The Young Turks

Did you catch this interview?  Here are the fun parts:

STEPHANOPOULOS: you said that 16 months might be a pretty good timetable in Iraq.

He said, "We're pleased to see that there's been some convergence around proposals we've been making for a year-and-a-half."

SEN JOHN MCCAIN: That's really good. Look, it's not a timetable, as I said. I was asked, how does that sound? Anything sounds good to me, but...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you never used the word before.

MCCAIN: ... you know, the point is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: You made a point of never using...

MCCAIN: ... I never...

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... the word before.

MCCAIN: Look, I have always said, and I said then, it's the conditions on the ground. If Senator Obama had had his way, we'd have been out last March, and we'd been out in defeat and chaos, and probably had to come back again because of Iranian influence.

Maliki is, of course, Pro-Iran

It's conditions on the ground -- the way that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, the way that General Petraeus has said -- conditions on the ground, so that the Iraqi government can have control, can have the sufficient security, so that we don't have to come back. Senator Obama said that if his date didn't work, we may have to come back.

We're not coming home in victory. We're coming home in victory.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it does seem...

MCCAIN: But it is a -- it is not a date. I want to make it very clear to you, it is not a date. It's conditions on the ground.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you shouldn't have used the word timetable.

MCCAIN: Pardon me?

STEPHANOPOULOS: You shouldn't have used the word timetable.

MCCAIN: I didn't use the word timetable. That I did -- if I did...

He did.  Twice.  It sounded like this.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there was a fundamental difference about the original decision to go to war. He said it would inflame the Muslim world, it would become a recruitment tool for al Qaeda.

You said, and you wrote, that it would lessen antipathy in the Muslim world, and that we'd be greeted as liberators.

Wasn't Senator Obama right about that?

MCCAIN: I don't believe so.

Ummmm, ok.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You've also taken some heat this week with your comments saying that Senator Obama would rather lose...

MCCAIN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... a war than win a political campaign.

MCCAIN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I can't believe you believe that.

MCCAIN: Well, I'm not questioning his patriotism. I'm questioning his actions. I'm questioning his lack, total lack, of understanding. His...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that is questioning his total...

MCCAIN: I...

STEPHANOPOULOS: When you say someone would rather lose a war, a candidate, that's questioning his honor, his decency, his character.

MCCAIN: All I'm saying is -- and I will repeat -- he does not understand. I'm not questioning his patriotism. I am saying that he made the decision, which was political, in order to help him get the nomination of his party.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, putting lives at risk for a political campaign -- you believe he's doing that.

MCCAIN: I believe that, when he said that we had to leave Iraq, and we had to be out by last March, and we had to have a date certain, that was in contravention to -- and still is -- the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General David Petraeus.

Does Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff know that General David Petraeus is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?  Cause I thought Petraeus was Commanding General of the Multinational Force Iraq but what do I know, I'm just some guy with the Google not the world's foremost expert on Iraq and a major political candidate who is running on that. 

When he never asked to sit down for a briefing with General Petraeus, our commander on the ground, when he waited 900 days to go back again, where young American lives are on the line, I think that's a fundamental lack of understanding. And I think the American people will make the appropriate choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you're questioning his motives.

Nice beat down by Stephie but even better is the framing.  The approach is "your taking a lot of heat for saying", not, "you said Obama is a traitor, care to read your prepared talking point on that?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about the economy.

President Bush in -- and adding some unvarnished talk recently about the economy when he didn't think the cameras were on. I think he said, "Wall Street got drunk, and now we're going through the hangover."

I know you don't want to use language like that, but is his basic take right? Is Wall Street the villain here? And what would you do about it?

MCCAIN: I think that Wall Street is the villain in the things that happened in the subprime lending crisis and other areas where investigations and possible prosecution is going on.

But I also think that Congress is at fault. We didn't restrain spending. Spending got completely out of control. We were ...

By "we", he means the GOP Congress, himself and Bush it should be noted.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But what does that have to do with the mortgage crisis...

Good question, unfortunately for McCain, he has no idea.

MCCAIN: It increases...

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... or with the housing crisis?

MCCAIN: It increases the deficit. We didn't address the energy crisis, which has been building for 30 years. We're now sending $700 billion of Americans' money overseas to countries that don't like us very much.

So, I think there's a lot of blame to go around here. But I also would blame a gridlocked Congress, which is gridlocked as we speak, when we should be doing offshore drilling.

Follow along here- Q: What about Wall Street irresponsibility and the mortgage crisis? A: DRILL!!!!!

STEPHANOPOULOS: The gridlock...

Gridlock?  The Republicans controlled the entire government for six years and made no attempt!!!!

MCCAIN: We should be moving forward with nuclear power.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The gridlock broke today on the housing bill. It passed, I think, 72 to 13 in the Senate.

