Tony Messenger, the Editorial Board Editor for the Springfield News-Leader, today said Senator Talent was the winner in Sunday morning’s debate on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Messenger wrote: “But there must be winners and losers in politics, and, so, if forced to decide on the winner of the debate, I'd say Talent. Why? I don't think McCaskill effectively countered his “position of weakness” argument concerning her views on the war in Iraq.”
Mr. Messenger was referring to Senator Talent’s point that McCaskill has “positions in the War on Terror that are comprehensively positions of weakness.”
Senator Talent stated: “[McCaskill] opposes a terrorist surveillance policy that goes back to the Carter administration; she supported the Hamdan decision, which put a stop, at least temporarily, to our interrogation of captured terrorists abroad. And we had CIA agents buying liability insurance policy because they were afraid of being sued. She supports the release of classified information by The New York Times. She said, “Well, it’s OK because the terrorists knew about it anyway.” Well, I mean, you can’t do that with classified information. And she supports an artificial withdrawal, withdrawal date from Iraq, which is like sending notice to the terrorists that we’re going to quit. I mean, weakness is something we cannot show in dealing with the terrorists. It invites attacks, it encourages them to be even more relentless in coming after us.”
When McCaskill attempted to change her position against the terrorist surveillance program, by saying she supports it, “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert shot back: “But you came out against the president’s eavesdropping program.”
This debate demonstrated once again that Senator Talent is the only candidate for U.S. Senate who supports the terrorist surveillance program and that Claire McCaskill has taken positions in the War on Terror that are comprehensively positions of weakness.
Click here to read Tony Messenger’s blog.
Click here to read the transcript of the debate.
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