A former Republican Secretary of State and one of John McCain’s most prominent supporters offered a stunningly frank and remarkably bleak assessment of Sarah Palin’s capacity to handle the presidency should such a scenario arise.
Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and whose endorsement is often trumpeted by McCain, said on Thursday that the Alaska governor is not only unprepared to take over the job on a moment’s notice but, even after some time in office, would only amount to an “adequate” commander in chief.
“And I devoutly hope that [she] would never be tested,” he added for good measure—referring both to Palin’s policy dexterity and the idea of McCain not making it through his time in office. (Listen to audio below.)
The remarks took place during an interview on National Public Radio that was, ironically, billed as “making the case” for a McCain presidency. Asked by the host whether Palin could step in during a time of crisis, Eagleburger reverted to sarcasm before leveling the harsh blow.
“It is a very good question,” he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: “I’m being facetious here. Look, of course not.”
Eagleburger explained: “I don’t think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either. So the question, I think, is can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president, heaven forbid that that ever takes place?
“Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be [pause] adequate. I can’t say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year… well I hope not… get us through whatever period of time was necessary. And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested.”
The indictment of Palin was all the more biting because both she and McCain have held Eagleburger up repeatedly during the past several weeks as evidence that the Republican ticket has firm standing and support within foreign policy circles. (In fact, McCain conferred with Eagleburger by phone just this week, on matters pertaining to national security.)
I know Obama has no experience. In fact, he’s sooooo left right….. I invite you to look how Big “O” reached across the isle to get something done important. And, I have to ask. Has Sara ever done anything like this with all her experience?
WASHINGTON – President Bush today signed the Lugar-Obama proliferation and threat reduction initiative into law.
Authored by U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL), the Lugar-Obama initiative expands U.S. cooperation to destroy conventional weapons. It also expands the State Department’s ability to detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction.
“The United States should do more to eliminate conventional weapons stockpiles and assist other nations in detecting and interdicting weapons of mass destruction. We believe that these functions are underfunded, fragmented and in need of high-level support,” said Lugar, Republican leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The Lugar-Obama initiative will help other nations find and eliminate conventional weapons that have been used against our own soldiers in Iraq and sought by terrorists all over the world,” said Obama. “The Nunn-Lugar program has effectively disposed of thousands of weapons of mass destruction, but we must do far more to keep deadly conventional weapons like anti-aircraft missiles out of the hands of terrorists.”
“We want to ensure that our government has the capacity to deal quickly with vulnerable stockpiles of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, otherwise known as Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS). Such weapons could be used by terrorists to attack commercial airliners, military installations and government facilities here at home and abroad. Al Qaeda reportedly has attempted to acquire MANPADS on a number of occasions,” said Lugar.
The Lugar-Obama initiative would energize the U.S. program against unsecured, lightweight anti-aircraft missiles and other conventional weapons. There may be as many as 750,000 man-portable air defense systems in arsenals worldwide, and the State Department estimates that more than 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by such weapons since the 1970s. In addition, loose stocks of small arms and other weapons help fuel civil wars in Africa and elsewhere and provide the means for attacks on peacekeepers and aid workers seeking to stabilize war-torn societies. In Iraq, unsecured stockpiles of artillery shells and ammunition have been reconfigured into improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have become an effective weapon for insurgents.
“Lugar-Obama would also strengthen the ability of America’s allies to detect and interdict illegal shipments of weapons and materials of mass destruction, a critical step in securing these weapons before they ever fall into the hands of terrorists that has not been a focus of current anti-terrorism efforts,” Obama said.
Lugar and Obama traveled together to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan in August 2005 to oversee a number of Nunn-Lugar projects. In Ukraine they saw a conventional weapons facility that is typical of the focus of the new legislation.
The Lugar-Obama initiative is modeled after the Nunn-Lugar program that focuses on weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) authored the program in 1991. It has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle its enormous stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related materials, and delivery systems. Among many accomplishments, the program has deactivated 7,000 nuclear warheads and reemployed 58,000 scientists in peaceful research. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. They otherwise would be the world’s the third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers, respectively.
The indictment of Palin was all the more biting because both she and McCain have held Eagleburger up repeatedly during the past several weeks as evidence that the Republican ticket has firm standing and support within foreign policy circles. (In fact, McCain conferred with Eagleburger by phone just this week, on matters pertaining to national security.)
What’s the source for that info?? Eagleburger is not a true conservative - no shock to hear what he has to say. I’ll take Palin OVER Biden any day. Biden redefines the words inept and incompetent. Biden is absolutely embarrassing. So inept that now the Obama campaign has to hide him away for the weekend - so he doesn’t screw anything else up. I’ll take Palin any day over Biden.
“This is hilarious now. As you know we have chronicled Obama’s ceiling on tax increases—I should say the floor, whatever. That number is 250K a year, and it goes down to 150 if you listen to Biden. By the way, they have sent Biden to the back waters on the campaign. Biden, you can’t find him out there. He’s in states, but you don’t know where he’s going. He’s in Delaware. He’s in a lot of other places out there, and they have enforced the teleprompter on him. They have enforced the teleprompter. I knew he would be the gift that kept on giving. Steven Greenhouse here in the New York Times. “For Incomes Below $100,000, a Better Tax Break in Obama’s Plan. “The center left Tax Policy Center in this story tries to help out the Obama campaign.