I know you couldn't be there. Would you have voted for that bill?

MCCAIN: Yes. But I also see, again, the influence of special interests. They place the responsibilities for trying to help solve some of these problems of people remaining in their homes -- and it is real and significant -- in the hands of the lenders.

I would have liked to have seen the homeowner, the primary residents, go down and get the 30-year FHA guaranteed loan at the new value of their home, and put it in the hands of the borrower, the homeowner. But I'll support...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Then why vote for the bill?

MCCAIN: Because it's better than nothing. It's better than -- it may give relief to several hundred thousand homeowners. Or if it gives relief to one, it's a -- but I think it can provide some relief.

Nice principled stand, you maverick!

STEPHANOPOULOS: He says that when some places like Freddie Mae (ph) or Fannie Mae or Bear Stearns get the government guarantee, that the executives that work there should get a government salary.

MCCAIN: Sure. That's exactly right. And we could go out and ask people -- the smartest people in America, maybe somebody like Jack Welch or John Chambers or Meg Whitman, people like that -- and say, come and take over and do it for $1 a year. They'd be willing to do that.

So John McCain knows any number of super brilliant business people who will run corporations for us for no salary or benefit to themselves?  Does that sound right to you?  Even if this were true, isn't that kind of anti-capitalist?  Almost socialist?

Buckle up.  We are moving from the ridiculous to the sublime.

MCCAIN: There are many steps that can be taken absolutely, including the gas tax holiday. Everybody -- everybody...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Not a single economist in the country said it'd work.

MCCAIN: Yes. And there's no economist in the country that knows very well the low-income American who drives the furthest, in the oldest automobile, that sometimes can't even afford to go to work.

WTF?

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they all say that that's...

MCCAIN: And they haven't met...

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... not who's (ph) going to get the benefit. The oil companies, the gas companies are going to absorb...

MCCAIN: You know, they..

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... any reduction.

MCCAIN: ... they say that. But one, it didn't happen before, and two, we wouldn't let it happen. We wouldn't let it -- Americans wouldn't let them absorb that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How would you prevent that?

MCCAIN: We would make them shamed into it. We, of course, know how to -- American public opinion. And we would penalize them, if necessary. But they wouldn't. They would pass it on.

McCain is going to shame the oil companies into lowering prices.  Is he really saying this?  Is he stupid or does he think we are?

STEPHANOPOULOS:  How are you going to exclude Russia from the G-8, when every other country is against it?

MCCAIN: I will stand up for what I think is the best for the United States of America and the world, the way that Ronald Reagan went to Berlin and said, "Tear down this wall."

Ahhhh, Bushian Diplomacy. Just what American voters want.  Does he even have a point to make here or is this just a gratuitous Reagan reference?

STEPHANOPOULOS: What is your position on gay adoption? You told the "New York Times" you were against it, even in cases where the children couldn't find another home. But then your staff backtracked a bit.

What is your position?

MCCAIN: My position is, it's not the reason why I'm running for president of the United States. And I think that two parent families are best for America.

Evidently McCain seems to think when you announce you are running you get to pick and choose the issues you want to matter, or even come up, and reject those you don't like.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, what do you mean by that, it's not the reason you're running for president of the United States?

MCCAIN: Because I think -- well, I think that it's -- it is important for us to emphasize family values. But I think it's very important that we understand that we have other challenges, too.

I'm running for president of the United States, because I want to help with family values. And I think that family values are important, when we have two parent -- families that are of parents that are the traditional family.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there are several hundred thousand children in the country who don't have a home. And if a gay couple wants to adopt them, what's wrong with that?

MCCAIN: I am for the values that two parent families, the traditional family represents.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you're against gay adoption.

MCCAIN: I am for the values and principles that two parent families represent. And I also do point out that many of these decisions are made by the states, as we all know.

And I will do everything I can to encourage adoption, to encourage all of the things that keeps families together, including educational opportunities, including a better economy, job creation.

And I'm running for president, because I want to help families in America. And one of my positions is that I believe that family values and family traditions are preserved.

Got that?  He doesn't really care but he is for gay adoption and he is against it but he would really prefer that you completely ignore this issue.  Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Opponents of affirmative action are trying to get a referendum on the ballot here that would do away with affirmative action. Do you support that?

MCCAIN: Yes, I do. I do not believe in quotas. But I have not seen the details of some of these proposals. But I've always opposed quotas.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the one here in Arizona you support.

MCCAIN: I support it, yes.

Little quick hitter from Stephie has the maverick flip-flopping effortlessly in about six seconds.  Deftly done.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I've been told that when you're talking about your vice presidential pick, the way you characterize it is, you want to scramble the jets with your pick. What does that mean?

MCCAIN: I've never used that phrase.

Who is willing to bet he used that phrase?