{"id":16594,"date":"2008-08-15T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2008-08-15T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16560.html"},"modified":"2008-08-15T08:00:16","modified_gmt":"2008-08-15T12:00:16","slug":"an-odd-example-of-putting-country-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/an-odd-example-of-putting-country-first\/","title":{"rendered":"An odd example of ‘putting country first’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In late June, the McCain campaign was aggressively pushing the line that John McCain has taken political risks by working with Dems on important issues. Pressed for a recent example to bolster the claim, a campaign spokesperson said<\/a>, “It’s fairly significant that Senator McCain worked on the immigration reform legislation while he was pursing the nomination of his party,” adding that he “reached across the aisle despite a heated primary campaign.”<\/p>\n

And this week, as the McCain campaign began to push the line that Barack Obama doesn’t put “country first,” the same team relied on the same example<\/a>. Newsweek’s Howard Fineman reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I asked McCain’s closest advisor and friend, Mark Salter, for an example of a time when Obama did not “put the country first.” His answer: the Senate maneuvering of immigration legislation. <\/p>\n

In his view, Obama did big labor’s bidding by helping to kill the chances for a grand compromise on immigration reform. <\/p>\n

“His campaign came before his country,” Salter told me in an e-mail.<\/p>\n

In other words, if you weren’t for McCain’s deal, you didn’t put the country first.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fineman’s right to find Salter’s argument foolish, but the argument is actually even worse than Fineman suggests: McCain<\/i> wasn’t for McCain’s deal, which suggests McCain didn’t put country first, either.
\n
\nTo follow Salter’s logic, “putting country first” means supporting the compromise immigration package. As it happens, Obama did<\/i> support the legislation, but disagreed with McCain on a vote on a specific amendment, which apparently means Obama doesn’t really love America. Or something. It’s hard to tell with these guys.<\/p>\n

But let’s not lose sight of what McCain did here. To his credit, McCain took a risk working with Dems on a comprehensive immigration reform measure during the Republican primaries. His efforts failed — McCain couldn’t get his bill through the Senate, and his poll numbers tanked when GOP voters learned of his efforts.<\/p>\n

But what happened next? McCain said, over and over again<\/a>, that he disapproves of his own legislation. He conceded in a nationally televised debate that he wouldn’t even vote for his own bill. McCain has reiterated his opposition to the compromise he personally struck throughout the presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

So what on earth is the McCain campaign talking about? If Obama failed to “put the country first” on immigration <\/p>\n

Buy Provigil Without Prescription<\/a><\/p>\n

, doesn’t this mean McCain has completely<\/i> given up on “putting the country first”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In late June, the McCain campaign was aggressively pushing the line that John McCain has taken political risks by working with Dems on important issues. Pressed for a recent example to bolster the claim, a campaign spokesperson said, “It’s fairly significant that Senator McCain worked on the immigration reform legislation while he was pursing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}