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2008 Campaign

Family Security Matters does not stand behind or endorse any candidate for president (or any other public office). However, as the President is also Commander-in-Chief and is responsible for setting national security policy, we will be publishing a variety of articles on both the Republican and Democrat candidates for President during this election year. As always, the opinions of our Contributing Editors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Family Security Matters.

IN THIS SECTION

August 8, 2008

Exclusive: The Great Debate

Ruth King

Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen and fellow Americans and candidates: Welcome to the final 2008 Presidential debate. Tonight we are making history. Our nation faces crises never experienced before. One of these two men will be the Commander in Chief in a few short months and one of them must convince us that he is the most capable of coping with and solving our national problems.

First we invite both Senator McCain and Senator Obama to answer the following question:

What do you consider the greatest challenge facing the next president and why are you the most qualified to handle it?

Obama: Well, I have to say that the biggest challenge facing us in the future is to undo all the terrible policies of the Bush administration. We need to end the Iraq war with dignity and bring our troops home. John McCain will perpetuate the war and continue the disastrous policies of George Bush. I am the candidate because I had the principles and courage to oppose that war from the beginning and my plan for a timely withdrawal will make America safer and more respected in Europe and among all the Arab and Muslim states. Change is what our great nation needs and I am the agent of those changes.

We need justices who put the Constitution first and respect the rights of all Americans. My opponent voted for the four justices who have trashed our civil rights, approved of torture and he states that he would model future appointments on Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas. My role model would be Justice Brandeis. We need change in health care so that every American has access to treatment and medication and medical testing. My opponent's plan is just more hiding behind the Bush on the issue and would not provide coverage for poor Americans. Well, my opponent is a senior citizen and therefore the beneficiary of Medicare so he is removed from the concerns of younger people who need to pay rising medical costs. I am. My opponent was a brave and noble warrior for America and heroically defied his captors. However, he is still a prisoner who cannot free himself from the outdated and destructive Bush dogma. My opponent would continue the cowboy tactics of the present administration. I would welcome dialogue with all our enemies. As the Israelis told me: "You don't make peace with friends. You make peace with enemies," and may I add my own line: You don't make enemies of friends as Bush did and my opponent would.

Moderator: Time's up and now Senator McCain

McCain: Well Senator Obama, you left out a chicken in every pot for every American. Nice promises but where's the beef other than your beef with the current administration? It is you who are recycling past ruinous policies. I will evoke Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy along with Ronald Reagan. You are simply channeling more Jimmy Carter. If you don't believe that we can win a war in Iraq and help restructure a nation, then you would not have believed in victory in Europe followed by the Marshall Plan, nor in our victory against Japan followed by the economic and cultural rebuilding of that formerly imperialist enemy. As President I would seek to be respected by real friends and feared by enemies as the best paths to national security. As for that glib twist on facts about making peace with enemies, I'll give Israel's example as well. See Gaza and Lebanon, now overrun by Hamas and Hezbollah for a preview of what a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would look like. Terrorists rush in where fools hasten to withdraw. You believe that taking tea with terrorists is the way to stop them. It is not and never has been and jawing with thugs and dictators is only appeasement.

As for the Supreme Court, good conservative judges base their decisions on our Constitution's imperative to respect state's rights and keep Americans safe. The four justices you mentioned have shown their mettle and I would gladly use them as role models.

As for health care, your plan, like all its clones, will bankrupt the system, discourage entrepreneurship, terminate research and development of new therapies, technology and pharmaceuticals, and drive the best and the brightest doctors out of the system. But most important you ignore a major national health care issue. You make no mention of the need for disaster preparedness in coping with germ warfare, pandemics, the effects of dirty bombs carried in backpacks, or the necessity for stockpiling of essential medications and safeguarding our hospitals. We have enemies prepared to strike within our borders, and yet you don't even support proper and vigilant surveillance and profiling. My daily concern is for the safety of my children and Senator Obama's children. I have been honed in battle before 9/11 and since 9/11 when the battle came to our nation. Keeping American citizens healthy and safe will be my top priority as President of the United States.

Moderator: Who are America's enemies?

Obama: Let me say this. Despair and poverty and hopelessness drives America's enemies wherever and whoever they are. Killing them will not stop people who are desperate but giving them hope and resources and identifying them not as members of a particular group or faith or nation, but as brothers and sisters in the international family is the only way to deal with them.

McCain: The despair and hopelessness and poverty my opponent speaks of are imposed on people by heartless dictators and terrorists who are also America's enemies. If you don't get rid of thugs who have oppressed and murdered and run their nation's population and spirit and resources to the ground you cannot restore their hope. Senator Obama would try talking softly and brandishing a limp stick. I would enforce severe sanctions and buttress our military and put all options and well calculated threats on the table.

Moderator: Well, you really did not answer that one so let's try again: Do you believe that we are at war with resurgent militant Islam? Senator McCain?

McCain: We are not at war with the Muslim faith. There are millions of peaceful Muslims whose only goal is freedom to pray and keep their religious and ethnic customs. But let's face facts. There is also a tiny minority which supports Jihad and terror. Those are the enemies of freedom and our way of life. And we have to maximize every option to stop them, and so we cannot put armed force, immigration control, and proper surveillance off the table.

Obama: There you go again, shooting and snooping your way out of a crisis. We are not at war with any religion….not fanatic Christian Fundamentalists who threaten our civil liberties, not fanatic Jewish settlers who threaten peace between Israel and the Palestinians, not the tiny minority of Muslim terrorists, who, like John McCain, prefer shooting to talking and reason. We are at war with the despair, poverty and hopelessness which drives our enemies and those sentiments are equal opportunity and affect people of all faiths and cultures.

Moderator: Let's move on to energy now. You are both against drilling in ANWR and you have both made powerful statements defending the environment. What is your solution?

Obama: As Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has demonstrated, the planet is endangered. It is not just high prices on heating oil and gasoline at the pump. Sure we could take the easy way out and drill for oil and leave the planet wasted instead of finding alternative energy that does not endanger any living things. I have laid out my energy plan which will make us fully independent in 20 years. My opponent wants a quick fix….he is 72 years old and he er…Well, let me put it this way. John McCain is a noble American and one of my first acts as president will be to name an official building after him, but he's run out of energy. He does not care about any endangered species, or carbon footprints or an arid planet beyond the next election cycle.

Moderator: Senator McCain do you wish to respond? We have only a short time.

McCain: Senator Obama, I challenge you to give us a coherent energy alternative that helps the American family now because the typical American family is an endangered species. They have to cope with rising oil prices, high mortgages, shrinking income, the need for affordable medical care, and a national security policy that protects them and their loved ones. Your policies are pie in the sky and you offer loose change instead of real income by asking Americans to accept your utopian notions. Listen to the voters and understand their needs. I have the experience of decades in Congress in listening to and protecting the American family.

Moderator: Mr. Obama you have the last word.

Obama: Well John when you speak of the American family you are trying to remind people that Michelle and the kids and I do not have the faces that you usually see on cereal boxes. Low blow John, but then, you represent the past and the American family you speak of is now multi-hued and multi culture and they are the future and I am best suited to be their president. The vast majority of those born after your service in Vietnam are now voting and I am their man.

Moderator: Thank you both.

The next day the New York Times reported that McCain was too negative.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ruth S. King is a freelance writer who writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.

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