEHRER: Are you -- what priorities would you adjust, as president, Senator McCain, because of the -- because of the financial bailout cost? MCCAIN: Look, we, no matter what, we've got to cut spending. We have -- as I said, we've let government get completely out of control. Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate. It's hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left. The point -- the point is -- the point is, we need to examine every agency of government. First of all, by the way, I'd eliminate ethanol subsidies. I oppose ethanol subsidies. I think that we have to return -- particularly in defense spending, which is the largest part of our appropriations -- we have to do away with cost-plus contracts. We now have defense systems that the costs are completely out of control. We tried to build a little ship called the Littoral Combat Ship that was supposed to cost $140 million, ended up costing $400 million, and we still haven't done it. So we need to have fixed-cost contracts. We need very badly to understand that defense spending is very important and vital, particularly in the new challenges we face in the world, but we have to get a lot of the cost overruns under control. I know how to do that. MCCAIN: 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 and the people ended up in federal prison so I know how to do this because I've been involved these issues for many, many years. But I think that we have to examine every agency of government and find out those that are doing their job and keep them and find out those that aren't and eliminate them and we'll have to scrub every agency of government. LEHRER: But if I hear the two of you correctly neither one of you is suggesting any major changes in what you want to do as president as a result of the financial bailout? Is that what you're saying? OBAMA: No. As I said before, Jim, there are going to be things that end up having to be ... LEHRER: Like what? OBAMA: ... deferred and delayed. Well, look, I want to make sure that we are investing in energy in order to free ourselves from the dependence on foreign oil. That is a big project. That is a multi-year project. LEHRER: Not willing to give that up? OBAMA: Not willing to give up the need to do it but there may be individual components that we can't do. But John is right we have to make cuts. We right now give $15 billion every year as subsidies to private insurers under the Medicare system. Doesn't work any better through the private insurers. They just skim off $15 billion. That was a give away and part of the reason is because lobbyists are able to shape how Medicare works. They did it on the Medicaid prescription drug bill and we have to change the culture. Tom -- or John mentioned me being wildly liberal. Mostly that's just me opposing George Bush's wrong headed policies since I've been in Congress but I think it is that it is also important to recognize I work with Tom Coburn, the most conservative, one of the most conservative Republicans who John already mentioned to set up what we call a Google for government saying we'll list every dollar of federal spending to make sure that the taxpayer can take a look and see who, in fact, is promoting some of these spending projects that John's been railing about. LEHRER: What I'm trying to get at this is this. Excuse me if I may, senator. Trying to get at that you all -- one of you is going to be the president of the United States come January. At the -- in the middle of a huge financial crisis that is yet to be resolved. And what I'm trying to get at is how this is going to affect you not in very specific -- small ways but in major ways and the approach to take as to the presidency. MCCAIN: How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs. LEHRER: Spending freeze? MCCAIN: I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring of veterans national defense and several other vital issues. LEHRER: Would you go for that? OBAMA: The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are under funded. I went to increase early childhood education and the notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this Medicare subsidy doesn't make sense. Let me tell you another place to look for some savings. We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad, that we have to look at bringing that war to a close. MCCAIN: Look, we are sending $700 billion a year overseas to countries that don't like us very much. Some of that money ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations. We have to have wind, tide, solar, natural gas, flex fuel cars and all that but we also have to have offshore drilling and we also have to have nuclear power. Senator Obama opposes both storing and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. You can't get there from here and the fact is that we can create 700,000 jobs by building constructing 45 new nuclear power plants by the year 2030. Nuclear power is not only important as far as eliminating our dependence on foreign oil but it's also responsibility as far as climate change is concerned and the issue I have been involved in for many, many years and I'm proud of the work of the work that I've done there along with President Clinton. LEHRER: Before we go to another lead question. Let me figure out a way to ask the same question in a slightly different way here. Are you -- are you willing to acknowledge both of you that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as president of the United States beyond the kinds of things that you have already -- I mean, is it a major move? Is it going to have a major affect? OBAMA: There's no doubt it will affect our budgets. There is no doubt about it. Not only -- Even if we get all $700 billion back, let's assume the markets recover, we' holding assets long enough that eventually taxpayers get it back and that happened during the Great Depression when Roosevelt