McCain at the Bonaventure
John McCain gave a major foreign policy address today at LA's Bonaventure Hotel — scene of Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire — distancing himself from Bush in some areas while barely mentioning his Democratic opponents.
John McCain came to Hollywood today… well, downtown LA actually to the Bonaventure Hotel where Clint Eastwood filmed In The Line of Fire and Ahnold jumped some jihadists in True Lies… to deliver what was billed as a major foreign policy address to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.
Bill Bradley and I were there with PJM video honcho Mark Anderson to cover the event, interviewing such lights as Steve Schmidt, one of the candidate’s top advisers or “Gang of 5,” as Time Magazine put it. Making our grand tour of luxe LA hotels, tomorrow we will be at the Beverly Hilton to cover Cong. Brad Sherman’s foreign policy speech, also hosted by the LAWAC and billed as the Democrats’ counter to McCain.
Takeaway from today: McCain gave a good, but relatively predictable speech, especially to those who have been following the senator’s foreign policy views. What was far more interesting… and impressive… was how the Arizona senator handled himself in the post address question-and-answer session with the large audience of clearly-knowledgeable foreign policy geeks. McCain excels at this and obviously thrives on the interaction. This is a far cry from Bush, who, as we know, isn’t comfortable in this situation, and Clinton and Obama, who do their best to control questions and keep their number short, increasingly so.
McCain is the opposite. Fielding questions confidently from Iran to China and back, you had the feeling he could stand there all day answering. This will be something of a novelty in American politics, if he is elected. Watching this I also reflected on the gaffe he supposedly made a couple of weeks ago in the Middle East, when he seemed to have confused Sunni and Shiite by saying Iran was a supporter of al Qaeda. He had to be “rescued” at that time by a whisper from Joe Lieberman. Of course, maybe that wasn’t so much of a rescue because there are many who insist Iran has had a serious hand in al Qaeda in Iraq, including giving aid to their notorious leader Zarqawi, extinguished by an American bomb last year. Frankly, I don’t know how well versed McCain is in the details of this, but obviously much of the mainstream media isn’t, given the alacrity with which they jumped on the candidate for a gaffe that more than likely wasn’t. Still, McCain immediately apologized for “mispeaking,” understandable standard operating procedure for candidates in an endless campaign.
One last thought from the speech: McCain is apparently distancing himself from Bush in two key foreign policy areas: global warming and working with other nations, notably the Europeans. On the latter, however, the Senator is being a bit subtle, I think in a good way. Two very important words were missing from his talk at the Bonaventure: United Nations. He spoke in terms of a “league of democracies” working together to bring progress, no U. N. If I’m any judge of subtext via word placement, look for Nicolas Sarkozy to be a key ally in any future McCain administration.
P. S.: Speaking of In the Line of Fire, although there was a presence of secret service, security at the well attended event was surprisingly lax. Although the news media desk knew Pajamas Media by name, they never checked our IDs or our equipment bags. Worrisome.
Roger L. Simon is an Academy Award nominated screenwriter, novelist, blogger and CEO of Pajamas Media.
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22 Comments
1. Anthony (Los Angeles):McCain is apparently distancing himself from Bush in two key foreign policy areas: global warming…
Maverick admitted he was wrong about immigration; maybe we can convince him he’s wrong about the farce of anthropogenic global warming, too.
(BTW, there’s a typo in the “write a comment” form: “Remeber personal info” should be “Remember personal info.”)
Mar 26, 2008 - 4:00 pm 2. PJM Dept. of Etymology:BTW, there’s a typo in the “write a comment” form: “Remeber personal info” should be “Remember personal info.”
Thank you for notifying us of this error. It has been corrected.
Mar 26, 2008 - 4:05 pm 3. chris fountain:hey, I remember “in the line of fire”. Written by a friend of mine, Jeff Mcguire, picked up by Eastwood just as Jeff was about to give up. Can’t say much about our Republican candidate but Jeff’s success certainly gave all us screenwriters hope.
Mar 26, 2008 - 4:11 pm 4. AST:Shouldn’t that be PJM Department of Proofreading? Etymology is the study of word origins and histories.
Mar 26, 2008 - 4:22 pm 5. Nicolo M.:LA Anthony writes:”Maverick admitted he was wrong about immigration; maybe we can convince him he’s wrong about the farce of anthropogenic global warming, too.”
