If McCain doesn’t show up for the debate and Obama does, then it will mean McCain has forfeit.
And that will show him to be the loser he is.
Good move Michele – encourage your candidate to sink himself!

Does it looks presidential to dodge a debate and try to postpone your V-P’s as well because you can’t handle more than one thing at a time?
Does it looks presidential to risk the nation’s security by picking a running mate who is completely unqualified and unprepared to be president if you should die while in office, a 1 in 3 possibility?
Does it look presidential to call yourself “fundamentally a deregulator” for your entire political career in order to garner support from corporate donors, and then scream “foul!” and fashion yourself as a born-again reformer when the policies you supported lead to a financial meltdown?
Does it looks presidential to say that your campaign manager has had no ties with Freddie Mac since 2005 when until AUGUST the guy’s firm was taking $15,000 a month? And you don’t fire him?
Does it looks presidential to pander to the very same people you once derided and opposed as “agents of intolerance” just so you can gain political traction?
Does it looks presidential to lie repeatedly about your opponent’s tax plans, his voting record, his religion, his stance on the war and his plans for withdrawal?
Does it look presidential to say that invading Iraq would be easy and then, when it turned out to be anything but, lie and say that you’d said all along it would be long and hard?
Does it look presidential to say it would be fine by you if we stayed in Iraq for 100 years and then backpedal wildly from your own statement when it became an albatross you hung around your own neck?
Does it look presidential to lie about supporting those in uniform and wounded veterans when the truth, as demonstrated by your voting record, shows that you have deserted them again and again?
Does it look presidential to run on a platform of “No Abortions, No Exceptions” when you lack the political courage to state your own views?
Does it look presidential to style yourself a “maverick” when you voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time?

Does it look presidential to run on a platform of “No Abortions, No Exceptions” when you lack the political courage to state your own views?
Obama is running on all abortions, regardless of gestation, circumstance, viability or any other reason.
A woman in labor could kill her baby on a whim and that would be okay with Obama.
Is that better for you?

Yes indeed, *large* gift given to Sen. Obama today.
Very nice. Keep them coming.
(Seriously, don’t you *get* that the undecided voters see McCain’s stunt for what it is? It’s almost over now.)

So…Obama’s not even managing to vote “present” on this one.

Your characterization of Obama on abortion simply does not ring true.
Of course, you have Bush/McCain/Palin willing to bomb any country (including, it seems, Russia) that annoys them and kill however many post-birth fetuses they feel like.
What’s the difference?

Seriously, the only “people” conservative Republicans seem to give a damn about are fetuses. Everyone else can go to hell – literally and figuratively.

Your characterization of Obama on abortion simply does not ring true.
The Illinois Senate keeps minutes. I’ve read them.

Fair enough, MzEllen. I’d welcome your quoting them, too.

MzEllen: Please refrain from making outrageous and slanderous claims about Obama’s position on abortion. He did oppose efforts in Illinois in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to give legal protection to any aborted fetus that showed signs of life (the 2003 bill was “virtually identical to a bill President Bush signed into law in 2002 that unanimously passed the U.S. Senate”) BECAUSE:
“Obama and other opponents of the Illinois bill have noted the state already had a law to protect aborted fetuses born alive and considered able to survive. Moreover, they said the proposed legislation would have undermined the landmark Supreme Court case on abortion, Roe v. Wade, in ways the federal law would not. AMONG THOSE OPPOSED TO THE STATE EFFORT WAS THE ILLINOIS STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY, WHICH ARGUED THAT THE BILL WOULD INTERFERE WITH THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP . . . .” http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Here is an excerpt from an article in the Washington Post “Trail” about the Democratic Party platform position on abortion:
“Left-leaning opponents of abortion rights are hailing the new Democratic Party platform agreed to last weekend by the Obama campaign and other Democrats as a sign of a new common ground in the abortion debate . . .
“On a conference call Tuesday, a half-dozen anti-abortion pro-Democratic thinkers and religious leaders claimed victory for the party’s new abortion plank, which they said took a big step in their direction by more explicitly stating the party’s support for women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term. By doing so, they said, the Democrats were moving closer to the middle ground where most Americans reside — not wanting to criminalize abortions, but wanting to reduce the number performed.
“There’s a common ground possible here,” said Rev. Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners, the country’s largest network of liberal Christians. “It’s never been as explicitly stated that the Democratic Party supports a woman’s decision to have their child, and offers her practical support to have her child. It’s an historic step forward.” He added, “This plank makes room for people with moral convictions about abortion…. A lot of people are going to find their convictions represented here.”
That’s the official position of the Democratic Party and the one Obama supports. Unlike you, unlike Sarah Palin, and unlike the Republican Party with its “NO Abortions, NO Exceptions” platform, we are looking for common ground and a way to reduce the number of abortions and support women for whom carrying a baby to term may be a very difficult struggle.