purchased a whole bunch of homes, over time, home values went back up and in fact government made a profit. If we're lucky and do it right, that could potentially happen but in the short term there's an outlay and we may not see that money for a while. And because of the economy's slowing down, I think we can also expect less tax revenue so there's no doubt that as president I'm go doing have to make some tough decision. The only point I want to make is this, that in order to make the tough decisions we have to know what our values are and who we're fighting for and our priorities and if we are spending $300 billion on tax cuts for people who don't need them and weren't even asking for them, and we are leaving out health care which is crushing on people all across the country, then I think we have made a bad decision and I want to make sure we're not shortchanging our long term priorities. MCCAIN: 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. Look. We have to obviously cut spending. I have fought to cut spending. Senator Obama has $800 billion in new spending programs. I would suggest he start by canceling some of those new spending program that he has. We can't I think adjust spending around to take care of the very much needed programs, including taking care of our veterans but I also want to say again a healthy economy with low taxes would not raising anyone's taxes is probably the best recipe for eventually having our economy recover. And spending restraint has got to be a vital part of that. And the reason, one of the major reasons why we're in the difficulties we are in today is because spending got out of control. We owe China $500 billion. And spending, I know, can be brought under control because I have fought against excessive spending my entire career. And I got plans to reduce and eliminate unnecessary and wasteful spending and if there's anybody here who thinks there aren't agencies of government where spending can be cut and their budgets slashed they have not spent a lot of time in Washington. OBAMA: I just want to make this point, Jim. John, it's been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending. This orgy of spending and enormous deficits you voted for almost all of his budgets. So to stand here and after eight years and say that you're going to lead on controlling spending and, you know, balancing our tax cuts so that they help middle class families when over the last eight years that hasn't happened I think just is, you know, kind of hard to swallow. LEHRER: Quick response to Senator Obama. MCCAIN: It's well-known that I have not been elected Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate nor with the administration. I have opposed the president on spending, on climate change, on torture of prisoner, on - on Guantanamo Bay. On a -- on the way that the Iraq War was conducted. I have a long record and the American people know me very well and that is independent and a maverick of the Senate and I'm happy to say that I've got a partner that's a good maverick along with me now. LEHRER: All right. Let's go another subject. Lead question, two minutes to you, senator McCain. Much has been said about the lessons of Vietnam. What do you see as the lessons of Iraq? MCCAIN: I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict. Our initial military success, we went in to Baghdad and everybody celebrated. And then the war was very badly mishandled. I went to Iraq in 2003 and came back and said, we've got to change this strategy. This strategy requires additional troops, it requires a fundamental change in strategy and I fought for it. And finally, we came up with a great general and a strategy that has succeeded. This strategy has succeeded. And we are winning in Iraq. And we will come home with victory and with honor. And that withdrawal is the result of every counterinsurgency that succeeds. MCCAIN: And I want to tell you that now that we will succeed and our troops will come home, and not in defeat, that we will see a stable ally in the region and a fledgling democracy. The consequences of defeat would have been increased Iranian influence. It would have been increase in sectarian violence. It would have been a wider war, which the United States of America might have had to come back. So there was a lot at stake there. And thanks to this great general, David Petraeus, and the troops who serve under him, they have succeeded. And we are winning in Iraq, and we will come home. And we will come home as we have when we have won other wars and not in defeat. LEHRER: Two minutes, how you see the lessons of Iraq, Senator Obama? OBAMA: Well, this is an area where Senator McCain and I have a fundamental difference because I think the first question is whether we should have gone into the war in the first place. Now six years ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically risky to do so because I said that not only did we not know how much it was going to cost, what our exit strategy might be, how it would affect our relationships around the world, and whether our intelligence was sound, but also because we hadn't finished the job in Afghanistan. We hadn't caught bin Laden. We hadn't put al Qaeda to rest, and as a consequence, I thought that it was going to be a distraction. Now Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different judgment. And I wish I had been wrong for the sake of the country and they had been right, but that's not the case. We've spent over $600 billion so far, soon to be $1 trillion. We have lost over 4,000 lives. We have seen 30,000 wounded, and most importantly, from a strategic national security perspective, al Qaeda is resurgent, stronger now than at any time since 2001. We took our eye off the ball. And not to mention that we are still spending $10 billion a month, when they have a $79 billion surplus, at a time when we are in great distress here at