Military

TPM.

How about some "straight talk" about this? I'd like to know what John McCain is about here.

On This Week, Republican candidate John McCain defends his flip-flop on the Bush tax cuts: He opposed them because they weren't combined with spending cuts.

But he would push through his own tax cuts, even without spending cuts.

Straight talk? Ha!

And you have to hear him defend his embracing of his own controversial pastor's endorsement. More straight talk there, too. Yep.

Yes I mock, though I think the nervous liar's giggle was probably genuine.

Video.

[Memo to George: I note that McCain isn't wearing a flag pin, either. So why didn't you ask that, too, if it's such an important issue?]

100 years? 1000 years? 10,000 year? Is John McCain kidding? No. None of the Republicans (nor a few Democracts either) is kidding. America, to them, is to be a colonial empire.

Never mind how America was founded, as a rebellion against colonialism.

Iraq is to be an American colony, replete with military bases, a hand-picked government, and precious little involvement of the international community.

Unlike the British Empire, though, the American Empire is supported by mercenaries. The American military is not enough for Republican ambitions, so we have private mercenaries armed with superior weapons, with little oversight, being paid four times what our youngest and bravest adults are offered for putting their lives on the line.

It's like the Roman Empire, except that now our mercenaries collect booty not from the vanquished but from our own taxes. Both concepts are horrid. Both concepts are without honor, at least the honor that we talk about when we talk about it amongst ourselves.

John McCain supports colonialism. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at least claim they are against it.

He's not a natural-born citizen, is he?

McCain's likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a "natural-born citizen" can hold the nation's highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

"There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent," said Sarah Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. "It is not a slam-dunk situation."

McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

So maybe it's a gray area. Isn't this where the self-proclaimed 'strict constructionists' get all holier-than-thou and demand that the Constitution be interpreted as narrowly as possible?

True conservatives who actually walk the walk and don't just talk the talk must proclaim John McCain as not eligible to hold presidential office.

Cue the right-wing hypocrisy....

And here I thought Senator Lieberman was a long-suffering, misunderstood Democrat.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate in 2000 and sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, said back in June that he could "definitely" see himself endorsing a Republican candidate for president in 2008. This morning in New Hampshire, he's scheduled to make it official.

In an appearance on the "Today" show this morning, Republican Sen. John McCain confirmed reports that he has scored Lieberman's endorsement. As Walter Shapiro notes, it's not exactly a surprise: Both men are strong supporters of the war in Iraq -- Lieberman more resolutely so than McCain, actually -- and Lieberman hinted at his choice back in June when he said he wanted to "talk straight" about his alignment with "the leading Republican candidates ... on the defining issue of our time."

What does it mean? .... the Lieberman endorsement will raise talk again about whether Lieberman will begin caucusing with Senate Republicans; encourage speculation about the possibility of a split ticket for 2008 --John Kerry has said that McCain's people approached him about the possibility of running together in 2004; and cause Democrats who despise Joe Lieberman already to despise him all over again.

Yeah, that's because people expect you to do what you say and say what you mean.

Hey Joe, looks like Kos was right about you all along.