John McCain generally received better reviews than Barack Obama for his appearance at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. At the event, Obama and then McCain sat for an hour with the Rev. Rick Warren, who posed identical questions to the White House hopefuls. The Wall Street Journal reports there were "several moments when Sen. McCain's reply was sharp and to the point. Sen. Obama, by contrast, took longer pauses after many of his questions, and his answers often came together slowly." In his New York Times column, William Kristol says it "was McCain's night. Obama made no big mistakes. But his tendency to somewhat windy generalities meant he wasn't particularly compelling. McCain, who went second, was crisp by contrast, and his anecdotes colorful."
On the CBS Evening News, Josh Kraushaar of Politico.com said, "I think Barack Obama did well for himself, but I think the clear winner in the forum was John McCain. He is someone who does not wear religion on his sleeve. He does not talk about his personal life and he felt very much at ease with this type of forum." McClatchy reports Obama "impressed people with his ease talking the language of faith, no small feat for a Democrat. But McCain may have shored up support from this critical group."
In his Washington Post column, Michael Gerson says, "It is now clear why Barack Obama has refused John McCain's offer of joint town hall appearances during the fall campaign. McCain is obviously better at them." McCain's "performance at the Warren forum helps change the political psychology going into the conventions." In a contrary view, Sally Quinn says in a Washington Post column, "I would rather live in McCain's world than Obama's. But I believe that we live in Obama's world. Afterward, the commentators talked abut how Obama needs to have better stories, to be more accessible and less aloof, and to have sharper, shorter, simpler answers rather than be so cerebral. But Obama is authentic."
McCain, Obama Diverge On Abortion The Los Angeles Times reports when Obama and McCain "offered their sharply divergent views on abortion this weekend at an Orange County church, it was a rare chance to hear the presidential rivals address one of the most contentious issues in American politics." Obama, "a Democrat who supports abortion rights but reminded the audience at Saddleback Church that he wanted to make the procedure less common, has managed to make accommodations to abortion opponents without complaints from his party's base." But McCain, "who opposes abortion, has ignited new tensions with the Republican Party's conservative wing by trying to mollify those who want it to remain legal."
McCain Was Not In "Cone Of Silence" The New York Times reports McCain "was not in a 'cone of silence' on Saturday night while his rival," Obama "was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California." McCain aides "said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren." McCain's performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied."
The Washington Times reports a week before the Democratic convention in Denver, polls show Barack Obama "locked in a dead heat with Republican Sen. John McCain, who now leads among white voters overall and has gained among Republicans, evangelicals and white working-class people." A Pew Research Center survey, "with a 2.5-percentage-point margin of error, found 46 percent of the voters surveyed favored or leaned toward Mr. Obama, while 43 percent supported his Republican opponent -- a near tie.." Meanwhile, "the Gallup Poll's daily tracking survey also reported Friday that the race is a tie, 44 percent to 44 percent, with Mr. Obama slipping from his 47 percent average over the past week."
GOP Regains Edge On National Security The Politico reports, "Less than two years after Democrats finally bridged the decades-long gap between the parties on national security issues, Republicans have opened it right back up -- a shift likely tied to the party's new standard-bearer John McCain and the perception of improvements in Iraq." The "reemergence of the national security gap comes amid the first headline-grabbing world conflict of the 2008 campaign -- the Russian invasion of Georgia."
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USA Today reports John McCain "told USA TODAY on Sunday that he has no problem with his top foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann's past lobbying work." Scheunemann's "role as lobbyist and campaign adviser came to light in May, when USA TODAY reported he had contacted McCain's Senate office on Georgia's behalf last year while he was working for the campaign." Said McCain in an interview, "I'm proud to have supported them. ... And I'm so proud that so many of my friends have done so, who also believe in freedom and democracy."
Meanwhile, former Gov. Mitt Romney, appearing on ABC's This Week contended that Sen. McCain "recognized that, long term, to protect the democracy and the human rights of the world, that it's essential that the former Soviet states become part of NATO. And that is the best defense from Russian aggression."
