McCain-Palin Campaign Conference Call On Joe Biden's International Crisis Statement

"This is an extraordinary statement by Senator Biden. I don't ever recall a vice-presidential candidate predicting that the election of their candidate for the President of the United States would invite forces in the world to test the mettle of the person elected. It has to mean that Joe Biden continues to harvest serious doubts about whether Barack Obama is prepared to be commander-in-chief as he famously announced a year ago." -- Rudy Giuliani

Today, McCain-Palin 2008 held a press conference call with Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Randy Scheunemann, McCain-Palin Foreign Policy Adviser to discuss Joe Biden's admission that Barack Obama's election will precipitate an international crisis:

Randy Scheunemann: "Senator Biden's comments that he made last night were very revealing. He said quote 'remember I said it standing here. If you don't remember anything else I'd said, watch. We're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.' 'This guy' apparently referring to Senator Obama.

"Senator Biden went on to say that they needed the support of the big donors he was addressing because quote 'it's not apparent that we're going to be right' closed quote in responding to this crisis. This statement is what Michael Kinsley once famously called a gaffe, 'a politician inadvertently speaking the truth.'

"Senator Biden talked about the test that a previous president, President John F. Kennedy, faced and that's an important subject to spend just a minute or two on. What Senator Kennedy did in his first year in office was enter into an ill-prepared summit meeting with the Soviet leader Khrushchev. A summit meeting that he said during the course of the campaign he would not have and his conduct in that meeting led Khrushchev to believe that President Kennedy was weak. He went on some weeks later to begin the construction of what became the Berlin Wall and ultimately led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"In foreign policy, it is weakness, real or perceived weakness, that is provocative. Weakness invites challenge, invites testing, invites attack. We've seen multiple examples of Senator Obama in the course of this campaign responding to international crises and none of his responses are reassuring. When the surge was first announced for Iraq, Senator Obama said that it would fail, predicted that it would increase violence, voted to cut off funding for our troops, which would have amounted to nothing more than a surrender to Al Qaida and Iranian-backed extremists.

"In the course of this campaign, Senator Obama has said he would meet in his first year in office unconditionally with tyrants from Ahmadinejad in Iran to Chavez in Venezuela to Kim Jung-Il in Korea. Senator Biden even criticized him for that position at the time. Those kinds of unconditional summit meetings, which Senator Obama promised, would undermine our allies, would undermine multilateral diplomacy, and it would undermine American interests.

"More recently, in August of this year when Russia invaded Georgia, Senator Obama called on Georgia to quote 'show restraint.' It took him three days to call for a Russian withdrawal. This kind of erratic behavior sends a signal of weakness and indecision to our allies.

"Senator Obama in the course of this campaign has said that he wants to rip up free trade agreements with our allies and he opposes new ones coming in to force because big labor doesn't like them.

"The next President of the United States will be tested. There are enemies of the United States that are awaiting the results of this election. John McCain has passed every test in his life. He's spent over two decades wearing the uniform of this country. He's spent over two decades traveling the world, learning the issues, getting to know the leaders, and taking very difficult positions. Senator Obama's chief claim to experience is leading in the front lines of community organizing and doing legal work with ACORN. As Joe Biden said, Senator Obama would invite testing and his responses would not be the right ones."

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Rudy Giuliani: "This is an extraordinary statement by Senator Biden. I don't ever recall a vice-presidential candidate predicting that the election of their candidate for the President of the United States would invite forces in the world to test the mettle of the person elected. It has to mean that Joe Biden continues to harvest serious doubts about whether Barack Obama is prepared to be commander-in-chief as he famously announced a year ago. And also, I would remind Senator Biden that it is not uniformly the case that the mettle of American presidents are tested. No one tested Eisenhower's mettle and no one tested Reagan's mettle.

"Senator McCain has the experience, the background, the predictability as to how he would handle the defense of the United States and the national interest of the United States. And none of us can predict, although Joe Biden apparently thinks he can, what's going to happen. But certainly, Senator McCain would not present that same risk that Joe Biden seems to be worried about. Senator McCain has a long history on all of these issues. Randy pointed out the reaction to Georgia of Senator Obama which was to take several positions, including creating a moral equivalency between Georgia and Russia, talking about going to the Security Council of the United Nations before he realized that Russia has a veto on the United Nations, before he settled on a position on Georgia. You know John McCain settled on a position on Georgia within a short time of finding out about it and didn't have to change it three or four times, and we could go through numerous examples like that.