home, and we just talked about the fact that our budget is way overstretched and we are borrowing money from overseas to try to finance just some of the basic functions of our government. So I think the lesson to be drawn is that we should never hesitate to use military force, and I will not, as president, in order to keep the American people safe. But we have to use our military wisely. And we did not use our military wisely in Iraq. LEHRER: Do you agree with that, the lesson of Iraq? MCCAIN: The next president of the United States is not going to have to address the issue as to whether we went into Iraq or not. The next president of the United States is going to have to decide how we leave, when we leave, and what we leave behind. That's the decision of the next president of the United States. Senator Obama said the surge could not work, said it would increase sectarian violence, said it was doomed to failure. Recently on a television program, he said it exceed our wildest expectations. But yet, after conceding that, he still says that he would oppose the surge if he had to decide that again today. Incredibly, incredibly Senator Obama didn't go to Iraq for 900 days and never LEHRER: Well, let's go at some of these things... MCCAIN: Senator Obama is the chairperson of a committee that oversights NATO that's in Afghanistan. To this day, he has never had a hearing. LEHRER: What about that point? MCCAIN: I mean, it's remarkable. LEHRER: All right. What about that point? OBAMA: Which point? He raised a whole bunch of them. LEHRER: I know, OK, let's go to the latter point and we'll back up. The point about your not having been... OBAMA: Look, I'm very proud of my vice presidential selection, Joe Biden, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and as he explains, and as John well knows, the issues of Afghanistan, the issues of Iraq, critical issues like that, don't go through my subcommittee because they're done as a committee as a whole. But that's Senate inside baseball. But let's get back to the core issue here. Senator McCain is absolutely right that the violence has been reduced as a consequence of the extraordinary sacrifice of our troops and our military families. They have done a brilliant job, and General Petraeus has done a brilliant job. But understand, that was a tactic designed to contain the damage of the previous four years of mismanagement of this war. And so John likes -- John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong. And so my question is... LEHRER: Senator Obama... OBAMA: ... of judgment, of whether or not -- of whether or not -- if the question is who is best-equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military, how we make sure that we are prepared and ready for the next conflict, then I think we can take a look at our judgment. LEHRER: I have got a lot on the plate here... MCCAIN: I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy. But the important -- I'd like to tell you, two Fourths of July ago I was in Baghdad. General Petraeus invited Senator Lindsey Graham and me to attend a ceremony where 688 brave young Americans, whose enlistment had expired, were reenlisting to stay and fight for Iraqi freedom and American freedom. I was honored to be there. I was honored to speak to those troops. And you know, afterwards, we spent a lot of time with them. And you know what they said to us? They said, let us win. They said, let us win. We don't want our kids coming back here. And this strategy, and this general, they are winning. Senator Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq. OBAMA: That's not true. MCCAIN: They just passed an electoral... OBAMA: That's not true. MCCAIN: An election law just in the last few days. 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, and it wasn't a tactic. LEHRER: Let me see... OBAMA: Jim, Jim, this is a big... MCCAIN: It was a stratagem. And that same strategy will be employed in Afghanistan by this great general. And Senator Obama, who after promising not to vote to cut off funds for the troops, did the incredible thing of voting to cut off the funds for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. OBAMA: Jim, there are a whole bunch of things we have got to answer. First of all, let's talk about this troop funding issue because John always brings this up. Senator McCain cut -- Senator McCain opposed funding for troops in legislation that had a timetable, because he didn't believe in a timetable. I opposed funding a mission that had no timetable, and was open- ended, giving a blank check to George Bush. We had a difference on the timetable. We didn't have a difference on whether or not we were going to be funding troops. We had a legitimate difference, and I absolutely understand the difference between tactics and strategy. And the strategic question that the president has to ask is not whether or not we are employing a particular approach in the country once we have made the decision to be there. The question is, was this wise? We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there. Senator McCain, in the rush to go into Iraq, said, you know what? We've been successful in Afghanistan. There is nobody who can pose a threat to us there. This is a time when bin Laden was still out, and now they've reconstituted themselves. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates himself acknowledges the war on terrorism started in Afghanistan and it needs to end there. But we can't do it if we are not willing to give Iraq back its country. Now, what I've said is we should end this war responsibly. We should do it in phases. But in 16 months we should be able to reduce our combat troops, put -- provide some relief to military families and our troops and bolster our efforts in Afghanistan so that we can capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda. And right now, the commanders in Afghanistan, as well as Admiral Mullen, have acknowledged that we don't have enough troops to deal with Afghanistan because we still have more troops in Iraq than we did before the surge. MCCAIN: Admiral Mullen suggests that Senator Obama's plan is dangerous for America. OBAMA: That's not the case. MCCAIN: That's what ... OBAMA: What he said was a precipitous... MCCAIN: That's what Admiral Mullen said. OBAMA: ... withdrawal would be dangerous. He did not say that. That's not true. MCCAIN: And also General Petraeus said the same thing. Osama bin Laden and General Petraeus have one thing in common that I know of, they both said that Iraq is the central battleground. Now General Petraeus has praised the successes, but he said those successes are fragile and if we set a specific date for withdrawal -- and by the way, Senator Obama's original plan, they would have been out last spring before the surge ever had a chance to succeed. And I'm -- I'm -- understand why Senator Obama was surprised and said that the surge succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. MCCAIN: It didn't exceed beyond mine, because I know that that's a strategy that has worked and can succeed. But if we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and adopt Senator Obama's plan, then we will have a wider war and it will make things more complicated throughout the region, including in Afghanistan. LEHRER: Afghanistan, lead -- a new -- a new lead question. Now, having resolved Iraq, we'll move to Afghanistan. And it goes to you, Senator Obama, and it's a -- it picks up on a point that's already been made. Do you think more troops -- more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, how many, and when? OBAMA: Yes, I think we need more troops. I've been saying that for over a year now. And I think that we have to do it as quickly as possible, because it's been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better. We had the highest fatalities among U.S. troops this past year than at any time since 2002. And we are seeing a major offensive taking place -- al Qaeda and Taliban crossing the border and attacking our troops in a brazen fashion. They are feeling emboldened. And we cannot separate Afghanistan from Iraq, because what our commanders have said is we don't have the troops right now to deal with Afghanistan. So I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan. Now, keep in mind that we have four times the number of troops in Iraq, where nobody had anything to do with 9/11 before we went in, where, in fact, there was no al Qaeda before we went in, but we have four times more troops there than we do in Afghanistan. And that is a strategic mistake, because every intelligence agency will acknowledge that al Qaeda is the greatest threat against the United States and that Secretary of Defense Gates acknowledged the central front -- that the place where we have to deal with these folks is going to be in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. So here's what we have to do comprehensively, though. It's not just more troops. We have to press the Afghan government to make certain that they are actually working for their people. And I've said this to President Karzai. No. 2, we've got to deal with a growing poppy trade that has exploded over the last several years. No. 3, we've got to deal with Pakistan, because al Qaeda and the Taliban have safe havens in Pakistan, across the border in the northwest regions, and although, you know, under George Bush, with the support of Senator McCain, we've been giving them $10 billion over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens. And until we do, Americans here at home are not going to be safe. LEHRER: Afghanistan, Senator McCain? MCCAIN: First of all, I won't repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region. And the result over time was the Taliban, al Qaeda, and a lot of the difficulties we are facing today. So we can't ignore those lessons of history. Now, on this issue of aiding Pakistan, if you're going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz, our great secretary of state, told me once, you'd better be prepared to pull the trigger. I'm not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I'm not prepared to threaten it, as Senator Obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan. We've got to get the support of the people of -- of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan. Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government. Now, the new president of Pakistan, Kardari (sic), has got his hands full. And this area on the border has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great. I've been to Waziristan. I can see how tough that terrain is. It's ruled by a handful of tribes. And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn't understand, it's got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq. It's going to have to be employed in Afghanistan. And we're going to have to help the Pakistanis go into these areas and obtain the allegiance of the people. And it's going to be tough. They've intermarried with al Qaeda and the Taliban. And it's going to be tough. But we have to get the cooperation of the people in those areas. And the Pakistanis are going to have to understand that that bombing in the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was a signal from the terrorists that they don't want that government to cooperate with us in combating the Taliban and jihadist elements. So we've got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. But I'm confident, now that General Petraeus is in the new position of command, that we will employ a strategy which not only means additional troops -- and, by the way, there have been 20,000 additional troops, from 32,000 to 53,000, and there needs to be more. So it's not just the addition of troops that matters. It's a strategy that will succeed. And Pakistan is a