Now, get this. We’ve all heard Obama talk about a tax cut if you make less than $250,000. They say in the New York Times story today, “When Obama says he’ll cut taxes on families $150,000 or less, that part is true,” and this is in the New York Times! They’re essentially calling him a liar. Not totally because anybody making less than a 150, I mean it’s pretty true, Obama’s plan is pretty true. This story ought to be called, “The Incredible Shrinking Obama Tax Cut,” but the dirty little secret is once again, ladies and gentlemen, there will be no tax cut for anybody. The Bush tax cuts of 2001-2003 expire in 2010. Everybody’s tax rates are going up to the Clinton levels in the nineties, and if you’re not paying income taxes—and about 40% of Americans aren’t—how can you get a tax cut? How can you get an income tax cut?
You can’t. You’re just going to get a wealth transfer. You’re going to get an income transfer. You’re not getting a tax cut. So this is all smoke and mirrors, and it’s all now starting to trickle out. Now, this story on Obama lowering expectations is again a UK story, the Times Online. It’s by Tim Reid in Washington. I gotta tell you something, folks. The British papers are coming up with much more relevant news than our news media combined. “Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve,” such as he’s going to keep them in their houses and keep their gas tanks full. He’s going to pay for it.
“The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.” We need to be very careful about this, folks. Obama is lowering his expectations. We cannot let him get away with this. There are two reasons, if not more. Obama has spent, what, a year and a half or two years making these promises, raising expectation. He has been the candidate of the lofty rhetoric. He has been promising hope and change! He’s been promising to go wipe out all problems, he’s going to make the United States loved by everybody in the world.
He has been lying about our country. He has been lying about his vision. But more importantly, he will go far in implementing his left-wing agenda of massive welfare redistribution and tax increases. He wants a single-payer national health care plan, all of those things. The point of this is, Obama’s going to get most of what he wants to implement, but most of it won’t work! This is the key. He’s gonna get most of it, and most of it will not work. All of it so far will not work, not in the long term. So, they’re putting out stories, “He’s gotta lower expectations. People are expecting utopia out there! There’s this euphoria.” He created it! Obama created these expectations. Now he’s got to lower them. Sad thing is, this whole campaign of fluff and imagery has succeeded.
But Obama has never been about the middle class. He has always been about destroying American society as it’s constituted, and punishing success. What Obama wants to do is destroy capitalism and expand government, and that is the truth that this illusionary campaign has covered up throughout the past year and a half.”
Sara, I really appreciate the time it took to write your feelings. Your a loyal McCain/Palin supporter. Hopefully you’ll give Obama a chance next Wednesday and beyond….. here maybe this will help you in your grieving process.
October 31, 2008
Former Reagan adviser endorses Obama
From CNN’s Adam Levy
(CNN) — Former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this week he intends to vote for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday.
Duberstein said he was influenced by another prominent Reagan official - Colin Powell - in his decision.
“Well let’s put it this way - I think Colin Powell’s decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama.”
Powell served as national security advisor to Reagan during Duberstein’s tenure as chief of staff.
Duberstein spoke with Zakaria about his final days in the Reagan White House. The Reagan official, along with Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, also discussed the transition process to a new administration.
Watch the full discussion on the next administration this Sunday at 1 p.m. on Fareed Zakaria GPS.
TBE, I hope your “Obama Love” sees you through your impending tax hike and your country’s socialist takeover. We’ll see how you feel about “The Messiah” in about a year or two.
I don’t really feel adament one way or the other. Is it true that Obama was in The Senate for two years, and never sponsored a bill, but wrote two sets of memoires? If so, think how much he could write in 4 years! He might be the first President to win the Pulitzer!
I wish Reagan were still alive. I’d vote for him as an independent.
I don’t really feel adament one way or the other. Is it true that Obama was in The Senate for two years, and never sponsored a bill, but wrote two sets of memoires? If so, think how much he could write in 4 years! He might be the first President to win the Pulitzer!
I wish Reagan were still alive. I’d vote for him as an independent.
How can you possibly be so wrong after what seems like years of a campaign. I’ll tell you how… you’ve been listening to Rush, Fox News and McCain and Sara… here is the fact. Now please read this and notice who sponsored the bill…. gezzzzzzzzz
Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation Legislation Signed into Law by the President
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Printable Format
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lugar Contact: Andy Fisher, 202-224-2079, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), http:// lugar.senate.gov
Obama Contact: Tommy Vietor, 202-228-5511, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), http://obama.senate.gov
Date: January 11, 2007
Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation Legislation Signed into Law by the President
WASHINGTON – President Bush today signed the Lugar-Obama proliferation and threat reduction initiative into law.
Authored by U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL), the Lugar-Obama initiative expands U.S. cooperation to destroy conventional weapons. It also expands the State Department’s ability to detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction.
