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Next Tuesday, millions of Americans will head to the polls to cast their vote for president of the United States of America. Voting is a remarkable historic privilege, and a weighty obligation for all Americans. But for the numerous voters that are single-issue, life-issues voters, voting also represents a life-or-death choice.

For those voters every election is a referendum on abortion — the quiet genocide. So for those voters, in one corner stands Senator Barack Obama, a pro-choice, Planned Parenthood-backed Democrat. And in the other corner is anti-abortion Senator John McCain, who has the support of every pro-life organization on record.

But what seems like a binary choice between opposition figures is not quite so simple. That’s because between the two candidates, Senator McCain alone thinks killing babies for science is morally righteous.

Part of McCain’s pro-life credentials is very orthodox. When he spoke with Rick Warren at the Saddleback forum in August, McCain was asked “What point is a baby entitled to human rights?” He responded, “Life begins at conception” which is a common refrain in the pro-life camp.

Conception takes place when an egg is fertilized. When a sperm enters the egg, to McCain and many pro-life advocates, a life begins. Fertilization (or conception) marks the beginning of a human’s life in the “life begins at conception” worldview.

But part of his beliefs veers off course from the pro-life orthodoxy. McCain supports embryonic stem cell research through his policies, advocacy and Senate votes. Embryonic stem cells are a collection of cells within a blastocyst, which is the name of a fertilized cell 8-14 days old. Because blastocysts have certain unique biological properties, many scientists believe embryonic stem cell research could lead to medical breakthroughs.

Most pro-life, “life begins at conception,” people decry embryonic stem cell research, because the research requires extracting the stem cells from the blastocyst in a process that “kills” the embryo. If that embryo is a person, then the termination is murder.

As recently as September, when taking part in the Science Debate with Obama, McCain said, “While I support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, I believe clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress.”

The notions of moral values and ethic principles dominate the entire abortion conversation. While Senator Obama is not against abortion, he does not believe abortion involves killing babies. To Obama, and most pro-choice advocates, abortion involves terminating fetuses that are not-yet-people. When pro-lifers call pro-choice politicians “baby-killers” that is not a statement of intent, rather one of result.

But for McCain to support embryonic stem cell research while believing that blastocysts are people, with full personhood, allows for only two conclusions. The first is that the Senator elected to take two oppositional stances, where there is no possible room for harmony, on sanctity of life issues. But it’s unethical and inconceivable that any policy-maker could hold such an intellectually impossible belief.

So the second, and only remaining, conclusion is that John McCain believes science is more valuable than life to the extent he wants to aggressively fund the murder of babies for research.

From the LA Times:

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Maliki embraced Obama’s plan, saying: “That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.” Maliki said he was not making an endorsement in the presidential race.

The endorsement of the Iraqi Prime Minister for a plan that calls for combat withdrawal - an effective end to the Iraq War - is enormous news. Ironically only the LA Times fronted the story, owing to pressure exerted from the White House for the Iraqi government to issue a retractment, which they (vaguely) did. When the New York Times ran the story they ran it as a story focused on the implications for al-Maliki given the disapproval his comments generated with senior White House and US military leaders. Even so, this offers the most real possibility of an actual conclusion to the Iraq War we’ve had since it began. The lead of Iraq, Prime Minister Maliki, effectively supports presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s 16-month time-table for withdrawal, and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has repeatedly stated that he would respect Iraq’s sovereignty on the issue of withdrawal (though his plan calls for no immediate withdrawal and indefinite military presence). It’s unlikely that McCain would actually advocate such a speedy withdrawal since it would be near political suicide, but this is the clearest hope the American public has had yet for an actual termination to the War. A full rundown with the official responses of the candidates is here.

Related: While the mainstream press was slow to run this story, The White House press corps inadvertantly emailed this story to their entire list (instead of the intended internal list) immediately after Der Speigel, the source of the Maliki interview, ran the story on the wire.