Perhaps, but if I were Maverick (and I’m not even James Garner), I would do precisely what McCain is doing. I would “give” the liberals global warming and keep the war. That is a winning combination for the Fall in what was supposed to be a Democrat year. Remember this too: global warming can be a stalking horse for something much more important – energy independence. McCain may be much more clever than you think. Here he is atop the polls. Who’d have thought that a year ago?
Mar 26, 2008 - 4:44 pm 6. PJM Dept. of Ichthyology:Shouldn’t that be PJM Department of Proofreading? Etymology is the study of word origins and histories.
Something’s fishy here.
Mar 26, 2008 - 4:55 pm 7. Mark E:I was thinking about abandoning my principles, swallowing hard, holding my nose, learning to speak Spanish and voting for this RINO because even though his positions are evil, I felt that they were less evil than Hillary Rodham or Barrack Hussein.
That was until I heard this speech.
If I wanted to have to run to the Euro-peons to beg permission to protect ourselves and to give away our economy to the UN I would have registered as a dhimmicrat.
Sorry, Juan, you have just convinced me (again) that there are in fact three commie libs running for president right now.
Mar 26, 2008 - 5:24 pm 8. jvon:We could duplicate the global warming policy of, say, Canada, and pay lip service to agreements such as Kyoto, and meanwhile just not do anything to curb our emissions.
What we’ve been doing so far — refusing to sign on while working to limit emissions — seems to be getting us nothing but grief. (And of course there is no evidence that doing everything the alarmists say we must will make a measurable difference at all.)
Mar 26, 2008 - 5:31 pm 9. Dr. Shalit:Roger – Unless my Memory is fading, the first time I heard “League of Democracies” was from BARRY FARBER, many years ago, as a replacement for the UN. If that is what Sen. McCain means, I’m on board – despite his silly stands on Gitmo, Global Warming, Campaign Finance Reform, Tax Policy and to an extent, Immigration. Winning the Islamo-Fascist War makes everything else correctable – Losing it looses all. -S-
Mar 26, 2008 - 5:51 pm 10. ~Paules:I thought it was the Department of Entomology(?). This thread is starting to bug me.
Mar 26, 2008 - 6:11 pm 11. McCain at the Bonaventure | Presidential Candidates Watch 2008:[...] Go here to read the rest: McCain at the Bonaventure [...]
Mar 26, 2008 - 7:39 pm 12. freetoken:Mostly a reasonable speech, if not very exciting. Unlike some others here, I am glad that Sen. McCain realizes that dealing with larger environmental issues, such as man-made climate changes, are also part of foreign policy.
I also like the fact that he stated outright that the US and China need not be enemies, but rather that the US will insist that China keeps liberalizing.
Is McCain’s foreign policy speech inspirational? Perhaps not, but compared to what was produced by the panoply of Dem. and Rep. candidates that started this race last year, McCain’s views as summarized in this latest speech are probably the most solid and well rounded.
Mar 26, 2008 - 9:56 pm 13. davod:“despite his silly stands on Gitmo, Global Warming, Campaign Finance Reform, Tax Policy and to an extent, Immigration. Winning the Islamo-Fascist War makes everything else correctable”
All designed to starve, or negate, the war on terror.
Mar 27, 2008 - 3:40 am 14. PRODOS (Melbourne, Australia):Anthony (Los Angeles) wrote:
… maybe we can convince him he’s wrong about the farce of anthropogenic global warming, too.
This has also been my main worry about John McCain.
I’m hoping that Mr McCain’s refreshing honesty and intelligence will allow him to see through the AGW nonsense when the time comes.
Now, more than ever, the world needs a strong and PROSPEROUS America.
Your Yankee-luvin’ Aussie,
PRODOS
Mar 27, 2008 - 7:09 am 15. Pierce Wetter:Fact: McCain has declined most Secret Service protection.
Mar 27, 2008 - 8:15 am 16. Shawn Levasseur:The climax of “In The Line…” was at the Bonaventure? Wow the Bonaventure sure is popular for assassination movies. That real-time movie about a guy who’s daughter is kidnapped in order to force him to assassinate the Governor of California, that starred Johnny Depp and Charles S. Dutton was set there too. (If only I remembered the title)
Mar 27, 2008 - 8:37 am 17. MarkD:ACTually that’s 4 commie libs running for president, remember Nader just announced his candidacy too.
Mar 27, 2008 - 9:05 am 18. Linda Frank:Off your meds again, MarkD?
