Perot Blasts McCain...

[trickblue]

Link

When Ross Perot Calls…
The former presidential candidate blasts John McCain, and gets an education about Barack Obama's religion.

The phone rang and it was Ross Perot, who hasn't given an interview in years. Perot, who won 19 percent of the vote in the 1992 presidential election, making him one of the strongest third-party candidates in American history, got straight to the point.

"Remember what you wrote about John McCain in the March 13, 2000, NEWSWEEK?"

"Sure," I lied.

"When McCain called Perot 'nuttier than a fruitcake'?"

The Texas billionaire, now 77, still has some scores to settle from the Vietnam era, and his timing is exquisite. Just days before the South Carolina GOP primary, he wants me to know that McCain "is the classic opportunist--he's always reaching for attention and glory. Other POWs won't even sit at the same table with him."

Mark Salter, McCain's longtime top aide, says the Arizona senator has plenty of veteran support and many close friendships among other former POWs.

The Perot-McCain relationship goes back to McCain's five and a half years of captivity in Hanoi. When McCain's then-wife Carol was in a serious car accident, McCain's mother called Perot for help. "She asked me to send my people to Philadelphia to take care of the family," Perot says. Afterwards, McCain was grateful. "We loved him [Perot] for it," McCain told me in 2000.

Perot doesn't remember it that way. "After he came home, he walked with a limp, she [Carol McCain] walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona [Cindy McCain, his current wife] and the rest is history."

Perot's real problem with McCain is that he believes the senator hushed up evidence that live POWs were left behind in Vietnam and even transferred to the Soviet Union for human experimentation, a charge Perot says he heard from a senior Vietnamese official in the 1980s. "There's evidence, evidence, evidence," Perot claims. "McCain was adamant about shutting down anything to do with recovering POWs."

Not surprisingly, McCain sees it differently. He has told me several times over the years that the myth of live POWs was a cruel hoax on the families. He chaired hearings into the issue in the 1990s and found nothing. "The committee did an exhaustive job and pored over thousands of records and every claim of a sighting, no matter how outlandish," says Salter. "It was all untrue."

Perot says he intends to vote for Mitt Romney in the Texas Republican primary on March 4, citing Romney's experience in business and his family values. "When I went to the Naval Academy and met my first Mormons I asked why so many were excellent officers," Perot recalls. "I learned it was because of their strong family unit."

When I asked about Barack Obama, Perot said he admired his eloquence but thought it "a little odd that we would be less concerned about his background than being a Mormon." Perot was pleasantly surprised when I told him that Obama was a Christian, not a Muslim, and relieved when I informed him that the e-mail Perot (and untold others) received about Obama not respecting the Pledge of Allegiance was a fraud.

Perot isn't a Hillary hater, but he's not a fan either, relating the bumper sticker he received that reads: "Monica Lewinsky's Ex-Boyfriend's Wife for President."

The founder of a data-processing empire is still sharp in diagnosing what ails the United States. "The situation in 1992 was not nearly as bad as it is now," he says. "If ever there was a time when it was necessary to put our house in order, it's now.

"It's like having cancer and being in denial. The conduct of the House and Senate is an embarrassment to the nation." President Bush, Perot says, is a "decent person, but you can't say the same thing about the people around him."

Perot is appalled at the specter of big banks having to borrow from foreigners to stay afloat: "We have to go around the world with a tambourine and a tin cup."

He attributes the success of China to the fact that even uneducated Chinese must learn 3,000 characters early in life, compared to the 26 letters in the English alphabet. "Their hand-eye productivity is incredible because of drawing the symbols," Perot says, noting that most of today's Ph.D.s in engineering are from China and India, and only a small percentage from the United States.

Perot offers no easy solutions, instead emphasizing "a strong moral and ethical base, strong homes and the finest schools." He says he's disappointed that big textbook companies successfully lobbied in the Texas state legislature to reverse his landmark school reforms.

The pint-size Texan with the funny voice and the big ears isn't planning to run for president again, but says he will launch a Web site next month with plenty of the charts and graphs he made famous when explaining the deficit in 1992.

Before hanging up, Perot asked me to read the books he recommended on live POWs. I promised him I would.