“A woman in labor could kill her baby on a whim and that would be okay with Obama.”
kill her baby on a whim? while in labor? whatever…
and you clearly have zero understanding of how politics and the inner workings of the illinois state senate works, or you would understand the power of the “present” vote and it’s uses. maybe you should research how many times, and for what reasons the republicans used it for (more often than obama at times). i guess they don’t cover that in the minutes.
mccain is desperate. reid said that he didn’t want campaign politics injected into the fray:

“It would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement. “If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo-op.”

republican and former oklahoma representative mickey edwards nailed it:

“What idiot came up with this stunt? Sorry, John; it really sounds like you’re afraid to debate. This sounds like the sort of ploy we used to use in junior high school elections.”

mccain didn’t need to rush off to washington. he could have just sent an email.

“He wants to cancel the debate? And maybe also Palin’s debate. Are you kidding? Why not cancel the election too? And because he has to go back to DC to solve the financial crisis? Really? The topic he knows nothing about and after he’s shown up less in the senate in the last two years than anyone but Tim Johnson, the guy who had the stroke? Which of my employees is going to call from home tomorrow and say they can’t come to work because of the financial crisis?
“. . . if you were living in the real world, if you were some hotshot young executive at a Fortune 500 company trying to rise in the ranks, and you pulled some whacked crap like this, it would probably get you blackballed permanently. People would think you were either deeply unreliable or maybe just had a screw loose. And yet here he is — is he kidding? He can’t debate Barack Obama because he’s got to go to Washington and save the economy? It’s like the biggest ‘dog ate my homework’ in history.”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com

Well, Governor Palin does need to return to Juneau to coordinate Alaska policy with the bailout. Or she can’t debate during the Jewish holidays, that’s the ticket. Or isn’t this the beginning of moose season?

You tell me then…
Name one time that Obama voted to put limits on abortion.
Answer: zero.
That’s how he maintains his 100% NARAL rating.

“It’s never been as explicitly stated that the Democratic Party supports a woman’s decision to have their child,
It’s also never been as explicitly stated that the Democratic Party supports a woman’s decision to kill her child.
Hillary Clinton voted for the Federal Infant Protection Act. Obama (in Illinois) voted NO on even letting it out of committee to be voted on, then took the coward’s way out (working with Planned Parenthood to protect himself and a woman’s right to “choose” death for her child) by voting “present”.

You tell me then…
Name one time that Obama voted to put limits on abortion.
Answer: zero.
Do you know why perhaps?
Because abortion is LEGAL in this country.
If one believes abortion should be legal, you don’t put limits on it.
Democrats are more concerned about the welfare of the people of this country.
Unlike Republicans, we care about people AFTER they’re born.

