That’s what Republican presidential candidate John McCain said about Russian President Vladimir Putin, just named “Person Of The Year” by Time magazine, back in 2000 when both McCain and Putin were running for president of their respective countries.
“Yeah, I would meet with him as a candidate,” McCain said in a South Carolina primary debate with then-candidate George W. Bush, “but I think what I would really like to do is send a message to Mr. Putin that we expect certain behavior out of the Russians.”
The video clip was posted to YouTube this week and has earned McCain praise from some bloggers as a foreign policy prophet of sorts. “I have my problems with McCain on domestic policy issues,” wrote Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, “but on national security and foreign policy he’s good, and this video makes you wonder how he would have done had he won in 2000.”
TechCrunch today added John McCain to its list of blogger “gets” in the Republican presidential field, interviewing the Arizona senator about the activities of technology firms in China and visas for high-skilled foreigners, among other topics.
The interview with McCain followed one several days ago with Mitt Romney, one of McCain’s rivals for the GOP nomination.
Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine sees TechCrunch’s series of interviews with presidential candidates as a noteworthy milestone for new media.
“It’s just a blog. It’s just a tech blog,” Jarvis said. “But it’s powerful and has an important audience in a critical industry. So candidates are paying attention. That and 10Questions and the YouTube debates are evidence of a political process that’s just beginning to open up.
Next on TechCrunch’s list is Democrat John Edwards, but he apparently agreed to only a written question-and-answer session with the tech Web site. How very 20th century of him.
Producer’s Note: AirCongress has entered a partnership with BlogTalkRadio to promote federal policy and political content produced by the company’s Internet-based talk-show hosts. This is the first report resulting from that partnership.
If retired Army Gen. Ricardo Sanchez truly believed that the “neglect and incompetence” of policymakers led the United States into an “intractable situation” in Iraq, he should have been more forthright before leaving the military, Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday.
In an interview with Ed Morrissey of Heading Right Radio, McCain took Sanchez to task for his recent criticisms of the handling of the Iraq war, including in a Friday speech to military reporters and editors. McCain, a senator from Arizona who serves on the Armed Services Committee, said Sanchez never shared any of his views with Congress or McCain personally despite multiple opportunities.
“He was asked in several hearings about the strategy, and he not only didn’t complain about it … but he supported it,” McCain told Morrissey. “And I wish he had done that [criticism] back when he was on active duty.” McCain added that high-level military officials are “required” to be candid with Congress when asked about military policy.
TechPresident has chosen its favorite political videos of the week and plans to do similar roundups every Friday. The mission is somewhat different than here at AirCongress — the focus is “voter-generated content” rather than videos produced by campaigns — but that’s all the more reason to check it out.
This week’s No. 1 choice, a video of Sen. John McCain answering a question about whether he’s too old to be president and then teasing the “little jerk” in high school who asked it, got plenty of mileage online. Here it is:
Arizona Republican John McCain took a break from his presidential campaign today to talk about lobbying and ethics legislation on the Senate floor. On the same day, his presidential campaign released an advertisement about the topic.
“Only by breaking the iron triangle of big money, special-interest lobbyists and the legislation they buy can sovereignty be restored to the American people, integrity be reclaimed for our political syste and our public institutions [be] reformed to better serve the interests of the United States,” McCain said in the ad. “Our democracy is not for sale.”
The Senate passed the ethics legislation by a vote of 83-14, clearing it to President Bush. But McCain voted against it because it would not require online disclosure of “earmarks” for lawmakers’ pet projects when the earmarks are in the House-Senate conference reports to spending bills.
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