© 2008 Newsweek, Inc.

[PosterChild]

I swear I was about to post this...cntr+v....=

When Ross Perot Calls…

[PosterChild]

BTW Perot is dead on in the second half of the article. I don't know enough of the history to judge the veracity of the McCain accusations but I have met Perot and found him the most genuine and surprising down to earth high profile person I've ever encountered. (Okay there hasn't been that many)

In retrospect some of his predictions sure don't seem so bizarre now.

[Danny White]

Perot certainly isn't the only person who's less than thrilled with McCain on POW issues.

Also, undeniably, he treated his first wife very poorly. Whether or not you think that's relevant to the Presidential election is up to you.

Perot's a good guy. Very well-meaning and has used his money to do a lot of good... especially on the POW issue. But he is a little quirky, no doubt.

[CanadianCowboysFan]

There is just something creepy about McCain, don't know what it is, maybe it's the way his ears are flat against his head.

[trickblue]

Originally Posted by CanadianCowboysFan

There is just something creepy about McCain, don't know what it is, maybe it's the way his ears are flat against his head.

Exactly... he is creepy and self-serving...

Straight-Faux Express...

[PosterChild]

Originally Posted by CanadianCowboysFan

There is just something creepy about McCain, don't know what it is, maybe it's the way his ears are flat against his head.

It's not just you, he's a loon and he will be goaded into meltdown moment soon enough. Just in case anyone is unsure whether to vote for him or not.

[arglebargle]

Perot's a weird combo of whacko and business geek. I admired his approach to his election run, but not him personally. He doesn't appear to be very well informed about the present campaign, if his ignorance on Obama is any example.

The POW/MIA thing was a Nixonian campaign trick became an ideological and emotional movement. At a certain point it became divorced from the reality of the situation. There have been no POWs for decades, just as McCain's investigations recount. But it had became a useful political tool, so it kept being fed.

I liked McCain a lot better as the maverick independant. Like Romney though, he's decided to change his spots to appeal to the hardcore elements of his party. To get that nomination.

[joseephuss]

When I think of H. Ross Perot, which is often, I think of that mini-series "On Wings of Eagles" about Perot's involvement in the Iranian hostage situation. It makes me laugh because Richard Crenna portrayed Perot. Crenna is 6'-1" and handsome if you are into that kind of thing.. While Perot is 5'-6" and about as goofy looking as goofy gets.

I remember when I saw parts of that mini-series(I did not see all of it) that I was confused because I could not figure out who Crenna was supposed to be even though they kept saying his name. Every other character was sucking up to the Perot character as if he were a superhero. It was comical.

Not that any of that has anything to do with this thread. Just random thoughts stuck in my head.

[trickblue]

Originally Posted by arglebargle

I liked McCain a lot better as the maverick independant. Like Romney though, he's decided to change his spots to appeal to the hardcore elements of his party. To get that nomination.

Wow... I don't see him that way at all...

[Doomsday101]

I hope Ross did not pull out his charts to show what is wrong with McCain.

[PosterChild]

"Ross Perot was fiercely against NAFTA. Knowing what we know now, was Ross Perot right?"


That's what CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Hillary Clinton at last week's Democratic presidential debate. It was a straightforward query about a Clinton administration trade policy that polls show the public now hates, and it was appropriately directed to a candidate who has previously praised NAFTA.


In response, Clinton stumbled. First she laughed at Perot, then she joked that "all I can remember from that is a bunch of charts," and then she claimed the whole NAFTA debate "is a vague memory." The behavior showed how politically tone deaf some Democratic leaders are.
To refresh Clinton's "vague memory," let's recall that Perot's anti-NAFTA presidential campaign in 1992 won 19 percent of the presidential vote — the highest total for any third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. That included huge tallies in closely divided regions like the Rocky Mountain West, which Democrats say they need to win in the upcoming election.
A Democrat laughing at Perot on national television is a big mistake. Simply put, it risks alienating the roughly 20 million people who cast their votes for the Texas businessman.


