'No We Won't'?
Posted: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 5:03 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. -- McCain spent most of his prepared remarks discussing the two issues he has made the center of his week: (even at fundraisers) energy and Iraq. On Iraq he reiterated some of his attacks on Obama that have become mainstays of this week, including another pointed use of the ‘he’d rather win an election than win a war’ line and answered a couple questions on how the Iraqi police are still not well-trained enough to secure their own country.
He also hit Obama on his refusal to accept any of McCain’s energy policies – "No We Won’t" instead of "Yes We Can."
Also, McCain is no longer going to New Orleans to meet with Bobby Jindal, but traveling to Columbus, Ohio, instead.
McCain also complimented his former House colleague and “beloved friend” Tom Ridge, who did not appear to be present: “A Vietnam veteran, a person, one of the few graduates of Harvard who was drafted and went and served in the Vietnam War, first head of -- you know all about Tom Ridge, uh, I think he’s one of the ideal Americans that I have ever known. I have to tell you his most unfavorite joke, which I tell all the time about the two inmates in the chow line at the state prison….”
Some excerpts from McCain's town hall:
On Obama and his seal: "Now, Senator Obama doesn't want to drill off shore. Senator Obama doesn't want nuclear power. He doesn't want to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. He doesn't want to store spent nuclear fuel. My friends, you might have seen the other day he had one of these, he had remarkably, a presidential seal, and in Latin it said something like, 'Yes we can.' I think he should change that to, 'No we won't.'"
On Iraq: “When people said, you supporting 30,000 more troops and a new strategy that your candidacy is doomed to failure. I said I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war, and I meant that then and I mean that now. Now, Sen. Obama said that the strategy of the surge would not succeed. He said it was doomed to failure. He said that there would be an increase in sectarian violence. He still to this day has said that the surge has not succeeded. It’s a remarkable, remarkable failure to understand the facts on the ground.
"So apparently Sen. Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a campaign.”
On Israel: "I think to start with the status of Jerusalem would be the subject of negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israeli government. My feeling about Israel today is that they are probably, in many respects, under greater threat than they had been since their independence. We have the Iranians developing nuclear weapons. We all know that. There's ample evidence of it. And unfortunately in the United Nations, the Russians will not join with us in enacting meaningful sanctions against Iran.
On Iraq corruption: “On the issue of Iraq, and I’ll be glad to have another response from you, the Iraqis are taking up more of their responsibilities. There’s corruption in Iraq my friend. It’s not terrible and frankly the corruption is worse in Afghanistan than it is in Iraq. But the Iraqis are taking over more and more of those responsibilities. They are paying for rebuilding of their oil production facilities. They are repaying for large – they are paying for large projects. They need to pay a lot more, and as American troops withdraw, and we will be withdrawing, it just depends on conditions on the ground, than that will be a major factor in reducing our expenses in Iraq.”
McCain's call for change: “What I want to do, is the day that I am elected, not the day I’m inaugurated but the day I’m elected I want to pick up the phone and call the majority leader, who I’ve known for a quarter of a century. I’ve known the speaker of the house. I’ll call both – I’ll say look, I’m going to be in town next week. Let’s sit down together, let’s sit down together and set priorities so that beginning right after the inauguration we’ll hit the ground running. We’ll have a specific agenda and we’ll work for America and I promise you I’ll give you all the credit. I’ll give you all the credit. We need to do that. We have to do it."
