Saturday, September 27, 2008

Important Steps

A lot of people labeled McCain's decision to return to Washington earlier this week as political grandstanding, but once the publicity settled on that story it is worth pointing out that McCain is back in D.C. today working on the bailout proposal.

Meanwhile, Obama is holding two rallies today in Virginia.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

McCain: Now, the new president of Pakistan, Qadari [sic], has got his hands full… 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 co-operate with us in combating the Taleban and jihadist elements.

Obama: The problem, John, with the strategy that’s been pursued was that, for 10 years, we coddled [former President] 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.’

“There was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power,” McCain responded. “Everybody who was around then and had been there and knew about it knew that it was a failed state.”

Though Pakistan was wrestling with problems like tensions with India and serious poverty when Musharraf took power in an October 1999 coup, it had a democratically elected government and was far from being a “failed state” - a country in social and economic collapse where the government no longer exercises authority.

In effect, McCain is okay with dictators as long as they are his own. So much for spreading democracy and freedom!