McCain Won't Rule Out Pre-Emptive War AP | April 10 2008
WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain refused Wednesday to rule out a pre-emptive war against another country, although he said one would be very unlikely.
The likely Republican presidential nominee was asked Wednesday at a town-hall style meeting if he would reject "the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war," a reference to Bush's decision to invade Iraq without it having attacked the United States.
"I don't think you could make a blanket statement about pre-emptive war, because obviously, it depends on the threat that the United States of America faces," McCain told his audience at Bridgewater Associates Inc., a global investment firm.
"If someone is about to launch a weapon that would devastate America, or have the capability to do so, obviously, you would have to act immediately in defense of this nation's national security interests."
McCain said he would consult more closely and more carefully "not with every member of Congress, but certainly the leaders of Congress
Director Oliver Stone has set James Cromwell to play George Herbert Walker Bush and Ellen Burstyn to play former first lady Barbara Bush in "W," a drama about the formative years of their son, President George W. Bush.
Josh Brolin is playing the title character, and Elizabeth Banks will play first lady Laura Bush.
Stone will direct from a script by his “Wall Street” co-writer Stanley Weiser. Moritz Borman is producing with Bill Block and Jon Kilik.
Block's QED International is financing the film, which will begin shooting Shreveport, La., at the end of April.
ABC's Jennifer Duck reports: Clearly choked up, and at times wiping away his own tears, President Bush awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously at the White House Tueday to Navy SEAL Petty Officer Michael Monsoor, who was killed in Iraq in September of 2006 when he fell on a grenade to save comrades during fighting in Ramadi.
Monsoor was the fourth service member to receive the nation's highest award for valor in the 6 1/2 years of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Bush awarded the medal in the White House's East Room Tuesday to Monsoor's parents.
The Democratic race could well come down to the first contested convention in years.Lessons on how to prevail.
Rule #1: Control the Convention Mechanism. If you set the rules, decide who votes, organize the event and control what is said, it's almost impossible to lose. Rule #2: Watch the Platform. Party platforms were once the most important statement of the presidential campaign. No more. Rule #3: It's All About Delegates. Delegates are political junkies. This is their moment in the spotlight. Don't take them for granted. Make every effort to attend to their every legitimate (and legal) need. Rule #4: Have a Strategy to Win. Whatever combination of endorsements, announcements, policy statements and stagecraft you can engineer to create a sense of momentum going into the convention, do it. Rule #5: Focus on Staging. Conventions are elaborate made-for-TV productions. We live in a culture of the visual. Every moment and every event should be scripted.
There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives and limited intervention in foreign affairs. That organization was known as the Republican Party. But the only one of those beliefs that still motivates the G.O.P. establishment is limited taxes. In 2008, people who still hold all of them joined the Ron Paul Revolution.
But now the revolution is ebbing. Congressman Paul's new campaign finance report shows that he's raised nearly $35 million, including more than any other Republican candidate in the fourth quarter of 2007, and he's inspired remarkable passion among the kind of diehards who hold up campaign signs on highway overpasses and post irate comments on obscure blogs. But the presidency isn't decided on YouTube or Technorati. Paul didn't win any Republican primaries, and he recently conceded that "victory in the conventional sense is not available."
Of course, nothing in Paul's world is ever done in the conventional sense, so he has refused to drop out of the race and endorse the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, Senator John McCain. Instead he argues that all Republicans should have "the right to vote for someone that stands for traditional Republican principles." And he's got a point.
Watch the newly released video of agents firing at Riley: The video, which was provided to Riley's legal defense team, was subsequently acquired by Ridley Report and posted to Youtube.
VLOGZ.TVMARCH 26 2008 WATCH VIDEO Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion
At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.
The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators ''have no information whatsoever'' any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" when saying last week she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996. She later characterized the episode as a "misstatement" and a "minor blip."
The Obama campaign suggested the statement was a deliberate exaggeration by Clinton, who often cites the goodwill trip with her daughter and several celebrities as an example of her foreign policy experience.
During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
VLOGZ. TVMARCH 20 2008 A State Department spokesman has just announced that two of its contract employees have been fired and a third reprimanded for hacking into the computer files of Sen. Barack Obama's passport.The spokesman said the department's own security system had detected the breaches on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. He said the workers were removed for "imprudent curiosity."
According to the Associated Press, a spokesman for the Obama campaign demanded a full investigation including motives and the reason for the delays in announcing the breaches.
A Obama spokesman"an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years."
The U.S. official said that on January 9, February 21 and March 14 of this year, "three different contract workers all individually accessed the passport records for Obama."
When a prominent person's passport records are accessed, it triggers an alarm in the State Department system and the person who accessed the records is questioned, the official said.
"In the first two instances, they were fired. In the third instance, the individual has been disciplined pending."
Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”
It was not until he got a quiet word of correction in his ear from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was traveling with Mr. McCain as part of a Congressional delegation on a nearly weeklong trip, that Mr. McCain corrected himself.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. McCain said, “the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda."
God Bless President Bush video is from John Hagee show on bible positions on political issues during the 2004 elections between George W Bush and his cousin/fellow Bonesmen John Kerry. Watch Video
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