Several Democratic surrogates for Barack Obama criticized McCain and the Administration on the talk shows. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, appearing on ABC's This Week, said, "If we would have preemptively worked with Russia, with Georgia, making sure that NATO had the kind of ability and the presence and the engagement, we could have perhaps avoided this. We don't know. But because the Bush-McCain approach has been to focus almost exclusively on Iraq over the last five years, a lot of these issues have gone without the kind of attention they deserve."
Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh said on CBS' Face the Nation that in his opinion Sen. McCain "went too far" in his condemnation of Russia. According to Sen. Bayh, "We are not all Georgians now. If we were Georgians and the Russians were invading our country and killing our people, we'd be in a state of war. And clearly, that's not what we want. And John sometimes, he's a good person, but he's a little bit given to this kind of bellicose rhetoric, which has a tendency to inflame conflicts rather than to diffuse them, and that's what you want in a president."
The Wall Street Journal reports Barack Obama "beat John McCain in fund raising for July, but the Illinois Democrat appears to have needed every penny, because the expense of his large field operation ate up several million dollars more than he took in for the month." The Obama campaign "said over the weekend it raised more than $51 million last month," while McCain "reported $27 million in July donations." The Obama campaign "said it ended the month with $65.8 million in cash, about $5 million less than it reported on hand June 30, excluding debt." That "suggests the campaign's spending more than doubled month to month, to nearly $56 million in July from $25.7 million in June.
The AP reports John McCain "on Sunday was briefed on Tropical Storm Fay, which scuttled a political fundraiser and is threatening to reach Florida as soon as Monday." McCain "visited the Orange County Emergency Operations Center near Orlando shortly after flying from Long Beach, Calif. Speaking to a pool of reporters, he was optimistic that local and federal officials will work together if the storm strikes."
The Politico reports Barack Obama "on Sunday met with - and defended - one of the primary financers of the group that was perhaps most responsible for sinking Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential bid." Obama "huddled privately with T. Boone Pickens in a small conference room in the bowels of a casino hotel to discuss the legendary Texas energy trader's much-publicized energy policy proposal."
ABC World News reported Pickens is "roughly a month into his crusade to make renewable energy the number one issue of the presidential race, and it seems to be working." In 2004, Pickens "spent millions to defeat the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, bankrolling the infamous Swift Boat ads." But Pickens "tells me this crisis is bigger than partisanship, and Obama, too, seems ready to move ahead." Sen. Barack Obama: "He's got a longer track record than that."
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The AP reports a day after Barack Obama and John McCain "exchanged an embrace during a faith forum at a California megachurch, Obama called the U.S. economy a disaster thanks to 'John McCain's president, George W. Bush,' and chided his Republican rival's campaign team for trying to make him look unpatriotic and weak." ABC World News reported, "In Reno, Nevada, this morning, Senator Barack Obama's criticism of rival John McCain on domestic issues took on a new sharpness." But Obama "defended McCain when a man in the crowd questioned McCain's conduct as a prisoner of war."
The Wall Street Journal reports with the Republican and Democratic Party nominating conventions "just around the corner, vice presidential shortlisters hit the airwaves Sunday in an audition for the No. 2 spots." The Journal lists potential Obama running mates as Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney "took a swipe at Sen. Obama's foreign-policy credentials on Sunday, while former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge argued his pro-choice stance wouldn't make him a liability among party conservatives. Sen. McCain opposes abortion rights." McCain is "reportedly also vetting Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, a little-known 45-year-old Richmond-area congressman." Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, 47, "could also bring youth to the Republican ticket."
The AP reports former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge "said Sunday he thinks Republicans would accept a vice presidential candidate who supports abortion rights. But, he said, whomever John McCain picks as a running mate should defer to McCain on the issue."