“Name one time that Obama voted to put limits on abortion.”
since when is it that conservatives want all changes to come via legislation by the government?
there are better ways to reduce the number of abortions, like trying to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and obama has shown his support for birth control and for sex education.
“It’s also never been as explicitly stated that the Democratic Party supports a woman’s decision to kill her child.”
there you go equating a fetus with a child. that’s a typical anti-choice straw man argument. killing a child is illegal, aborting a pregnancy is not. try to keep it straight. i think it’s pretty well established that democrats support the legal system set up in this country. it’s the republicans who seem to want to skirt the laws (see george w bush).

“I hope he does the debate by himself, we can finally see what he has to say without his teleprompter. Be prepared for a thousand ‘uhs.’”
me too, because the substance that fills in around those “uhs” is worth listening to, more so than mccain’s p.o.w. story for the zillionth time (although the constant variations are noteworthy – a few more iterations and the p.o.w. camp will be replaced with “jesus camp”).

there you go equating a fetus with a child.
Yes I am.
My son was born at 32 weeks gestation. At 32 weeks, he could hear, feel and react.
Unborn children at 32 weeks gestation are feeling and reacting human beings.

since when is it that conservatives want all changes to come via legislation by the government?
Dodging the question. Nice.
Let’s read Camille Paglia (a firm supporter of abortion rights and hardly a Republican shill)
” But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand.(…)
Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman’s body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman’s entrance into society and citizenship.”
Unlike Republicans, we care about people AFTER they’re born.
Unlike Democrats, we care about people both after and BEFORE they’re born.
(of course, on my part, that’s sarcasm, since I understand that there are many Democrats who care about the unborn, much of which comes in the form of prenatal care for mothers. But since assumptions on motives seems to be what Democrats know and understand, it might be a way to get the point across)

That “gift” McCain offered Obama was no gift. Only a true Kool Aid drinker who believes anything out of a Republican mouth believes that. Polls showed McCain was slipping and rather than man up, he ran away. While he claimed to be worrying about the economy, and says he’s suspending the campaing, we find him in New York with Katie Couric and then stayed put overnight in New York so he could address (campaign!) a group at Clinton’s Global Initiative. Your poor, poor thing.

“Dodging the question. Nice.”
no, i’m not. read it again, if you have to. would it help if i added the democratic platform on the issue, or can you google it yourself?
“My son was born at 32 weeks gestation. At 32 weeks, he could hear, feel and react.”
excellent. and when he was born, he became a baby. when the cord was cut, he became an individual. but i doubt that he was playing with blocks and hotwheels a day earlier. look, like i said before, this is the point of contention that we will never agree on. and this is why it’s a political wedge issue.
“Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.”
fine, you found someone to agree with. yea… party… let fall the balloons and confetti. quoting your favorite libertarian feminist, paglia, isn’t any proof of your point. and the reason why, is because she starts with the same faulty premise, that abortion “results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue.” biologists are still trying to pinpoint at which point the fetus is viable, but they seem to agree that the lowest limit is 22 weeks, though in general even fetuses 28 weeks old have difficulty surviving. most abortion decisions revolve around these numbers. the cdc reports that more than 98% of abortions happen before the fetus is 20 weeks. so, you have to ask, why are there some 1% or so that happen after the 20th week? according to the women, most didn’t realize they were pregnant until much later or misjudged the conception date or just couldn’t make arrangements for an earlier abortion due to legal restrictions on abortion.
many democrats have supported state laws that impose restrictions like parental notification, informed consent (counseling), and mandatory wait periods and the number of abortions dropped dramatically during the clinton presidency. while we pro-choice people support a woman’s right to make the choice herself, that’s not the same as being “pro-abortion.”
so, what you want is to make abortions illegal, through legislation. that won’t stop abortions, but it will increase the number of back alley, coat hanger abortions resulting in the death of the woman and the fetus. like i said earlier (and you called it a dodge) there are better ways to reduce the number of abortions, like trying to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and obama has shown his support for birth control and for sex education (to which mccain lied about and distorted and ridiculed obama over). why is it that republicans always want to try to address things after it’s a problem? because they’re awol before that point (terrorism, education, economy, unwanted pregnancy, everything).
so, you think that abortion is wrong. i respect that. it’s your choice – don’t have an abortion. but don’t dictate to other women what their beliefs should be, or what choice they should make. mind your business.
and you dodged my questions.

