After saying last week that he defined “the rich” to be those who make more than $5 million, John McCain was unable to answer a question Wednesday about how many houses he owns. “I’ll have my staff get to you,” he said. His staff later said that McCain owns four houses, but the correct number reportedly is seven, including houses and condominiums owned by McCain’s wife.
Barack Obama seized the comments today to portray McCain as out of touch with ordinary Americans. “There’s just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain’s world and what people are going through every single day here in America,” Obama said.
Not too surprisingly, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev took a pro-Russian view of the Georgia crisis in a New York Times commentary. Gorbachev wrote: “Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.” Gorbachev also blamed the West for mounting “a propaganda attack against Russia, with the American news media leading the way.” He also suggested that the West might have been behind the confrontation. “It is still not quite clear whether the West was aware of Mr. Saakashvili’s plans to invade South Ossetia, and this is a serious matter,” he wrote. “What is clear is that Western assistance in training Georgian troops and shipping large supplies of arms had been pushing the region toward war rather than peace.”
The candidate forum at Saddleback Church last weekend seemed to present a clear contrast: John McCain is pro-life, and Barack Obama is pro-choice. But a Washington Post article noted that it’s not quite that simple. Obama, who is more open and reflective about his faith than McCain, has been seeking common ground on pregnancy prevention and adoption and was criticized by Hillary Clinton for not being sufficiently pro-choice. Meanwhile, McCain, who has been at odds with pro-life groups on campaign finance reform and stem cell research, is under fire for not ruling out having a pro-choice running mate. But how many voters does this really matter to? Twenty-six percent of Republicans and 18 percent of Democrats said they would not vote for a candidate who didn’t share their views on abortion, according to a Time magazine poll.
Why haven’t there been any protests during the Olympics in the government-approved protest areas at three Beijing parks? Simple: As of Wednesday, the Chinese government hadn’t granted a single permit to protest. And it sentenced two elderly Chinese women to a year of labor re-education after they wouldn’t stop trying to get a permit, the Washington Post reported. So much for openness.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., never got close to the GOP presidential nomination, but he snared a speaking slot on final night of the Republican National Convention, Sept. 4. The theme of that night, when John McCain will give his acceptance speech, is “peace.” The speakers’ list has created buzz for confirming some Democrats’ fears that their 2000 vice presidential nominee, Joe Lieberman, will speak at the GOP convention (on Sept. 1, when the theme is “service”).
After saying last week that he defined “the rich” to be those who make more than $5 million, John McCain was unable to answer a question Wednesday about how many houses he owns. “I’ll have my staff get to you,” he said. His staff later said that McCain owns four houses, but the correct number reportedly is seven, including houses and condominiums owned by McCain’s wife.