very important element in this. And I know how to work with him. And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I'm going to attack them. OBAMA: Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan. Here's what I said. And if John wants to disagree with this, he can let me know, that, if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out. Now, I think that's the right strategy; I think that's the right policy. And, John, I -- you're absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But, you know, coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and, you know, sung songs about bombing Iran, I don't know, you know, how credible that is. I think this is the right strategy. Now, Senator McCain is also right that it's difficult. This is not an easy situation. You've got cross-border attacks against U.S. troops. And we've got a choice. We could allow our troops to just be on the defensive and absorb those blows again and again and again, if Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate, or we have to start making some decisions. And the problem, John, with the strategy that's been pursued was that, for 10 years, we coddled Musharraf, we alienated the Pakistani population, because we were anti-democratic. We had a 20th-century mindset that basically said, "Well, you know, he may be a dictator, but he's our dictator." And as a consequence, we lost legitimacy in Pakistan. We spent $10 billion. And in the meantime, they weren't going after al Qaeda, and they are more powerful now than at any time since we began the war in Afghanistan. That's going to change when I'm president of the United States. MCCAIN: I -- I don't think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power. Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that it was a failed state. But let me tell you, you know, this business about bombing Iran and all that, let me tell you my record. Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman, the one -- the person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon. And I saw that, and I saw the situation, and I stood up, and I voted against that, because I was afraid that they couldn't make peace in a place where 300 or 400 or several hundred Marines would make a difference. Tragically, I was right: Nearly 300 Marines lost their lives in the bombing of the barracks. And then we had Somalia -- then we had the first Gulf War. I supported -- I supported that. I supported us going into Bosnia, when a number of my own party and colleagues was against that operation in Bosnia. That was the right thing to do, to stop genocide and to preserve what was necessary inside of Europe. I supported what we did in Kosovo. I supported it because ethnic cleansing and genocide was taking place there. And I have a record -- and Somalia, I opposed that we should turn -- turn the force in Somalia from a peacekeeping force into a peacemaking force, which they were not capable of. So I have a record. I have a record of being involved in these national security issues, which involve the highest responsibility and the toughest decisions that any president can make, and that is to send our young men and women into harm's way. And I'll tell you, I had a town hall meeting in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and a woman stood up and she said, "Senator McCain, I want you to do me the honor of wearing a bracelet with my son's name on it." He was 22 years old and he was killed in combat outside of Baghdad, Matthew Stanley, before Christmas last year. This was last August, a year ago. And I said, "I will -- I will wear his bracelet with honor." And this was August, a year ago. And then she said, "But, Senator McCain, I want you to do everything -- promise me one thing, that you'll do everything in your power to make sure that my son's death was not in vain." That means that that mission succeeds, just like those young people who re-enlisted in Baghdad, just like the mother I met at the airport the other day whose son was killed. And they all say to me that we don't want defeat. MCCAIN: A war that I was in, where we had an Army, that it wasn't through any fault of their own, but they were defeated. And I know how hard it is for that -- for an Army and a military to recover from that. And it did and we will win this one and we won't come home in defeat and dishonor and probably have to go back if we fail. OBAMA: Jim, let me just make a point. I've got a bracelet, too, from Sergeant - from the mother of Sergeant Ryan David Jopeck, sure another mother is not going through what I'm going through. No U.S. soldier ever dies in vain because they're carrying out the missions of their commander in chief. And we honor all the service that they've provided. Our troops have performed brilliantly. The question is for the next president, are we making good judgments about how to keep America safe precisely because sending our military into battle is such an enormous step. And the point that I originally made is that we took our eye off Afghanistan, we took our eye off the folks who perpetrated 9/11, they are still sending out videotapes and Senator McCain, nobody is talking about defeat in Iraq, but I have to say we are having enormous problems in Afghanistan because of that decision. And it is not true you have consistently been concerned about what happened in Afghanistan. At one point, while you were focused on Iraq, you said well, we can "muddle through" Afghanistan. You don't muddle through the central front on terror and you don't muddle through going after bin Laden. You don't muddle through stamping out the Taliban. I think that is something we have to take seriously. And when I'm president, I will. LEHRER: New ... MCCAIN: You might think that with that kind of concern that Senator Obama would have gone to Afghanistan, particularly given his responsibilities as a subcommittee chairman. By the way, when I'm subcommittee chairman, we take up the issues under my subcommittee. But the important thing is -- the important thing is I visited Afghanistan and I traveled to Waziristan and I traveled to these places and I know what our security requirements are. I know what our needs are. So the point is that we will prevail in Afghanistan, but we need the new strategy and we need it to succeed. But the important thing is, if we suffer defeat in Iraq, which General Petraeus predicts we will, if we adopted Senator Obama's set date for withdrawal, then that will have a calamitous effect in Afghanistan and American national security interests in the region. Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand there is a connected between the two. LEHRER: I have some good news and bad news for the two of you. You all are even on time, which is remarkable, considering we've been going at it ... OBAMA: A testimony to you, Jim. LEHRER: I don't know about that. But the bad news is all my little five minute things have run over, so, anyhow, we'll adjust as we get there. But the amount of time is even. New lead question. And it goes two minutes to you, Senator McCain, what is your reading on the threat to Iran right now to the security of the United States? MCCAIN: My reading of the threat from Iran is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel and to other countries in the region because the other countries in the region will feel compelling requirement to acquire nuclear weapons as well. Now we cannot a second Holocaust. Let's just make that very clear. What I have proposed for a long time, and I've had conversation with foreign leaders about forming a league of democracies, let's be clear and let's have some straight talk. The Russians are preventing significant action in the United Nations Security Council. I have proposed a league of democracies, a group of people - a group of countries that share common interests, common values, common ideals, they also control a lot of the world's economic power. We could impose significant meaningful, painful sanctions on the Iranians that I think could have a beneficial effect. The Iranians have a lousy government, so therefore their economy is lousy, even though they have significant oil revenues. So I am convinced that together, we can, with the French, with the British, with the Germans and other countries, democracies around the world, we can affect Iranian behavior. But have no doubt, but have no doubt that the Iranians continue on the path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon as we speak tonight. And it is a threat not only in this region but around the world. What I'd also like to point out the Iranians are putting the most lethal IEDs into Iraq which are killing young Americans, there are special groups in Iran coming into Iraq and are being trained in Iran. There is the Republican Guard in Iran, which Senator Kyl had an amendment in order to declare them a sponsor of terror. Senator Obama said that would be provocative. So this is a serious threat. This is a serious threat to security in the world, and I believe we can act and we can act with our friends and allies and reduce that threat as quickly as possible, but have no doubt about the ultimate result of them acquiring nuclear weapons. LEHRER: Two minutes on Iran, Senator Obama. OBAMA: Well, let me just correct something very quickly. I believe the Republican Guard of Iran is a terrorist organization. I've consistently said so. What Senator McCain refers to is a measure in the Senate that would try to broaden the mandate inside of Iraq. To deal with Iran. And ironically, the single thing that has strengthened Iran over the last several years has been the war in Iraq. Iraq was Iran's mortal enemy. That was cleared away. And what we've seen over the last several years is Iran's influence grow. They have funded Hezbollah, they have funded Hamas, they have gone from zero centrifuges to 4,000 centrifuges to develop a nuclear weapon. So obviously, our policy over the last eight years has not worked. Senator McCain is absolutely right, we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran. It would be a game changer. Not only would it threaten Israel, a country that is our stalwart ally, but it would also create an environment in which you could set off an arms race in this Middle East. Now here's what we need to do. We do need tougher sanctions. I do not agree with Senator McCain that we're going to be able to execute the kind of sanctions we need without some cooperation with some countries like Russia and China that are, I think Senator McCain would agree, not democracies, but have extensive trade with Iran but potentially have an interest in making sure Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. But we are also going to have to, I believe, engage in tough direct diplomacy with Iran and this is a major difference I have with Senator McCain, this notion by not talking to people we are punishing them has not worked. It has not worked in Iran, it has not worked in North Korea. In each instance, our efforts of isolation have actually accelerated their efforts to get nuclear weapons. That will change when I'm president of the United States. LEHRER: Senator, what about talking? MCCAIN: Senator Obama twice said in debates he would sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raul Castro without precondition. Without precondition. Here is Ahmadinenene [mispronunciation], Ahmadinejad, who is, Ahmadinejad, who is now in New York, talking about the extermination of the State of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map, and we're going to sit down, without precondition, across the table, to legitimize and give a propaganda platform to a person that is espousing the extermination of the state of Israel, and therefore then giving them more credence in the world arena and therefore saying, they've