Blogger Conference Call With Senator John McCainThe conference call started with two comments by the senator. First, the Ethics/Earmarking bill came to a vote. He is not happy with the bill because the Senate Majority leader can determine whether a provision.
Murdock purchase of WSJ? Senator McCain disagrees with the media consolidation issue, points out that media is diversifying with the advent of new media like the blogs.
He railed against the refusal of Senator Leahy to allow Judge Southwick's nomination to come to the floor. He stated that while he supports the use of ethanol, he remains adamantly opposed to ethanol subsidies (and pointed out that they are hardly necessary with gas prices where they are).
He noted that the immigration issue is where he took a big hit politically, and acknowledged that securing the border is the first step, but insisted as well that other aspects of immigration reform must be accomplished as well.
I got to ask a question about the earmarks/ethics reform bill, which the senator denounced as a sham and voted against. He agreed that banning earmarks is effectively impossible given Congress' power of the purse, but he's pushing for greater transparency and to get them out of conference reports.
He also had a somewhat surprising response to Barack Obama's assertion that we attack Pakistan if we have actionable intelligence on the location of Al Qaeda members. He pointed out that we have ways of doing things stealthily. Obama also apparently ruled out the use of nuclear weapons. McCain said that nukes are a weapon of last resort, but he would never rule out their use since it amounts to unilateral disarmament.
Labels: 2008 Candidates, John McCain
