I had thought about doing a really indepth analysis of this debate but the event just seemed to be more of the same for me.

The event seemed to me as a replay of the previous “debates” held on Meet the Press with Russert dictating Democrat talking point oriented questions with the Republican spending much of the time on the defensive.

In this case Tim asked questions pertaining to the Foley issue, the Iraq war and Stem cell issues with side line topics of the global war on terror, how much Talent has voted with Bush and that little blurt Claire had regarding Bush and Katrina. If you were not counting that would be every single topic except two were not just “areas of concern” but are Democratic talking points.

If the debate was honestly to be more balanced we would have talked about taxes, Second Ammendment rights, drilling in ANWR and how Talent has worked with Democrats to get things done as a pose to Claire who is already signaling that she will be an obstructionist.

In my mind the “debate” was academic because Claire recieved little challenge and well, had little to contribute to the conversation. When she was challenged, her answers were severely lacking substance. Here is one key exchange:

MS. McCASKILL: You know, playing politics with this issue is not making us safer. I absolutely support surveillance. As somebody who has handled very tough criminal cases, I understand the importance of aggressive surveillance within the framework of laws. And frankly, if they were more concerned about tough surveillance and not about election year politics, they would have gotten a bill through that would have allowed us to have the tools we need to go after terrorists around the globe.You know, Iraq is a mess. We can either stay the course or we can change course. And obviously, even the leader of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, probably the most respected Republican on the Iraq war in Washington, has now come back from Iraq and said, “You know what? This is a mess and we need to re-examine what we’re doing here.”This—asking questions—you know, this is Harry Truman’s Senate seat. When he was in the Senate, during the war, a war that was over the fight of our civilization, the fight for freedom, he asked questions about war profiteering and he was called brave. In this climate right now, they would question whether or not he was a coward. We need to be asking the questions, we need to have a plan, we need to have accountability. What is going on right now is absolutely not working in the Middle East.

MR. RUSSERT: But Ms. McCaskill, you did say, and I want to quote this, “This war will not be won on the battlefield, it will be won through sophisticated criminal investigations.” Is that your view, that we don’t win militarily, that criminal investigations will win the war on terror?

MS. McCASKILL: I believe there are two issues here. One is the war in Iraq, a failed policy where we’re mired in a civil war, where we are losing lives every day and innocent Iraqi lives; and then our effort worldwide to begin to be effective against terror. Terrorist cells are popping up. We are creating more terrorists around the world with this failed policy in Iraq. We need to focus on worldwide surveillance, human intelligence, wire surveillance, Internet surveillance, support our intelligence community—clearly, we’ve had trouble with good intelligence in this administration—and go after terrorists, capture them and hold them accountable. But to mix the two is confusing the American public, trying to confuse the American public, and trying to roll all this in into an election year effort to make Democrats, who want our country to be safe, look weak. And we’re not weak.

MR. RUSSERT: But you came out against the president’s eavesdropping program.

MS. McCASKILL: I said we should give the president the tools he needs. Only in Washington would they delay and obfuscate for 10 months instead of passing the law that gives the intelligence community the tools they need to catch terrorists.

SEN. TALENT: Tim, she said the program is illegal. I mean, this is a program every president’s used since Jimmy Carter. She supported the Hamdan decision, which as you know, put a stop to our interrogation of foreign terrorists because our CIA agents were afraid of being sued. She supported The New York Times release of classified information. She’s recently said, to a group of her supporters in Paris, she…

The most mind blowing part of the quote where she put the onus on “Washington” not being able to pass a law giving the intellegence community what it needs. Hello, its called Democratic obstructionism and we will see lots more of it if they take over the house and senate.

Whats worse was her answer in that the war on terror will be won by a series of law enforcement actions! Hello! Talent MUST sieze on that comment and hammer it home.

Then we have a series of questions regarding Iraq. At one point Tim said Talent voted for the war in Iraq when he did not. I am suprised that Talent didnt correct him, but that might not have mattered as Talent supports the war. Russert tried to pin Talent into a time table and to renegging his support for the Iraq war, but he would have none of it.

The next exchange between Russert and Mc Caskill shows how she, and many Democrats in general are trying to lie her way throught the Iraq problem when Tim actually asked her about the specifics of “redeployment” (e.g. cutting and running).

MR. RUSSERT: Ms. McCaskill, you said this. “We should redeploy our troops strategically within the region over a two-year time frame.” What does that mean?MS. McCASKILL: Well, we have—you know, as a daughter of rural Missouri, we have a saying, “If you’re in a hole, you need to quit digging.” We have now trained 300,000 Iraqi troops. We have a civil war. We—this idea that we’re creating a democracy that’s going to be our ally in the war on terror? We have a government that’s reinstituted Saddam Hussein’s laws to put journalists in prison.MR. RUSSERT: No, but you said you would “redeploy our troops strategically within the region.” What does that mean?