The Financial Times reports Obama "will this week attend election rallies and 'town hall' meetings in the swing states of New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia any of which could provide a potential venue to announce his pick." Attention has "narrowed to three or four names, including Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee and former presidential candidate, who travelled on Sunday to the embattled country of Georgia to meet its president, Mikheil Saakashvili."
The New York Times reports that last week, the Obama campaign "said that anyone who sent a text message of 'VP' to a dedicated phone number would be among the first to learn the identity of his running mate. The campaign has also run a television commercial that offers a campaign sticker to any person who sends the word 'Barack' to the same number." The efforts "spotlight Mr. Obama's push to harvest millions of cellphone numbers of potential voters through text messaging, a technology that is increasingly moving into the mainstream."
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Media reports this morning reflect the ongoing criticism of the Bush team over its response to the Georgia conflict. The conservative Washington Times, usually supportive of the President, says this morning that in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Georgia, "the Bush administration has found itself battling a familiar charge -- that its response to a major crisis was slow and uncertain." Bush's "hesitance to roundly and immediately condemn Russia's Aug. 8 invasion stood in contrast to the response of the two major presidential candidates. Some observers said Mr. Bush was unassertive when he needed to be bold." In its "In the Loop" column, the Washington Post sarcastically reports that "it had to mark some sort of watershed last week when Bush's press office sent out its latest e-mail complaint -- this time directed at that leftist bastion, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page," which had criticized the Administration's handling of the Georgia crisis. The Post adds the White House's "sharp response...underscored a growing public relations problem facing President Bush during his last months in office: A lot of conservatives are increasingly unhappy with him, particularly when it comes to foreign affairs. For a president already burdened with approval ratings well below 30 percent, this is not welcome news."
In a front-page analysis of the current "showdown," the New York Times blames the US response to the crisis on infighting within Bush's inner circle of advisers: "As with many foreign policy issues, this one highlighted a continuing fight within the administration," pitting "Vice President Dick Cheney and his aides and allies" against "Secretary Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Under Secretary of State William J. Burns." Under the headline "Georgia-Russia Conflict A Blow To Bush Foreign Policy," the Los Angeles Times reports also on its front page -- that "in the last week, two major pillars of...Bush's approach to foreign policy [spreading democracy and improving relations with Russia] have crumbled, jeopardizing eight years of work and sending the administration scrambling for new strategies in the waning months of its term."
Within that chorus of this growing criticism, Secretary of State Rice and Defense Secretary Bob Gates took to the airwaves yesterday to defend the Administration and discuss their next moves.. The CBS Evening News reported that "senior US officials took a hard line" on Sunday, "declaring that Russia's actions have seriously strained relations with the West and again accusing the Kremlin of reverting to a Cold War stance." AFP notes Rice "said Sunday she would travel to Poland in coming days to ink a deal on installing US interceptor missiles on Polish territory. 'I'm going to Poland to sign a missile defense agreement in the next couple of days, after the NATO meeting,' she told Fox News Sunday."
AFP also reports "foreign ministers of the 26 NATO members are due to meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in Georgia, after a five-day war between Tbilisi and Moscow over the pro-Moscow region of South Ossetia." State Department spokesman Sean McCormack "said Rice had requested the North Atlantic Treaty Organization emergency session 'under instructions from...Bush.'"
Merkel Reversal: Georgia "Will Join NATO" In a statement likely to infuriate Russian officials, AFP reports German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday "assured Georgia would join NATO as she strongly backed the ex-Soviet republic's President Mikheil Saakashvili in his conflict with Russia." Said Merkel, "Georgia will become a member of NATO if it wants to -- and it does want to." Adds AFP, "It was one of the strongest statements yet of support for Georgia's NATO membership bid, which is fiercely opposed by Russia." The US "is strongly in favour of Georgia joining NATO, but misgivings from France and Germany prevented Tbilisi being awarded full candidate status in Bucharest." On its front page, the Wall Street Journal notes "a White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said NATO countries are likely to put Georgia and Ukraine on the track to becoming members of the Western military alliance at a meeting of foreign ministers in December." The New York Times and Christian Science Monitor, meanwhile, run analyses on NATO's challenges as it confronts the current crisis.