No Ellen, my experience has been that conservative Republicans only care about you if you’re a fetus or if you’re a Xian.
If you’re neither, you aren’t invited to the Party (one reason why I think Jews who vote Republican are insane).

No Ellen, my experience has been that conservative Republicans only care about you if you’re a fetus or if you’re a Xian.
Oh…THAT must be the reason for all of the Christian adoption agencies, all of the inner city Christian missions, all of the Christian homeless centers, all of the Christian families who are foster families, who are adopting children, both “normal” and “special needs”.
On a more personal level…yeah…that’s why I took in the son of an alcoholic woman in jail for assaulting her son (he lived with us for 6 months). Yeah…that’s why my husband and I (before he became ill) started the process of fostering an autistic child with the intent to adopt. Yeah.
Yeah. Because we don’t care. Right. Keep spouting.

You are an exception.
We adopted a child whose mother carved pictures into his skin with glass. Secular agency. No Xians in the class.
Where are all these “Christian adoption agencies, all of the inner city Christian missions, all of the Christian homeless centers, all of the Christian families who are foster families, who are adopting children, both “normal” and “special needs”.? There sure aren’t many where I am. I do see lots of Xians walking around with posters of aborted fetuses, however.
And I’m sure the objects of all the homeless centers and inner city missions are Xian. Or have to profess that to get help. Our agencies help anyone, regardless of religious beliefs.

And if you want to say I’m anti-Xian, then I am. I have been personally hurt by too many anti-Semites espousing their religion to ever trust again.
I will not vote for the Xian Party. There is no place for me in it.

There are 22 students in my class. 8 of them are adopted into Christian families.
When I google “Christian adoption agencies”, I get 278,000 hits. It seems there are a few of them out there.
“Inner city missions” yields 1,820,000 hits.
“Christian homeless missions” – 1,160,000
Perhaps you’re not looking very hard.
Our agencies help anyone, regardless of religious beliefs.
Most Christian agencies do as well – the exception may be the desire to place children in Christian homes.
The word “Christian” in the title indicates who is volunteering and funding (those the liberals say don’t care).
One organization I have worked with is CRWRC (Christian Reformed World Relief Committee).
In 2007 (the most recent annual report), CRWRC donated over 1.6 million dollars in Darfur. They repaird 124 homes, built 93 temporary shelters and built 1,225 core houses following the Yoygakarta earthquake.
The CRWRC does work in Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Chad, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuado, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatamala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan Tanzania, Uganda, United States and Zambia.
Perhaps you’re not looking very hard for Christians who care for people post-birth.

“When I google “Christian adoption agencies”, I get 278,000 hits. It seems there are a few of them out there.”
i just to point out a technical detail… google doesn’t return how many christian adoption agencies are by how many “hits” you get back.
i can google my name and get 45 hits from publications, blogs, web designs that have my name on them. that doesn’t mean that there are 45 of me in this world.

wow, let me do that sentence over:
i just should point out a technical detail… google doesn’t return how many christian adoption agencies there are by how many “hits” you get back.

i can google my name and get 45 hits from publications, blogs, web designs that have my name on them. that doesn’t mean that there are 45 of me in this world.
My point was (that you may be missing) – when we are asked “where are the Christians…”
My answer: goggle it. If you’re not finding them, you’re not looking.

grow thicker skin. i didn’t dispute your point. i only corrected that you’re overstating your numbers. i know exactly what you mean, because we had to live through more than a decade (and counting) of the religious right telling the world that there is no religious left, and that “true” christian values are conservative values.

nice post,I like the post thank you