From the NY Times:

Comedy has been no easier for the phalanx of late-night television hosts who depend on skewering political leaders for a healthy quotient of their nightly monologues. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of jokes about the Republican running for president — each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old.But there has been little humor about Mr. Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race….Despite audience resistance, Mr. Stewart contended, his show had been able to develop a distinctive angle on Mr. Obama.Noting that the senator seems to emphasize the historic nature of his quest, Mr. Stewart said, “So far, our take is that he’s positioning himself to be on a coin.”…Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the ABC late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said of Mr. Obama, “There’s a weird reverse racism going on. You can’t joke about him because he’s half-white. It’s silly. I think it’s more a problem because he’s so polished, he doesn’t seem to have any flaws.”

Perhaps there’s a actual reticence comedians have to make fun of Obama. But McCain may just be an easier target. McCain revels in giving the press the sort of personal access that invariably exposes him to the risk of poorly-phrased quotes getting caught on camera. He offers that access because it results in more favorable press coverage, but the collateral cost may be ready-made comic materials. Obama, on the other hand, has run a very disciplined campaign that offers little casual press access. Less access results in less unscripted conversation, and less room for error.Again, it’s very possible that some jokes about Obama get discarded because of racial sensitivity or political ideology. But McCain’s offered a steady stream of pre-packaged jokes this campaign season and you can’t blame comedians from running with jokes that are practically prewritten.

From BBC:

Tran Trong Duyet - a sprightly retiree and amateur ballroom dancer - must rank as one of John McCain’s more unlikely supporters.
Four decades ago, during the Vietnam war, Mr Duyet was in charge of the notorious Hoa Lo prison - the place where Mr McCain says he was brutally beaten and tortured during five-and-a-half years as an American prisoner of war.
…
“But I can confirm to you that we never tortured him. We never tortured any prisoners.”

It’s to our enduring shame that America has engaged in torture, and even more disgraceful that we’ve claimed actions we call torture acceptable when we practice them.

But as John McCain has rightly asserted many times, he was tortured. Unfortunately, some of the same techniques used to torture Senator McCain have been used by the US to torture. We are a torturing nation. There’s no way to parse or equivocate that. Though it seems likely most of the people responsible won’t be tried by the US anytime soon, the rest of the world may not be so lenient. The shred of redemption in this escapade is that various leaders within the American community can use this opportunity to dust off truths we’ve let languish too long and own them again, like my pastor did in an op/ed for the Orlando Sentinel:

• The Golden Rule: The U.S. will not use any method of interrogation that we would not find acceptable if used against Americans.
• One national standard: We will adopt a single standard for interrogation across U.S. agencies and departments.
• Rule of law: The U.S. will acknowledge all prisoners to our courts and the International Committee of the Red Cross and provide fully adequate judicial processes to provide detainees an opportunity to prove their innocence.
• Duty to protect: The U.S. will not transfer prisoners in our custody to governments when there is a likelihood that they will be tortured.
• Checks and balances: The U.S. will reaffirm the legitimate role of the legislative and judicial branches in understanding, reviewing, and in some cases setting detention policies.
• Clarity and accountability: All U.S. personnel deserve the certainty that they are implementing policy that complies fully with the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law.

Unfortunately America’s reputation will likely further suffer before it can begin recovering, with so many more stories coming to light (like our alleged secret prison ships in international waters used as torture house).

From the NY Times op/ed section:

Campaigns generate headlines with the tough decisions they make. On Thursday, Barack Obama’s campaign made waves with an easy one. Mr. Obama’s decision to leave the public financing system elicited the predictable outrage among reformers (and the McCain camp), but it was probably the most obvious and inevitable decision he’ll make all year — justified both politically and ethically.

By freeing his campaign from the public system, Mr. Obama can continue to raise donations from his vast base of supporters, who have made his campaign thus far the best-financed in history. Mr. Obama is rightly counting on them to raise far more than the $84 million in public funds he could expect to receive from public financing.

