Major Garrett reports on the Democratic race on the day of the W.Va primary, Carl is in North Bend, Wa and follows McCain’s second day of the  “global climate change” tour.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

Major is in West Virginia following the Dem’s race on the eve of the primary there and Carl is in Portland, Oregon as McCain unveils his plan to tackle Global Climate Change.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

Portland, Oregan:

Today, John McCain stakes out the greenest position of any Republican presidential candidate in decades. He’ll visit a wind turbine manufacturer in Portland, Oregon… and put his money where his mouth is with a new ad signaling a new direction on the environment for his party.

“I believe that climate change is real. It’s not just a greenhouse gas issue. It’s a national security issue. We have an obligation to future generations to take action and fix it.”

McCain’s climate change ad highlights his courtship of independents & moderates. He chastises the far left for overreacting to the problem & the far right for being too dismissive of it.

“One extreme thinks high taxes and crippling regulation is the solution. Another denies the problem even exists. There’s a better way.”

In his prepared remarks the Republican party’s fall standard-bearer pronounces the debate over the existence of global warming and mankind’s responsibility…over!

“We know that greenhouse gasses are heavily implicated as a cause of climate change. And we know that among all greenhouse gasses, the worst by far is the carbon-dioxide that results from fossil-fuel combustion.”

In an interview with Fox News he said that it is better to accept that climate change exists and take steps to address it:

McCain will lay out specific goals for reducing greenhouse gasses -with a cap & trade program. Industries would be given emission targets (caps.) If they produce less than the targets, they could sell (trade) their surplus polluting capacity to those industries and firms unable to meet their targets.

“By the year 2012, we will seek a return to 2005 levels of emission, by 2020, a return to 1990 levels, and so on until we have achieved at least a reduction of sixty percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. “

McCain will criticize former President Bill Clinton and current President George W Bush for failing to broker an international climate change agreement years ago.

“I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach – an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation.”

He specifically hits China and India, two leading polluters for not doing their part.

“No nation should be exempted from its obligations. And least of all should we make exceptions for the very countries that are accelerating carbon emissions while the rest of us seek to reduce emissions.”

But McCain promises to move the U.S. forward with or without others.

“If the efforts to negotiate an international solution that includes China and India do not succeed, we still have an obligation to act.”

Though the GOP has been turning greener in recent years and President Bush acknowledged man’s role in climate change years ago, skeptics of global climate change remain. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, last year said:

“the man-made global warming fear machine crossed the ‘tipping point’ in 2007. I am convinced that future climate historians will look back at 2007 as the year the global warming fears began crumbling. The situation we are in now is very similar to where we were in the late 1970’s when coming ice age fears began to dismantle. We are currently witnessing an international awakening of scientists who are speaking out in opposition to former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, the Hollywood elitists and the media-driven ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming.”

[source: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “INHOFE FLOOR SPEECH ON GLOBAL WARMING: 2007 - GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM REACHES A TIPPING POINT,” October 26, 2007

McCain has his work cut out for him.

Hillary Clinton vows to stay in the race even as political pundits call it all but over. Major takes a look at that story but first Carl sat down with Col. Bud Day and talked about his time sharing a cell with Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

Fort Walton Beach, Florida

Like John McCain, Col. George E. “Bud” Day spent over 5 yrs in Vietnamese POW camps. Day and John McCain were cell-mates for about 2 and a half years. Day is a legendary military hero with more medals and ribbons than anyone since General Douglas MacArthur.

John McCain seldom discusses a defining aspect of his life: being a POW.
Colonel George E. “Bud” Day is the most decorated service man since General Douglas MacArthur.
Day has been awarded the Medal of Honor, Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Hearts, in fact, more than 70 medals and awards. He calls John McCain a hero, and thinks voters deserve to know more about his Hanoi Hilton cell mate.

alt=”Carl Cameron Interviews Bud Day” width=”300″ height=”270″ /> Col. Day, went under the call sign “Misty.” He was the first jet pilot to fly into North Vietnam and after more than 175 sorties he was shot down in August of ‘67, exactly 2 months before McCain was.
McCain, a man whose father and grandfather were renowned Admirals, was a prized propaganda prisoner for the enemy. The Colonel says their captors called McCain “the Prince.”
McCain was more than half dead when Day first laid eyes on his fellow POW.

“I took one look at him and my brain instantly said they dropped this guy off on me to claim that we let him die. He was just emaciated, very, very skinny, in this awful body cast.”