MS. McCASKILL: We need, we need to listen to our military, and over a two-year framework, give or take, time period that they say, we need to move—Afghanistan, we need troops in Afghanistan right now. We didn’t finish the job there. We are—the Taliban is back. We need to move troops into Afghanistan. We need to move into Kuwait. We need to move into Qatar. Representative…

MR. RUSSERT: So you would take the 145,000 American troops, put them in Kuwait, put them in Qatar, put them in Afghanistan?

MS. McCASKILL: Over a period of time. I’m not talking about immediately.

I’m not talking about tomorrow. We need to give the Iraqi government notice. We are breeding a culture of dependence; we are not breeding a democracy. The elected leaders of Iraq, Tim, have come out in favor of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that invaded our ally.

MR. RUSSERT: Are you sure those countries would take our troops?

MS. McCASKILL: I believe that, certainly, I know that the NATO command would take our troops in Afghanistan. They need more.

MR. RUSSERT: But there’s 145,000. If we withdraw the American troops within two years and full-blown civil war erupts in Iraq, full-blown civil war, creating a haven similar to Afghanistan of the ‘90s, what do you do then?

MS. McCASKILL: Well, I think then that military leaders need to advise us. These decisions are now being made. You know, steadfastness has turned into stubbornness. And this is about politics instead of sound foreign policy.

You know, I don’t support the release of classified information. Anybody who releases classified information should be held accountable. But we shouldn’t start blaming the journalists. That’s what they’re doing in Iraq right now. They’re putting journalists in prison that disagree with this government.

This is not an American democracy.

MR. RUSSERT: The president says he’s listening to the advice of the military commanders.

MS. McCASKILL: Well, you know, we respect the military in Missouri. It is a historic moment in our country, never before in our country, have we seen generals, retired general after retired general that had been on the ground in Iraq, that came out publicly and criticized the commander chief—in chief at the time of conflict. That is unprecedented in our country. Listening to them and realizing that we have not been leveled with, the American people.

And Senator Talent has sat on the Armed Services Committee for four years and is not asking the questions about accountability. We should be saying, “How do we get out of this mess?” Not “This is a good policy, a sound policy, we need to continue down this road.”

MR. RUSSERT: You were asked how you would have voted in the Senate in 2002, and you said, “It’s not clear to me how I would’ve voted.”

MS. McCASKILL: Well, I’m certainly not going to Monday morning quarterback the senators and congressmen that voted for this war. I’ve never seen what they saw. Knowing what we know now, absolutely not. And frankly, I’m surprised that Senator Talent would say that knowing what we know now, knowing what is going on in Iraq right now, knowing that we are not more secure and more stable as a result of this conflict, that he agrees that we should repeat that mistake if it came along again.

Again, it is amazing how she says she will set a time table, but will “listen to generals.” Generals are telling us to hang in there and complete the mission - not cut and run. In fact, that is what the much bally-hoo’d NIE says. That if we stick it out and beat the insurgents in Iraq then we will be successfull in reducing the number of jihadist.

It is also amazing how shallow her thoughts are in considering how to redeploy the troops. She does not understand enough about the middle east to understand or acknowledge that some of those countries may not want our presence. This is why Murtha said he wanted to move our troops to Okinowa, which is laughable, but is a little more educated that Claire.

One question Tim did not ask, though, was the total effect on the GWOT if we retreated. This is very important. We hear all the time about staying in Iraq and creating terrorist, but we do not hear the entire NIE document and historical references which tell us that if we pull out it will create a much worse security situation and will embolden terrorist to continue the war against us and attack us on our shores.

The rest of the debate was just a little silly with Tim putting Talent into a wierd position of picking between “a child and a petri dish” in a fire. Tim did put Mc Caskill on the spot regarding partial birth abortion and she again, danced around the issue.

In the end I can see it tactically as a draw but strategically as a victory for Talent. Word has it Talent seem flustered during the debate and Mc Caskill gleeful (I would be gleeful as well if it was a two on one and the moderator was putting my opponent on the spot). Yet there was no real “gotcha” moments for her.

I do believe that Mc Caskill answered several questions in a way as highlighted above which should provide Talent with some tactical advantages if used correctly. The question is whether future debates will be more level in questions and direction asked.

Finally, lets look at my predictions.

First, Tim did double team Jim on the Iraq question on the areas of funding and what not. However, he did ask Claire about a few details on execution which she did not do well in responding. So, I cannot say that the first item happened as badly as I thought it would. He did not challenge her statement about supporting the troops when opposing the mission, though.

Secondly, Tim did bring up the Katrina statement (suprise). Some saw it as a soft let off, others saw it as a hard question. I am not sure where I fall. He did not ask her about the phantom vote where she lied about a veto vote. He did ask about partial birth abortion. So again half wrong, half right.

Third. There was no questions asked about the second ammendment. I was right. I see this as a sleeper issue if used. Remember, Claire was trying to target rural Missouri. Owning a fire arm is very important to us.

Finally, I do believe Talent did okay. I would have liked him to be more sharp, but he was on the ball substance wise. With a series of debates coming up he definitely did not provide Claire any fodder to use against him. The same cannot be said for Claire.

The entire transcript for the debate can be found here. Be sure to check it out!

Posted by Paul Seale on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 12:37 am. Filed under Missouri Politics, National Politics.