Are The Russians Pulling Out? NBC Nightly News reported last night Russia said "that it will start pulling troops out of Georgia" today, "as senior US officials again warned of serious consequences if they fail to comply." On Sunday, "Russian forces were on the move in Georgia, but there is no clear indication they are heading for the border." The Washington Post notes the pullout announcement was made by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev," but McClatchy notes "Medvedev's pledge...was immediately greeted with skepticism by US and Georgian officials who have accused Russia of pushing deeper into Georgian territory despite signing a ceasefire pact." The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, AP and Financial Times run similar reports.
US and Georgian skepticism over Russia's intentions is likely to be bolstered by a report in today's New York Times that says that according to "American officials," the Russian military has "been moving launchers for short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia, a step that appeared intended to tighten its hold on the breakaway territory." The Washington Post reports from Gori that "the streets of this occupied city reflected a broadening, not a waning, of Russia's military incursion."
Supposedly "Flattened" City Is Still There The Los Angeles Times reports on its front page from Tskhinvali, Georgia, "A visit to this war-strafed city Sunday turned up no proof of Russian claims that more than 2,000 people died here. Nor were there any ready signs of what Prime Minister Vladimir Putin referred to as 'genocide.'" In a similar story, McClatchy notes that "as Russian troops pounded through Georgia last week, the Kremlin and its allies repeatedly pointed to one justification above all others: The Georgian military had destroyed the city of Tskhinvali. ... But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy fighting -- missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away rooftops -- almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving around Tskhinvali were still standing."
After days of uncertainty, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced today that he will indeed resign. The AP reports "Musharraf says he is resigning to avoid an impeachment battle that would harm the nation's interests," and that "whatever he has done 'was for the people and for the country.'" U.S. News and World Report notes Musharraf is politically isolated, reporting, "Most notably, the head of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who owes his post to Musharraf, has signaled that the military will not block the civilian government from moving against the president."
The Washington Times reports this morning that the Senate Republicans "who are trying to force Congress to lift restrictions on offshore drilling say they have 38 senators backing their efforts to force a showdown over the critical campaign issue of energy prices -- one that could shut down the government." Congressional Democratic leaders "want to extend the moratorium on new offshore oil and gas drilling, which is due to expire Oct. 1, and the most likely route would be to attach the proposal to a catchall spending bill needed to keep the federal government running. But at least 38 Republicans have signed a letter pledging to 'actively oppose' that extension." Republicans could "block the legislation by rallying 41 senators to join a filibuster, but some hesitate to threaten a government shutdown during an election year."
The Christian Science Monitor says that for a "generation of Democratic politicians, the notion of opening protected sites to drilling was toxic. But with soaring gas prices, public opinion is shifting toward anything that promises relief at the pump - and congressional politics is moving with it." In a "shift on Saturday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the House will take up comprehensive energy legislation next month that includes partially lifting the 1981 ban on offshore drilling." In the weekly Democratic radio address, Pelosi said, "It will consider opening portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling, with appropriate safeguards, and without taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil." The Monitor adds that on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "said that the Senate will also examine lifting the ban, which now covers all but central and western portions of the Gulf of Mexico and some parts of Alaska."
The Wall Street Journal reports Pelosi's proposal "got a skeptical reaction from Republicans, who said they suspect it will contain other provisions unacceptable to the minority. The result may be that Congress remains deadlocked on the potent election issue." But Pelosi's proposal is "the clearest sign yet that Democratic Congressional leaders are tacking away from earlier strong opposition to expanded offshore oil production, in the face of opinion polls that indicate many voters favor the 'drill more' stand adopted by Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and others in his party."
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The late-night talk shows were re-runs last Friday.
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