The colonel and John McCain were cell-mates in that tiny cell for two of their more than 5 yrs of torture in captivity. Day’s broken arm was re-broken during torture and healed in such a way he would not be able to fly again. McCain, broken and injured himself, helped his fellow cell-mates rehabilitate their ravaged bodies.

“so I got some strips of bamboo, smuggled em into the room, John put his foot in my arm pit and pulled on my wrist until we could get the bone forced back down.”

McCain himself today continues to suffer the injuries of torture. He still cannot raise his arms above his shoulders. But he does not like to talk about his time as a prisoner of war.

“he just doesn’t trade on that. I think he feels that it’s wrong to trade on being a hero, but he is.”

Check back here for Carl Cameron’s interview with Col. Bud Day and tonight on Special Report with Brit Hume we will have the complete story.

Major follows up one day after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries where Obama had a better than expected finish.  First James Rosen reports on John McCain’s attempt to address those that say he is out of touch.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

John McCain talks Judicial appointments on the day of North Carolina and Indiana’s primaries.  Carl follows that story and Major Garrett previews expectations for the democrats on the day of two more important primaries.

from www.hulu.com posted with vodpod

Wake Forest, NC:

On a stunning spring day on the campaign trail in North Carolina, I chatted up Fred Thompson who was on the stump for the first time since dropping out, campaigning for John Mccain. McCain was giving a speech at Wake Forest University on judicial conservatism (see earlier post.)
When I asked Thompson if he experienced any ‘crash’ or difficulty readjusting to the pace of a slowed down normal life after his campaign, he paused, grinned and with a twinkle in his eye said:

“That’s one of the advantages of the way I campaigned”

He winked and joked that you don’t have to make that many adjustments.

I laughed out loud, and reminded Thompson that he and I have history together with him dissing his own candidacy in front of an open mike, he laughed and barked amiably:

“Who cares?”

Back before the NH primary as Thompson and I waited for FNC to take our interview live after his remarks to the famed “Politics and Eggs” breakfast, I joked to the producers that we were keeping the ‘next president’ waiting too long and we should go live quickly.

Thompson quipped for all to hear that HE too had a busy schedule.

Reporters took it as proof that Thompson was not a serious candidate.

In fact, Thompson both then, and again today, was attempting a self deprecating joke. It’s funny in all sorts of ways.

John McCain came to Wake Forest University in North Carolina hoping to grab a headline during Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s protracted duel. He tried to gain the upper hand on a key presidential issue: The picking of federal judges, 3 Supreme Court justices are over 70 years old and hundreds of positions are open for federal judges. The next president will likely have the ability to shape the bench.

“Senators Obama and Clinton have very different ideas from my own. They are both lawyers themselves, and don’t seem to mind at all when fundamental questions of social policy are preemptively decided by judges instead of by the people and their elected representatives”

McCain will reaasure conservatives he’ll appoint strict constructionist judges who, as he says, will apply the constitution rather than create new law in their courts.

“My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power.”

Though McCain helped get Chief Justice John Roberts & Justice Samuel Alito (both conservative!) confirmed, some Republicans didn’t like that he led a gang of 14 moderates to broker the deal.
He calls Roberts and Alito models for the kind of judges he’d nominate, and rips Clinton and Obama for having voted against both!

“Somehow, by Senator Obama’s standard, even Judge Roberts didn’t measure up. And neither did Justice Samuel Alito. Apparently, nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers, and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it — and they see it only in each other.”

While McCain expresses respect for the federal bench, his disdain for activist judges for being arrogant and dangerous is most pointed.

“Some federal judges operate by fiat, shrugging off generations of legal wisdom and precedent while expecting their own opinions to go unquestioned. Only their favorite precedents are to be considered “settled law,” and everything else is fair game.”

The next president could see as many as three (Stevens, Kennedy. Ginsburg) Supreme Court seats open up.

Though abortion politics can dominate such debates, McCain makes no mention of it in his prepared remarks. Like most Republicans, and unlike most Democrats, he has long promised he won’t have any abortion litmus test. He challenges Democrats to stop making confirmation hearings a partisan game of obstructionism and gotcha.

“Always hanging in the air over these tense confirmation battles is the suspicion that maybe, just maybe, a nominee for the Court will dare to be faithful to the clear intentions of the framers and to the actual meaning of the Constitution, and then no tactic of abuse or delay is out of bounds.”

Fred Thompson makes his first appearance on the trail with McCain since Thompson dropped out of the race. Thompson served as sherpa to both Roberts and Alito during their confirmation hearings, accompanying both men around the Hill as they courted senate confirmation votes.

Thompson has ruled out being both Vice President and Attorney General in a McCain administration.