Obama’s Lead Is Growing

In two of the most recent polls, Senator Obama’s lead over Senator McCain has grown into double digits. In a Newsweek poll which came out last Friday, Senator Obama was shown to have a 15 point lead over his Republican competetor. Many media outlets such as MSNBC rejected the possibility and assumed that the Newsweek poll was simply an outlier with an inaccurate sample. However, that may not have been the case given a more recent poll which was reported by the Los Angeles Times. The new poll shows Obama with a 12 point lead over McCain when the repondents are asked to choose between Senators Obama and McCain. However, it shows that the Obama lead grows to 15 when third-party candidates like Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are factored in. We’re still 4 months away to the election, but it shows that the nation is sick of the GOP.

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by cfishy who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from cfishy.

“I Didn’t Really Love America Until I Was Deprived Of Her Company”

Those are the words of Senator John McCain. If one looks at them in a vacuum they are inspiring words about how he took his country for granted, but now appreciates everything it has given him. However, when one takes the comment out of the vacuum and looks at it within context it becomes hypocritical. Senator McCain’s campaign has attacked Michelle Obama over a statement she made in a speech in Milwaukee:

“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback,”

That’s not all that different from the statement made by Senator McCain yet apparently Cindy McCain feels like she can attack Michelle over her comments and yet hasn’t ever questioned her husband’s patriotism. Personally, I think the whole “controversy” over whether or not the McCains or the Obamas are patriotic is a waste of time. The candidates should be discussing substantive issues rather than launching ad-hominem attacks whether they send their wives to do the dirty work or do it themselves. Hopefully the fact that McCain has said similar things will put this “controversy” to rest and will turn the campaign in a substantive direction until the next media generated distraction.

Democratic Disappointment

The two party system only works when the opposition party acts as the loyal opposition. A large part of the Democratic party is saying they will fail to do this on the impending FISA bill. One of the people who has failed on this matter is the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama. His failure however is a more nuanced one than that of many as he has said that he plans to fight to get telecom immunity removed from the bill. However, at the moment he’s not one of the heroes of this story. The heroes of this story would be the two Senators who are willing to fight to defend the bill of rights. Those are Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. They released a joint statement about the bill:

“This is a deeply flawed bill, which does nothing more than offer retroactive immunity by another name. We strongly urge our colleagues to reject this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation and oppose any efforts to consider this bill in its current form. We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans. If the Senate does proceed to this legislation, our immediate response will be to offer an amendment that strips the retroactive immunity provision out of the bill. We hope our colleagues will join us in supporting Americans’ civil liberties by opposing retroactive immunity and rejecting this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has that he will join Dodd and Feingold in opposing the bill, though he used far less powerful language:

“Unfortunately, the FISA compromise bill establishes a process where the likely outcome is immunity to the telecommunications carriers who participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Reid remains opposed to retroactive immunity, which undermines efforts to hold the Bush Administration accountable for violating the law. Thus, he will cosponsor the amendment offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip out the immunity provision, and support their efforts to strip immunity on the floor. “

Senator Dodd has delivered his prepared remarks which can be found here and Senator Feingold reiterated his position today on Democracy Now!

As for Senator McCain, as has been outlined previously, he has been in favor of telecom immunity as long as they apologize for what they had done. However, Senator McCain has changed his position again and is now favor of unconditional immunity for the telecoms.

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by marcn who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from marcn.

McCain and the Draft

Last night Senator McCain was asked about the possibility of a draft to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He responded by saying:

“I don’t know what would make a draft happen unless we were in an all-out World War III.”

Many are taking this as Senator McCain saying that he will not bring back the draft barring some unforeseen circumstance. However, to play devil’s advocate, Conservatives have thrown World War III around quite a bit recently. Back in 2006, CNN’s Larry King asked Senator McCain if he agreed with Newt Gingrich’s statement that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the beginnings of World War III. Senator McCain responded:

“I do to some extent. I think it’s important to recognize that we have terrorist organizations which — who are dangerous by themselves, are now being supported by radical Islamic governments, i.e., the Iranians, which makes them incredibly more dangerous because they are trained, equipped, motivated and assisted in every way by the Iranians.”

President Bush also brought up the specter of World War III in a press conference from 2007:

So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously. And we’ll continue to work with all nations about the seriousness of this threat. Plus we’ll continue working the financial measures that we’re in the process of doing. In other words, I think — the whole strategy is, is that at some point in time, leaders or responsible folks inside of Iran may get tired of isolation and say, this isn’t worth it. And to me, it’s worth the effort to keep the pressure on this government.

Now, we’re not in “an all-out World War III” like Senator McCain says he would need to see before he would resurrect the draft but he may believe we’re closer to that than it would first appear.