{"id":2747,"date":"2008-09-26T15:00:51","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T20:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=2747"},"modified":"2011-06-06T15:33:22","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T19:33:22","slug":"mccain-wont-no-wait-he-will-be-at-the-debates-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-rachel-asher\/mccain-wont-no-wait-he-will-be-at-the-debates-tonight\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain won’t — no, wait, he will — be at the debates tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader,<\/p>\n

After intense deliberation and waffling, John McCain has finally agreed to get on the plane and do what every Republican presidential nominee has done for the last 44 years: he will participate in the first of three presidential debates, going head-to-head on foreign policy issues against Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi tonight. That is, unless McCain acts like a “maverick” again and changes the topic. Either way, the debate will air at 9 pm EST.<\/p>\n

This debate will surely go down as the biggest pre-stage diva move in history. It’s not the first time the lead-up has been tumultuous, however.<\/p>\n

The 1980 debates were planned to be a three-way between President Jimmy Carter, former California Governor Ronald Reagan and John Anderson, an Illinois Congressman who was also running. Carter flat-out refused to participate in the first debates if Anderson was involved, and Reagan took the opposite stance, saying the debates couldn’t go on without<\/em> Anderson.<\/p>\n

Carter lost out: the first debates went on with him sitting in the dugout, and Reagan debated Anderson. After that, all hell broke loose, and both the second presidential and<\/em> the vice presidential debates were cancelled. Finally, Reagan relented, and the final debate took place between Reagan and Carter, sans Anderson.<\/p>\n

Maybe McCain thought pulling a Carter would work out in his favor, and that there’d be a slight chance that Palin wouldn’t have to debate — I know I’d be nervous if I were him, watching her fumble around her three recent interviews, especially this week’s two-parter with Katie Couric. Here’s how she explained her foreign policy experience<\/a>:<\/p>\n

COURIC: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?<\/p>\n

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land– boundary that we have with– Canada. It– it’s funny that a comment like that was– kind of made to– cari– I don’t know, you know? Reporters–<\/p>\n

COURIC: Mock?<\/p>\n

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.<\/p>\n

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.<\/p>\n

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our– our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia–<\/p>\n

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?<\/p>\n

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We– we do– it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is– from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to– to our state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After a couple of interviews like this (the first major fumble aired a few weeks ago, when she couldn’t describe the Bush Doctrine), I’d try anything to get rid of the vp debates too. Ah well, can’t win them all.<\/p>\n

One thing’s for sure though: after all this build-up, it’s sure to be an interesting show tonight.<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,<\/p>\n

\"Rachel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader, After intense deliberation and waffling, John McCain has finally agreed to get on the plane and do what every Republican presidential nominee has done for the last 44 years: he will participate in the first of three presidential debates, going head-to-head on foreign policy issues against Barack Obama at the University … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[49,111],"tags":[36,297,52,144,117,296,143],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}