McCain's Speech

Here's the transcript

I listened last night and wasn't that impressed. I expected him to start with the biography and POW story and lead to change. But he ended with the POW story, I guess you end on your high note. After Palin's policy-empty Obama attackfest I expect some policy details, but there were hardly any. The only specific thing he said was "Doubling the child tax exemption from $3500 to $7000 will improve the lives of millions of American families." I think the last of specifics or even specific generalities, is problematic, deceptive and inconsistent.

McCain said: "We believe in low taxes; spending discipline, and open markets. We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor. We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the bench. We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities. We believe in a government that unleashes the creativity and initiative of Americans. Government that doesn't make your choices for you, but works to make sure you have more choices to make for yourself."

Sounds fine, but what does it mean? "make sure you have more choices to make for yourself" could be a pro-choice plank but that goes against the "culture of life" and we know it's not his point. When he got to this I started laughing:

"I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it. My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them. My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor."

Me good, Obama bad. Got it. Sounds like a 3rd grader.

He said "Cutting the second highest business tax rate in the world will help American companies compete and keep jobs from moving overseas." No it won't help keep jobs. Companies will move them to the cheapest places to increase profits. That's what their shareholders demand. Cutting taxes will increase profits, maybe they will reinvest them, maybe not. The evidence for automakers and energy companies is that they don't unless regulations force them to. But he didn't mention regulations at all.

Kevin Drum wrote about what seemed to be a wage insurance policy he proposed.

McCain said "When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children." This is all about vouchers and testing and fine, I could debate either side of that. What's interesting to me is the wording. "Parents deserve a choice in the education of their children". Really? Do they have a right to it? It's not mentioned in the Constitution. Remember that bit about justices who "don't legislate from the bench"? What if a state took away your right to choice of school for your child? Seriously. This actually happened in the 1920s in Oregon.

The Compulsory Education Act required children to go to public school or a state recognized private school (with some exceptions). It was probably really to eliminate Catholic schools and of course there was a court case. Pierce v. Society of Sisters. The Supreme Court ruled that the right to "liberty" in 14th amendment prevents the state from forcing parents to send their children to public schools.

Nebraska in the 1920s banned the teaching of any subject in a school to a child in any language other than English. Seriously. I guess they were trying to help force immigrants to assimilate. Is it so different from making English the official language of the US? In Meyer v. Nebraska the Supreme Court found:

"While this court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men"

In 1965 the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut found that the state can't ban contraceptives (seriously, CT had a law doing this or even instructing someone in how to use them). The court found:

"The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice -- whether public or private or parochial -- is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights."

[citations elimated:] "By Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, the right to educate one's children as one chooses is made applicable to the States by the force of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. By Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, the same dignity is given the right to study the German language in a private school. In other words, the State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge. The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach -- indeed, the freedom of the entire university community. Without those peripheral rights, the specific rights would be less secure. And so we reaffirm the principle of the Pierce and the Meyer cases."

The opinion lists many other rights that have sprung from interpreting the Constitution such as. "In NAACP v. Alabama, we protected the "freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations," noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. (This was a case where Alabama subpoenaed the NAACP membership list in trying to prevent them from conducting business in Alabama.)

So Griswold found that you have a right to use birth control. If you have the right to choose where to send your kids to school and what language to educate them in, surely you have the right to choose not to have them. And of course, shortly after Griswold Roe v. Wade built on this and found there's a limited right to choose an abortion.

You can disagree with the above logical chain, but that (in an abbreviated form) is what the Supreme Court did. Is that legislating from the bench or interpreting the law? When the constitution uses vague terms like liberty, isn't this what interpreting means? You can choose where to send your kids to school, though you must educate them. The voucher question is if you have to pay for the public schools. When you use vague terms, it might sound good, but no one really knows what you're saying. And yeah, I'm sure that was the point of McCain's speech.

Read some of the above cases, the right to liberty includes the right to marry, which otherwise isn't mentioned in the Constitution. In 1967 (only 41 years ago) in Loving v. Virgina, the court said liberty included that states can't ban inter-racial marriage. Neither the country nor the sanctity of marriage were destroyed by that. McCain didn't mention it last night but what's the GOP platform on gay marriage? You can decide where to send your kids to school but not who you marry? What's your definition of liberty?

McCain said last night: "My fellow Americans, when I'm President, we're going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front. We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we'll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles. Senator Obama thinks we can achieve energy independence without more drilling and without more nuclear power. But Americans know better than that."

This is all crap. So we're going to be free of mid-east oil when? In his first term? We'll drill new wells now? Even if we started they won't come online for 10 years. Clean coal is a lie. Using more coal will increase greenhouse gases and global warming. But he didn't mention global warming or climate change once. I guess he doesn't care about it. And Obama is for looking at everything that can be done and figuring out a path. He hasn't ruled out drilling or nuclear but he has been more specific than McCain was.

Then he got to security and changing how Washington works. "The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you."

Actually I don't think the big problem is politicians working for themselves (sure having to raise lots of money to stay in office is a big problem) but I think there is a real disagreement on a lot of issues. And the rabid attacks from the speeches the day before might represent some of the problem of working together.

"Again and again, I've worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That's how I will govern as President. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not." Actually, Obama does have such a record, See an answer here listing various bills that were passed into laws, some co-sponsored with Sen Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK).

I thought this was actually quite good but it got a mooted reaction from the crowd: "Instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn't think of them first, let's use the best ideas from both sides. Instead of fighting over who gets the credit, let's try sharing it. This amazing country can do anything we put our minds to. I will ask Democrats and Independents to serve with me. And my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability."

Obama's speech last week had a lot of policy details. It was important because his speeches have been light on them before (his web site hasn't been). McCain copied the change message but just gave standard unspecific political platitudes to really do much to further his message. I heard commentators afterwards saying it was break from the party of the past. He didn't mention Bush by name and he wants to fix a broken Washington that he's been a part of for decades. I think he left off many of the big issues.

He barely mentioned health care except to say his plan was good and Obama's was bad. He didn't cover much about the economy except to say we'll help you retrain for a new job. He wasn't specific about which taxes he'd cut or keep. He didn't talk about Guantanamo or torture or how to get out of Iraq (now he's supporting a time table he chastised Obama for). Etc.

Jon Stewart was yet again brilliant last night. I'll post videos when they're up but while interviewing Mike Huckabee last night he described the GOP message as "So you feel like your party is the only one that can fix the damage that your party has done".