Obama: "I actually knew that Alaska was right next to Russia . . . I saw it on a map."

bigtree

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Sun Sep-07-08 10:45 PM
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Obama: "I actually knew that Alaska was right next to Russia . . . I saw it on a map."

Edited on Sun Sep-07-08 10:49 PM by bigtree

September 7, 2008

"I actually knew that Alaska was right next to Russia as well," Obama said with a laugh, responding to Republican claims that Palin is more experienced than he is on foreign policy (because of some unknown authority she supposedly exercised over the Alaska National Guard).

"I saw it on a map," he said. And he threw a slightly more indirect jab by bringing up the experience of his own vice presidential nominee. "As somebody who's served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and passed legislation on issues like nuclear proliferation -- and somebody who selected Joe Biden as vice president, who is chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- I'm going to be happy to have a substantive debate with John McCain about foreign policy," Obama said.

"The strange question is why John McCain insists on continuing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory," Senator Obama said.

Dismissing the McCain camp's focus on the 2007 troop surge in Iraq and how it had helped reduce violence, Obama said McCain's support to the misadventure was tantamount to giving a "blank check to George Bush".

"If the question is, what was the judgement to be made at the time the surge was put forward -- my choice, and John McCain's choice was, are we going to continue to give an open-ended, blank check to George Bush, without any strategy for political reconciliation?" Obama said.

"My whole premise has always been that it was a distraction for us to go into Iraq," he added.

read: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Obama_challenges_McCain_to_debate_foreign_policy_with_him_/articleshow/3456082.cms

Sen. Barack Obama said he was "puzzled" when Gov. Sarah Palin scoffed at his early career as a community organizer . . .

"It's curious to me that they would mock that, when I, at least, think that that's exactly what young people should be doing," the Democratic presidential nominee said.

Obama said he "worked with churches, who were dealing with steel plants that had closed in their neighborhoods, to set up job training programs for the unemployed and after-school programs for youth, and to try to deal with asbestos in homes with poor people -- community service work -- which John McCain has been talking about, putting country first and extolling the virtues of national service.

"I would think that's what we want all our young people to do. I would think that that's an area where Democrats and Republicans would agree," Obama said.

"For folks who suddenly have tried to grab the change banner, you know, they've got a very traditional view of what service means," Obama said. "You know, it means, running for office and being a politician, I guess. Or serving in the military. I mean, those are the two options that I think they've talked about.

"I think there are a whole lot of people, young people in particular, who are teaching in under-served schools or working in a hospital in need, you know, volunteering for their community, that think that's part of the change that we need."

read: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5746322&page=1

Obama's 'This Week' Interview:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5745201