But Clinton's flippant comments and feigned memory lapse about NAFTA were the bigger mistakes in that they insulted the millions of Americans (Perot voters or otherwise) harmed by the trade pact. These are people who have seen their jobs outsourced and paychecks slashed thanks to a trade policy forcing them into a wage-cutting war with oppressed foreign workers.


Why is Clinton desperate to avoid discussing NAFTA? Because she and other congressional Democrats are currently pushing a Peru Free Trade Agreement at the behest of their corporate campaign contributors — an agreement expanding the unpopular NAFTA model. When pressed, Clinton claims she is for a "timeout" from such trade deals — but, as her husband might say, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is, since she simultaneously supports the NAFTA expansion.


Of course, this deviousness is precisely why it is worth asking about Perot's predictions: to make sure America has an informed and honest discussion about impending new trade policies before they are enacted.
And so without further ado, let's answer the question Clinton ducked: Was Ross Perot right?


In 1993, the Clinton White House and an army of corporate lobbyists were selling NAFTA as a way to aid Mexican and American workers. <a onClick="return adgo(49,5541,this.href);" href="http://harvest.AdGardener.com/noscript.aspx?s=51&c=0db11dde-25b4-43de-9f0d-0b56f427e74b" target="_blank"><img src="http://harvest.AdGardener.com/noscript.aspx?s=51&w=300&h=250&c=0db11 dde-25b4-43de-9f0d-0b56f427e74b" width="300" height="250" border="0" /></a> Perot, on the other hand, was predicting that because the deal included no basic labor standards, it would preserve a huge "wage differential between the United States and Mexico" that would result in "the giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading south of the border. Corporations, he said, would "close the factories in the U.S. [and] move the factories to Mexico [to] take advantage of the cheap labor."


The historical record is clear. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports, "Real wages for most Mexicans today are lower than when NAFTA took effect." Post-NAFTA, companies looking to exploit those low wages relocated factories to Mexico. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the net effect of NAFTA was the elimination of 1 million American jobs.
Score one for Perot.
What about immigration? In 1993, the Clinton administration pitched NAFTA as "the best hope for reducing illegal immigration." Perot, by contrast, said that after NAFTA depressed Mexican wages, many Mexicans "out of economic necessity" would "consider illegally immigrating into the U.S."
"In short," he wrote, "NAFTA has the potential to increase illegal immigration, not decrease it."


Again, the historical record tells the story. As NAFTA helped drive millions of Mexicans into poverty, The New York Times reports that "Mexican migration to the United States has risen to 500,000 a year from less than 400,000 in the early 1990s, before NAFTA," with a huge chunk of that increase coming from illegal immigration.
Score another one for Perot.


Clinton may continue to laugh at Perot and plead amnesia when asked about trade policy. And sure, she and her fellow Democrats in Washington can expand NAFTA and ignore the public's desire for reform. But these politicians shouldn't be surprised if that one other Perot prediction comes true again — the one accurately predicting that Democrats would lose the next national election if they sold America out and passed NAFTA.
Foreshadowing that historic Democratic loss in 1994, he warned, "We'll remember in November."


Yes, indeed, Ross. America probably will.
David Sirota is the bestselling author of "Hostile Takeover" (Crown, 2006). He is a senior fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network — both nonpartisan research organizations. His daily blog can be found at www.credoaction.com/sirota. To find out more about David Sirota and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.




http://www.creators.com/opinion/davi...rot-right.html



People can poke fun at Perot all they wish but the record is clear on this issue.

[joseephuss]

The focus of that article was on democrats and in particular Clinton and NAFTA. I think it is more bi-partisan than that. This new super duper highway that is in the works is being pushed by republicans in Texas and seems to be along the same lines and goals of NAFTA.

[PosterChild]

Originally Posted by joseephuss

The focus of that article was on democrats and in particular Clinton and NAFTA. I think it is more bi-partisan than that. This new super duper highway that is in the works is being pushed by republicans in Texas and seems to be along the same lines and goals of NAFTA.

You're not referring to Gov Goodhair as a Republican are you?

[joseephuss]

Originally Posted by PosterChild

You're not referring to Gov Goodhair as a Republican are you?

That is how he refers to himself. Same with W. They are not traditional republicans or conservatives, but that is how they run.