probably been doing the right thing, because you will sit down across the table from them and that will legitimize their illegal behavior. The point is that throughout history, whether it be Ronald Reagan, who wouldn't sit down with Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko until Gorbachev was ready with glasnost and perestroika. Or whether it be Nixon's trip to China, which was preceded by Henry Kissinger, many times before he went. Look, I'll sit down with anybody, but there's got to be pre-conditions. Those pre-conditions would apply that we wouldn't legitimize with a face to face meeting, a person like Ahmadinejad. Now, Senator Obama said, without preconditions. OBAMA: So let's talk about this. First of all, Ahmadinejad is not the most powerful person in Iran. So he may not be the right person to talk to. But 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. And I'm glad that Senator McCain brought up the history, the bipartisan history of us engaging in direct diplomacy. Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who's one of his advisers, who, along with five recent secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with Iran -- guess what -- without precondition. This is one of your own advisers. Now, understand what this means "without preconditions." It doesn't mean that you invite them over for tea one day. What it means is that we don't do what we've been doing, which is to say, "Until you agree to do exactly what we say, we won't have direct contacts with you." There's a difference between preconditions and preparation. Of course we've got to do preparations, starting with low-level diplomatic talks, and it may not work, because Iran is a rogue regime. But I will point out that I was called naive when I suggested that we need to look at exploring contacts with Iran. And you know what? President Bush recently sent a senior ambassador, Bill Burns, to participate in talks with the Europeans around the issue of nuclear weapons. Again, it may not work, but if it doesn't work, then we have strengthened our ability to form alliances to impose the tough sanctions that Senator McCain just mentioned. And when we haven't done it, as in North Korea -- let me just take one more example -- in North Korea, we cut off talks. They're a member of the axis of evil. We can't deal with them. And you know what happened? They went -- they quadrupled their nuclear capacity. They tested a nuke. They tested missiles. They pulled out of the nonproliferation agreement. And they sent nuclear secrets, potentially, to countries like Syria. When we re-engaged -- because, again, the Bush administration reversed course on this -- then we have at least made some progress, although right now, because of the problems in North Korea, we are seeing it on shaky ground. And -- and I just -- so I just have to make this general point that the Bush administration, some of Senator McCain's own advisers all think this is important, and Senator McCain appears resistant. He even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he -- you know, he wasn't sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally. MCCAIN: Of course. OBAMA: If we can't meet with our friends, I don't know how we're going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism. MCCAIN: I'm not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I'm president of the United States. I don't even have a seal yet. Look, Dr. Kissinger did not say that he would approve of face-to- face meetings between the president of the United States and the president -- and Ahmadinejad. He did not say that. OBAMA: Of course not. MCCAIN: He said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I've always encouraged them. The Iranians have met with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad. 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. This is dangerous. It isn't just naive; it's dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion. As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag. We don't know what the status of the dear leader's health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they've entered into. And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan's "trust, but verify," and certainly not sit down across the table from -- without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it's just dangerous. OBAMA: Look, I mean, Senator McCain keeps on using this example that suddenly the president would just meet with somebody without doing any preparation, without having low-level talks. Nobody's been talking about that, and Senator McCain knows it. This is a mischaracterization of my position. When we talk about preconditions -- and Henry Kissinger did say we should have contacts without preconditions -- the idea is that we do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks. And, you know, the Bush administration has come to recognize that it hasn't worked, this notion that we are simply silent when it comes to our enemies. And the notion that we would sit with Ahmadinejad and not say anything while he's spewing his nonsense and his vile comments is ridiculous. Nobody is even talking about that. MCCAIN: So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, "We're going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth," and we say, "No, you're not"? Oh, please. OBAMA: No, let me tell... MCCAIN: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who's been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama's depiction of his -- of his positions on the issue. I've known him for 35 years. OBAMA: We will take a look. MCCAIN: And I guarantee you he would not -- he would not say that presidential top level. OBAMA: Nobody's talking about that. MCCAIN: Of course he encourages and other people encourage contacts, and negotiations, and all other things. We do that all the time. LEHRER: We're going to go to a new...