I apologize if you felt that it was, but I respectfully disagree with both yours and esparza17’s assessment.
Point by point (Mods, please bear with me here):
Iraq War: Bob Casey stated that based on the evidence provided before the onset of the war, he would’ve voted for it. When he, along with most of the country found out that the data was fabricated, his views changed. He wouldn’t vote for it now (Russert: “But today, today is no. Today you would vote no.” “Today—if we knew then what we know now, sure. I think there wouldn’t have been a vote and I think people would have changed.”) Most Congressional Democrats and several Republicans have stated that, in hindsight, they would’ve cast a “no” vote. Casey also stated that he would not vote to cut funding for the war, and that we have to see this mission through. His stance on the Iraq war is stay, put more boots on the ground, don’t cut and run. Sounds pretty clear-cut to me!
MR. RUSSERT: So, so when John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, introduced legislation which says, “All troops out by July of 2007,” Bob Casey votes no.
MR. CASEY: Absolutely.and then there's this:
MR. CASEY: Well, I don’t—that’s not the, that’s not the, the objective here. The objective here is to make sure we’re doing everything possible to give the American people the information they need and to protect our troops. And I think it’s an abomination, Tim, when you have people like Rick Santorum, who have rubber-stamped this administration 98 percent of the time, did not call for or insist upon the best body armor when those troops needed it.
And I think when you point to the 9/11 question on Saddam Hussein, and you point to this crazy theory that there’s still weapons of mass destruction, Tim, I think you’ve unearthed something. You’ve unearthed the 2 percent of the time that Rick Santorum disagrees with President Bush, and I think that’s new information for this campaign.
Let me, let me just have a moment on, on Iran. Rick, you just talked about, and you’ve heard him a lot talking about Iran. You’ve heard him a lot talking about the terminology of, of the war on terror. He calls it Islamic fascism and, and he, and he talks about the terminology and changing the terms. What we need, Rick, is not a change in the terminology, we need to change the tactics. And we’ve got to make sure that even as you’re debating whether or not we call Osama bin Laden a terrorist or a fascist, I don’t think that really matters. We need a plan. You’re in the Senate, you have votes, you should be leading that effort. And I, I think after it’s over, after you get the terminology right, maybe you can have a seminar in Washington about whether bin Laden, whom we should be finding and killing, whether he’s a dead terrorist or a dead fascist. And I think you should worry more about finding him and killing him.
SEN. SANTORUM: My, my opponent has, my opponent has, my opponent has no plan. The idea—all he’s suggested is his plan is Special...
MR. CASEY: I just gave a plan. Where’s yours?Santorum, OTOH, seems to think that Rumsfeld’s doing a fine job. His stammering-and-stuttering response on WMDs was just flat-out laughable:
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Santorum, leading up to the war. In October of 2002, this is what Rick Santorum said, “Saddam Hussein’s regime, is a serious and grave danger to the safety of the American people.” “Given the threat posed to he world by his weapons of mass destruction programs...” Would you now acknowledge that that was not correct?
SEN. SANTORUM: What I would say is that we have found weapons of mass destruction, they were older weapons, but we have found chemical weapons. The report was just released not too long ago that, that said that there were over 500 chemical weapons found in Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator, the president has accepted the report of his two task force and said, “That the chief weapons inspector has issued his report. Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there.”
SEN. SANTORUM: Well, there were all sorts of weapons that our intelligence believed were there. They thought that they were new weapons. So far we, we did not—we have not found any new weapons. But we have found old weapons, weapons from the Iran/Iraq conflict, and we found over 500 and the report says that there were more.He agrees with the Bush Administration and, unlike most Pennsylvanians, thinks The Village Idiot's doing a great job:
SEN. SANTORUM: Absolutely. I agree with the president, as you see, a vast majority of the time. When I agree with him, I say it. And when I don’t agree with him, I, I say it, too.
MR. RUSSERT: You think he’s a great president?
SEN. SANTORUM: I think he’s been a terrific president, absolutely.The Senator also seems to think that Iraq is a democracy:
“And Iran, which is, which is the principal stoker of this, this Shia/Sunni sectarian violence, would love nothing more to see than the Iraqi democracy fail because of that.”Memo to Santorum:
1. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There never were. Antiquated, rusted ordnance is not “WMD”. You can go up to Northwest D.C. and dig up old ammo from World Wars I and II, but that doesn’t mean they’re WMDs. BTW, Saddam Hussein was a tinhorn, secular dictator. The link between him and al-Qaida is non-existent. Iraq was not a threat to the United States. Got that?