Mar 27, 2008 - 10:34 am 19. LTEC:So John Malkovich has just fired at the President but missed (because Clint took the bullet instead), and he is preparing to fire again, so what does the Secret Service agent do? He tells the shooter that he better “drop it!” or else.
Why can’t good guys ever shoot bad guys in the movies?
Mar 27, 2008 - 11:24 am 20. Lawrence Kellogg:Normally, I would say nothing, but since this stream includes tiny corrections, “Cong. Brad Sherman’s” should be “Rep. Brad Sherman’s.” “Cong” is an incorrect way of referring to a member of Congress. It goes better with Viet than with a Representative’s name. Brad Sherman, and 434 others, is a member of Congress, but his or her title is Representative, and the abbreviation is Rep.
Mar 27, 2008 - 5:01 pm 21. Brian:“although there was a presence of secret service, security at the well attended event was surprisingly lax. Although the news media desk knew Pajamas Media by name, they never checked our IDs or our equipment bags. Worrisome”
and
@Pierce Wetter: “Fact: McCain has declined most Secret Service protection.”
McCain does not have ANY Secret Service protection.
Mar 27, 2008 - 5:43 pm 22. Fleishman:The McCain platform goes like this – 1. Keep the borders open so that terrorists can have easy access. 2. Expend American lives and treasure for the next hundred years to keep Sunnis and Shiites from killing each other. 3. Take out any government that dares stand in the way of Muslim expansion.
Btw,how come Senator McCain is not hawkish on eliminating al-Qaeda in Bosnia and Kosovo? Anyone?
It’s well documented by now( of course you won’t see in MSM media) Balkans, Kosovo has become a springboard for the launching of a jihad in Europe.
The recent capture by the F.B.I. of six men arrested in a terror plot against Fort Dix should raise concerns about US and UN policies regarding Kosovo considering that four of the Muslim terrorists were ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, three of whom were in the United States illegally.
Pat ourselves on the back for resettling those “rescuees” here.
Terrorism aside, the Albanian mafia has already overtaken both the Russian and Italian ones. There was also that Kosovo Albanian whose al-Qaeda application was discovered in Afghanistan, to name just one of many such collaborators.
This is Balkan blowback, and it’s been happening since we stuck our nose where it didn’t belong throughout the 1990s and, for good measure, bombed the wrong side. Maybe one day we’ll finally start talking about it.
Why the quick denial of any al-Qaeda connection? Perhaps it is because the administration does not want any bad publicity connected to ethnic Kosovo Albanians because of the effort by the US State Department and certain members of Congress to cede Kosovo, Serbia’s Jerusalem, to jihadist war criminals who are today in control of that southern province of Serbia.
Senator McCain has been on the wrong side of this all along, and as a Republican in the United States Senate, he must have known about this fact, as documented by Senate Republicans going back to 1997, one year before the date that ethnic Albanian groups claim “McCain did everything that we asked of him to the benefit of the Albanian people, including arming the KLA”.
Perhaps Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, decorated Navy veteran and war hero, and contender for the US Presidency, is another whose name needs to be added to the list of those who take bribes from foreign organized crime and terrorists?
On the politics forum of Albanian.com is a thread entitled The Candidates on Kosova … and perhaps beyond. Here are selected excerpts:
(R) Senator John McCain who made his name nationally known by advocating the 1999 NATO Bombing of Serbia. Back in 1999, McCain even advocated the we send American troops into Kosova on behalf of the KLA. McCain has consistently been on the Albanian American Civic League’s payroll and even marched with them a year after the NATO intervention. McCain receives 47% of his campaign donations from $2,300 or more contributors. McCain is a conservative Republican and aggressive interventionist.
As concerned American conservative and citizen, all I want to know from Senator McCain is: as the great “reform” candidate who denounces the influence of “special interests” and the power of money in politics, McCain had better tell us exactly how much the Albanian lobby has thrown his way – and to what effect. Of all the lobbyists in Washington, it is the “special interests” represented by the agents of foreign powers that pose the greatest threat to the integrity of the Presidency-at what price to the American people?
The McCain campaign must immediately release the figures, and give us some “straight talk” about the KLA-McCain connection: how much did they get-and in return for what? The American people have a right to know how many American soldiers will be put at risk in the Balkans in the service of paying off President McCain’s political debts.
Mar 30, 2008 - 1:10 pm