"So, I don't exactly know what Joe Biden meant by this. I think all of you should question him about it, although Joe Biden is able to say things like this, and no one seems to question him. At least, no one in the media seems to question him. This is an extraordinary statement. He talked about it in very serious language, saying things like: Mark my words, we're going to have to 'gird our loins.' He seems to be predicting some very serious incident that's going to take place, and he also seems to think that the reaction is not going to be the right one because he's going to need everybody's support. It's again, an extraordinary statement.

"I don't know exactly what he has in mind, but I can logically figure out that the risk that he's talking about, America will not run with John McCain who has the experience, the background, and is prepared to be commander-in-chief, and he certainly is not going to invite anyone risking a test of John McCain. If somebody acts, they're going to act, and they're going to have to deal with John McCain's reaction in defense of the United States. But he is certainly not going to invite that kind of an attack the way Joe Biden is talking about here."

Listen To The Conference Call

Joe Biden Says Electing Barack Obama Guarantees An International Crisis

"It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." -- Joe Biden

"Biden to Supporters: 'Gird Your Loins', For the Next President 'It's Like Cleaning Augean Stables'"
By Matthew Jaffe
ABC News' Political Radar
October 20, 2008

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

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Read The Report

John McCain's Weekly Radio Address

DOWNLOAD THE AUDIO FILE HERE: http://www.johnmccain.com/downloads/101008_wra.mp3

John McCain's Weekly Radio Address:

Good morning. This is John McCain, speaking to you at the end of another week filled with troubling news about our economy. On Tuesday, Americans also had a chance to hear my opponent and me debate our very different plans to meet the crisis.

We've had two debates now, with a third coming this Wednesday night. And I can't shake the impression that Barack Obama is trying so hard to exploit America's financial crisis that he hasn't really focused on how to solve it. He keeps talking about the past, too -- although in a very selective way. He leaves out certain details, like the part about how he was taking campaign money from the same executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who were causing America's financial crisis.

At the time, I was the one who called for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place. Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in. But that doesn't prevent him from talking now as if he'd seen and warned about the coming crisis all along -- like some voice in the wilderness who went unheeded. Far from warning executives from Fannie and Freddie about their reckless conduct, he not only took their money but added them to his team as advisers.

As I said in Tuesday's debate, in this time of crisis we must go to the heart of the problem, and right now that problem is a housing crisis. Under my orders, as president, the Secretary of the Treasury will carry out a Homeownership Resurgence Plan.

It's a simple idea. Take some of the money that Congress has already committed to fixing our financial system and use it to give millions of homeowners a new mortgage and a fresh start. No default. No bankruptcy. No foreclosure. No deteriorating neighborhoods. The United States government will support the refinancing of distressed mortgages for homeowners and replace them with manageable mortgages.

It's critical that we stabilize mortgages, or else the housing market won't stabilize and homeowners across our country face troubles even greater than they face now. The housing market faces distortion by a glut of low-priced, foreclosed homes. And this would lead to a crash in the value of the number one asset of a majority of Americans. With so much on the line, the moment requires that government act -- and as president I intend to act, quickly and decisively.

As we help homeowners to avoid the worst, moreover, we must also act to protect investors -- especially those relying on their investments for retirement. Current rules mandate that investors must begin to sell off their IRAs and 401Ks when they reach 70 and one half. Those rules should be suspended, so that investors aren't forced to sell their stocks at just the time when the market is hurting the most.

The response from Senator Obama to my Homeownership Resurgence Plan was typical of his response to the entire crisis. First, Senator Obama tried to claim that it was really his idea. But if anyone believed that claim, they didn't believe it for long because the very next day Senator Obama and his campaign attacked my plan to stabilize mortgages. He claimed that the cost of the plan would place a burden to taxpayers -- this from the same guy who plans to increase federal spending by 860 billion dollars. In reality, the money will come from funds already committed under the rescue package passed by Congress. The funds aren't new, but the priorities will be when we put the financial strength of our government back on the side of working families.

My fellow Americans, Washington is on the wrong track, and even greater financial troubles lay ahead if we don't act quickly. The tax-and-spend policies of Barack Obama will only make matters worse. But if you give me the chance, I'm going to set it right. You don't have to hope that things will change when you vote for me. You know things will change, because I've been fighting for change in Washington my whole career. I've been fighting for you my whole life. That's what I'm going to do as President of the United States. Fight for you and put the government back on the side of the people.

Thanks for listening.