“The United States should do more to eliminate conventional weapons stockpiles and assist other nations in detecting and interdicting weapons of mass destruction. We believe that these functions are underfunded, fragmented and in need of high-level support,” said Lugar, Republican leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The Lugar-Obama initiative will help other nations find and eliminate conventional weapons that have been used against our own soldiers in Iraq and sought by terrorists all over the world,” said Obama. “The Nunn-Lugar program has effectively disposed of thousands of weapons of mass destruction, but we must do far more to keep deadly conventional weapons like anti-aircraft missiles out of the hands of terrorists.”
“We want to ensure that our government has the capacity to deal quickly with vulnerable stockpiles of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, otherwise known as Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS). Such weapons could be used by terrorists to attack commercial airliners, military installations and government facilities here at home and abroad. Al Qaeda reportedly has attempted to acquire MANPADS on a number of occasions,” said Lugar.
The Lugar-Obama initiative would energize the U.S. program against unsecured, lightweight anti-aircraft missiles and other conventional weapons. There may be as many as 750,000 man-portable air defense systems in arsenals worldwide, and the State Department estimates that more than 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by such weapons since the 1970s. In addition, loose stocks of small arms and other weapons help fuel civil wars in Africa and elsewhere and provide the means for attacks on peacekeepers and aid workers seeking to stabilize war-torn societies. In Iraq, unsecured stockpiles of artillery shells and ammunition have been reconfigured into improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have become an effective weapon for insurgents.
“Lugar-Obama would also strengthen the ability of America’s allies to detect and interdict illegal shipments of weapons and materials of mass destruction, a critical step in securing these weapons before they ever fall into the hands of terrorists that has not been a focus of current anti-terrorism efforts,” Obama said.
Lugar and Obama traveled together to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan in August 2005 to oversee a number of Nunn-Lugar projects. In Ukraine they saw a conventional weapons facility that is typical of the focus of the new legislation.
The Lugar-Obama initiative is modeled after the Nunn-Lugar program that focuses on weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) authored the program in 1991. It has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle its enormous stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related materials, and delivery systems. Among many accomplishments, the program has deactivated 7,000 nuclear warheads and reemployed 58,000 scientists in peaceful research. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. They otherwise would be the world’s the third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers, respectively.
It’s time for a reality check. I am so sick of listening to people talk about how white people won’t vote for Obama because he’s black. Actually, this year, all kinds of people have come out of the woodwork to vote for Obama BECAUSE HE IS BLACK. It sure looks like these people never cared about their country enough to vote in any previous election. But now, they are coming out to vote in droves because as one “eloquent” and “intelligent” Obama voter put it recently to a member of our “esteemed” national media, Obama cares about her and is gonna put gas in her car and pay her mortage. That makes me puke!
I vote for the person and it doesn’t have a single thing to do with their skin color or their sex. I vote for the person based on their record, their stated policy stands and their philosophy. So don’t hand me this crap about people not voting for Obama because he’s black. The facts; nor the new voter registration that has taken place this year; nor the historic voter turnout support that tired rhetoric.
The skin color and gender of all of our candidates across this great country is irrelevant. It’s the policies and the beliefs and the public record of the candidate that matter and that should be what determines your vote - not what anyone looks like or what they promise to give you.
“Crap like Iraq” has kept the war on terrorism out of our backyard and in theirs. Money WELL SPENT in my book. Remember 9-11 and the fanatical terrorists who want us to bow to Allah or die? They trained in Iraq, with Saddam Hussein’s blessings and money. We forget so fast - scary and really sad.
Ding Ding Ding…. and we have a liberal….. not meaning to get into insults really but I think you just pointed out the biggest difference in ideology between dems and repubs.
I believe you should better your own life not the government. I believe the government should look out for your well being (defense, police, fire, etc,) not provide for it with program after program.. It’s amazing that they government always has a fix for our lives… they just need more cash.
You miss the point. Our tax dollars have been taken and squandered, and I feel we’re in a situation where a fix is needed. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news lately, but we’re in a pretty big hole right now. If more tax dollars are needed, take them, but use them wisely on something that helps you and me.
Whatever happened to the big civic projects, the Hoover dams, the Mount Rushmores. If the trillions that have been spent on the mess in Iraq had been applied to our schools or our roads, or helping families out of poverty here in our own backyard, then things in general can be better for all of us right now.
I’m sorry, but I can’t pay for better roads, better schools, better food controls, etc. on my own. If you’re going to call me a liberal for that, you can go screw yourself. Maybe we need to be more liberal, though, because the conservatives have done not a single bit of good while steering the wheel. Correct me if I’m wrong.
“Crap like Iraq” has kept the war on terrorism out of our backyard and in theirs. Money WELL SPENT in my book. Remember 9-11 and the fanatical terrorists who want us to bow to Allah or die? They trained in Iraq, with Saddam Hussein’s blessings and money. We forget so fast - scary and really sad.
I don’t remember their modus operandus ever being “bow to Allah or die”. It’s more that the U.S. is completely up to our shoulders in affairs that aren’t any of our business. Put your foot on a dog’s neck, and it’s going to do everything in its power to bite you.
I’m guessing you haven’t gotten out of the country much.