Mr. Obama may be on slippery ground because of his previous commitment to stick with the public system. But given that his campaign essentially embodies the ideals of reform — to a degree no one seriously thought possible just a few years ago — it’s going to be difficult for the McCain campaign or the chorus of scolds to generate much traction on the issue. After all, Mr. Obama’s all but certain financial advantage in the campaign will be derived from donors of modest means — not wealthy vested interests.

Obama left the publicly funding election system for a system funded by the public. There are two chief complaints; that he said he would work with the Republican nominee to have a fairly funded fight and now he’s breaking his word, and that this sets a dangerous precedent. Obama has disingenuously claimed his reason for leaving is to level the playing field since history the Republican camp have used “527 groups” — third-party political groups that aren’t allowed to coordinate their efforts with the campaign, but are freed from all other financial limits. (The most famous being the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that ran a smear campaign against John Kerry in 2004 campaign.) The reality is that the Republicans haven’t really deployed any 527s this cycle, though they may, and the better and more honest reason would simply be that Obama would be foolish to turn down the likely hundreds of millions of dollars from small donors he’s likely to get.

In an ironic twist, John McCain who has been loudly complaining about Obama’s lack of ethics is actually violating federal election law during this primary season. He opted into the public system to guarantee a loan, then backed out of the public system without permission which is illegal. The Federal Election Commission is currently without enough members to vote on the matter, but the chairman (a Republican) has denounced McCain’s action and improper already.

So what does this all mean? Obama will campaign hard in more states than any other candidate ever has, and will campaign in every state in the union, which no one has ever done. He’ll do so in the faint shadow of his questionable reasoning, while McCain will continue to spend until the Republican National Convention money he is legally barred from spending. After the RNC, he’ll be limited to the $84m and whatever the independent 527s want to invest on their own advertising.

This also means that somewhere between $200m-$400m will be spent on the campaigning for this election, on top of the countless millions already spent. Ad into that what the various networks have spent on their staff, ad revenue, etc and we have an election cost escalating far beyond more countries’ GDP. The race of the president of the United States is certainly important, but that seems an obscene amount of money in light of the cheap costs dent poverty, disease or illiteracy around the world.

Image courtesy Jay D on Flickr.

From David Brooks at NY Times:

My first thought on the running mate question is that to balance his ticket, Barack Obama should pick a really old white general. Therefore, he should pick Dwight Eisenhower. John McCain, on the other hand, needs to pick someone younger than himself. Therefore, he also should pick Dwight Eisenhower.

Photo courtesy Smothers52 at Flickr.

McCain and Clinton both think the best way to help consumers with sharply rising gas costs is a break on the federal gas tax. There are a few profound problems with that terrible, terrible idea:

1. There’s no way to ensure the oil companies won’t just lower gas a few cents and pocket the rest of the difference as profits.
2. Decreased cost will increase demand, which will causes base costs to increase. So the costs would likely stay the exact same
3. The virtually no way to pass related legislation before the summer. Government is built to function slower than that.
4. The federal gas tax pays for road work, like bridge repair. Given our highway infastructure is in serious trouble, reducing that budget fund is a terrible idea. In fact, the budget has already been approved so the money would have to be raised somewhere. Most likely source: the public. Least likely source (and Clinton’s suggestion): the oil companies based on their enormous new profits, which I’m sure they could rely on clever accounting to hide.

John McCain:

I detest war. It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. The lives of a nation’s finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us.

America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model. How we behave at home affects how we are perceived abroad. We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundation of our society. We can’t torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured. I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.

John McCain delivered a speech on foreign policy in which he appeared to move back to his recently abandoned positions on torture, and delivered a weighty appraisal of the cost of war. His assessment of the cost of war makes he belief that we can “win” the war on terror, as it’s embodied in our was in Iraq, even stranger given we’ve clearly learned at this point that Iraq was not invested in global terror on any large scale as we were led to believe prior to our invasion.

Boat cat (alt), originally uploaded by Orcinus O.