Candidates spar at Ole Miss debate RAW STORY

Published: Friday September 26, 2008





Print This Email This The two presidential hopefuls locked horns in their first debate Friday night at the University of Mississippi.



Hosted by Jim Lehrer of PBS, the first questions had Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama approving of the recent financial bailout while offering several caveats.







Asked directly whether he intends to vote for it in Congress, McCain said, "I hope so."



"We haven't seen the language yet," Obama said. "I do think there is constructive work being done."



Pressed by Lehrer to answer questions on how they would change their plans for the presidency in the wake of Wall Street's meltdown, the candidates agreed the $700 billion price tag of the bailout would limit their agendas.



Then then turned the blame toward one another.



Obama said the crisis was a result of failed Republican economic policies backed by McCain, citing McCain's voting record as agreeing with the Bush administration more than 90 percent of the time.



"This is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies -- promoted by George Bush, supported by Sen. McCain," Obama said, "a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down."



McCain said he would freeze federal spending on almost everything but defense and veteran's care. He then accused Obama of being a earmark-supporting liberal who couldn't unite the parties.



"Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate," McCain said. "It's hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left."



On the topic of the war in Iraq, Obama talked of lessons learned in Iraq, and making sure that our troops were used wisely.



"And I wish I had been wrong for the sake of the country and they had been right, but that's not the case. We've spent over $600 billion so far, soon to be $1 trillion. We have lost over 4,000 lives. We have seen 30,000 wounded, and most importantly, from a strategic national security perspective, al Qaeda is resurgent, stronger now than at any time since 2001.



We took our eye off the ball. And not to mention that we are still spending $10 billion a month, when they have a $79 billion surplus, at a time when we are in great distress here at home, and we just talked about the fact that our budget is way overstretched and we are borrowing money from overseas to try to finance just some of the basic functions of our government.



So I think the lesson to be drawn is that we should never hesitate to use military force, and I will not, as president, in order to keep the American people safe. But we have to use our military wisely. And we did not use our military wisely in Iraq, said Obama.



McCain refused to say one way or another whether the decision to invade was a mistake.



"I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict. Our initial military success, we went in to Baghdad and everybody celebrated. And then the war was very badly mishandled. I went to Iraq in 2003 and came back and said, we've got to change this strategy. This strategy requires additional troops, it requires a fundamental change in strategy and I fought for it. And finally, we came up with a great general and a strategy that has succeeded," said McCain.



McCain went further to say "The next president of the United States is not going to have to address the issue as to whether we went into Iraq or not. The next president of the United States is going to have to decide how we leave, when we leave, and what we leave behind. That's the decision of the next president of the United States."



The McCain campaign nearly postponed the debate after McCain said he was needed in Washington to deal with the financial crisis.



Early Friday morning, McCain reversed his position and again agreed to the debates.



Three-quarters of U.S. voters wanted the first presidential debate to go ahead despite the economic crisis, with six in 10 people expecting Obama to win the debates, Agence France Presse reported.



The full transcript of the debate is available online at CNN.



This video is from CNN's Situation Room, broadcast September 26, 2008.









Download video via RawReplay.com