2. Iraq is not a democracy. It is a hollow government we put into place there. Staging a couple of “elections” does not make it a democracy. The Iraqi people did not ask us to come in and overthrow their rule of command. There is a civil war going on there. Unless and until the sectarian violence is brought under control, there can be no chance of establishing a democratic government.
3. Iran: After Bush referred to them as one-third of the "Axis of Evil", did you expect them NOT to beef up their nuclear weapons program? They've seen what's happened in Iraq; they're gonna make sure the same thing doesn't happen to THEM. You and Bush have helped to inflame a radical theocracy. Way to go, boys. :(
Kosovo: I could compose an entire diatribe and post it separately on just this one issue. Hate to tell you this, Rick, but the Bush 41 Administration dropped this hot potato into the Clinton Administration’s lap.
SEN. SANTORUM: We had, we had—excuse me—we had no business, in my opinion—and I felt this today—we had no business going in—into that area. We had no national security interest. We are up against an enemy that every single day in the streets of Iran they’re out talking about how they want to destroy the United States, how they want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. We can sit back and say they’re not a real threat, we can sit back and play games and, and, and pick apart the administration’s strategy, or we can focus...Our “business” going into Kosovo was simple: The Serbs and Croats were slaughtering each other. We stopped it.
Social Security: Santorum gave a speech to LaSalle University students in 1994, in which he stated: “It is ridiculous if we have a retirement age in this country of age 65 today. ... Push it back to at least 70. ... I’d go even farther if I could, but I don’t think I could pass it.” Now he says on MTP: “I think there’s a third option now that I have been an advocate for which my opponent opposes, and that’s personal retirement accounts.” Translation: If I get reelected this year, I plan to vote for the Bush Administration’s privatization of Social Security, which the OMB has slated to begin in Fiscal Year 2010.”
(Source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/pdf/07msr.pdf, Page 39)
Don’t believe he’s mentioned this to the seniors groups he’s spoken to. :eyes:
Morning-after pill: Santorum asserts that he believes "Plan B" is an abortifacient, and doesn't support allowing it to be sold over the counter - a viewpoint not widely supported in The Keystone State.
PA Legislature Pay Raise: The Senator seems to think that Bob Casey is a member of the Pennsylvania House or Senate and that, as Treasurer, Casey was in a position to do something to stop the pay raise. Maybe if Santorum had spent more time in PA, he'd know the difference between the responsibilities of a Treasurer and a member of the state legislature.
Penn Hills residency issue:MR. RUSSERT: But since you’ve owned your home at 111 Stevens Lane, how many nights have you personally spent there?
SEN. SANTORUM: I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve spent there. What I say is...<snip>
MR. RUSSERT: Roughly, roughly.
SEN. SANTORUM: I don’t know. I—what I, what I spend is...
MR. RUSSERT: I mean, a handful?
SEN. SANTORUM: I, I probably spend maybe a month a year, something like that.
SEN. SANTORUM: Yeah, probably. I mean, the, the, the bottom line is that I, I have—I, I own a home there, I pay all—I pay my local taxes, I pay my state taxes, income taxes, I pay real estate taxes, and I have, and I can—and my driver’s license there, I vote there, my dentist is there. I mean, the bottom line is, yes, I have a job here in Washington, that’s what the people of Pennsylvania elected me to do. And I pay all my taxes there, and, and I want to be a father who’s with his children. And I own a home, I pay my taxes. My opponent didn’t own a home, and he didn’t pay his taxes. Number one.A United States Senator spends "a month a year, something like that" visiting with his constituents (a month is probably more like it)? That, in and of itself, would be enough not to reelect him!
MTP Transcript for September 3rd:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14568263/ *************************************************************************
BTW, Bob Casey showed a lot of class in his rememberance of the late Bob O’Connor at the beginning of the debate. Too bad Santorum couldn’t have done the same.
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...then I obviously don't know espera17 from his (her?) posts as much as I thought I did.
