Give me Beer
09-19-2008, 04:13 AM
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/18/mccain_slights_spanish_prime_m.html#more
Republican presidential nominee John McCain suggested this week that he would continue President Bush's policy of having cool relations with the government of Spain, despite having made starkly contrasting statements to the Spanish press earlier this year saying he looked forward to normalized relations with the NATO ally.
In comments that have caused a kerfuffle in Spain, McCain seemed to lump Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in the same category as the anti-American leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. McCain's remarks came during in an English-language interview with Radio Caracol WSUA 1260AM in Miami, part of the Spanish-language radio group Union Radio, conducted Tuesday.
President Bush has never forgiven Zapatero for pulling troops out of Iraq shortly after his victory in 2004. Though the Spanish prime minister has tried repeatedly to rebuild relations and win an invitation to visit Washington, Bush has yet to hold a formal bilateral meeting with him.
Zapatero is a center-left politician, but McCain has suggested that as president he would seek to repair relations that have been badly frayed in Europe during Bush's tenure. In an early-April interview with a reporter from Spanish newspaper El Pais, McCain said, "This is the moment to leave behind discrepancies with Spain."
He added: "I would like for [President Zapatero] to visit the United States. I am very interested not only in normalizing relations with Spain but in obtaining good and productive relations with the goal of addressing many issues and challenges that we have to confront together."
The reporter for the Miami radio station seemed surprised that McCain, after discussing anti-American antagonists in Latin South America, acted so coolly to the idea of meeting with Zapatero.
"I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion," McCain said, throwing in words of praise for the Mexican government.
The reporter asked a second time: "Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government?"
McCain repeated his talking point: "I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America."
The reporter pressed again, and McCain replied: "I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not."
At this point, the reporter sought to clarify that McCain was not mixing up South America with Europe.
"I'm talking about the president of Spain," she noted.
Given this fourth opportunity to extend an olive branch, McCain stuck to his guns: "I'm willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom and I will stand up to those who are not."
That McCain would lump Zapatero in with such Latin American bad guys as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez comes as a surprise, because Zapatero and Juan Carlos, the King of Spain, were the protagonists in one of the most public anti-Chavez moments in the Spanish-speaking world.
At an Ibero-American summit meeting earlier this year in Chile, Chavez was complaining about Zapatero's conservative predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, who was close to Bush and sent Spanish troops to Iraq. Zapatero challenged him in a polite and gentlemanly manner, but Chavez kept at it, until the exasperated king jumped in and said to Chavez ,"Why don't you just shut up?"
The confrontation resulted in mega-headlines around the Spanish-speaking world and pitted Chavez, Castro and others against the Spaniards.
So, was McCain purposely trying to diss the Spanish leader? Questions about whether McCain forgot which country Zapatero leads, got confused about Spain's geographic relationship to Latin America, or confused Zapatero with the Zapatista rebels from Mexico have exploded on blogs since reports of the interview first surfaced.
McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Sheunemann said McCain's answer was intentional.
"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail.
In the El Pais interview, McCain had also said, according to an English translation of the Spanish translation of his remarks (which is admittedly not exact), "We have to understand that there are things that happen during election campaigns, things that are said, decisions that are made in certain political circumstances, and we have to understand also that there can be coincidences and discrepancies."
He added: "But I think this is the moment to leave behind those things... and to look forward with the perspective that we have many more values and goals that unite us than differences that divide us."
And also: "I believe it is to our benefit, that of the United States, as well as to the benefit of the government and the people of Spain, to continue the level of close relations that we have maintained for many years."
Asked to explain McCain's apparent shift in tone and position since April, Scheunemann gave almost no ground.
"In this week's interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally," he said in an e-mail. "If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America's adversaries. It's called keeping your options open, unlike Senator Obama, who has publicly committed to meeting some of the world's worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office."
Neither Obama nor Biden took up the issue of McCain's remarks about Zapatero Thursday. But Tony Blinken, a longtime foreign policy aide to Sen. Joe Biden who is now on his campaign staff, said in a phone call on Thursday evening that it was unfortunate that McCain would "preemptively poison the well" with a NATO ally.
Worse still, Blinken said, would be if the McCain campaign were adopting a new, hardline policy toward Spain just to cover up a gaffe.
Radio Caracol is part of the Union Radio station group that is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate Groupo Prisa, which also owns El Pais.
"The reason we asked the question about Spain is that we're owned by this big company in Spain. They wanted us to ask that question in the interview," explained Radio Caracol news director Madelin Prendes, reached by telephone this morning.
Yoly Cuello, the reporter who interviewed McCain, said she repeatedly asked McCain about Spain because "he didn't want to answer my question."
"I think he was just trying not to answer the question, I think he understood" who Zaptero is and where he's from, Cuello said. She conducted the phone interview on Tuesday when McCain was campaigning in Miami and it aired Wednesday on Union Radio's 74 Spanish-language radio affiliates nationwide and on its stations in Colombia, Mexico and Spain.
Cuello said she cannot believe the attention her interview has earned, noting that she's heard almost nothing about it from her listeners in Miami.
"People here are worried about lots of things, the economy, immigration. Not about Spain."
Interview:
QUESTION: Senator, finally, let's talk about Spain. If you're elected president, would you be willing to invite President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?
MCCAIN: I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. I intend to move forward with relations, and invite as many of them as I can, those leaders, to the White House.
QUESTION: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the president itself?
MCCAIN: I don't, you know, honestly I have to look at relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.
QUESTION: So you have to wait and see if he's willing to meet with you, or you'll be able to do it in the White House?
MCCAIN: Well again I don't, all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region.
QUESTION: Okay... what about Europe?
MCCAIN: What about me what?
QUESTION: Okay... are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?
MCCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those that do not.
Either McCain is mixing Spain up with Bolivia and Venezuela (which makes me question the extent of his 'foreign policy experience') or he's going to continue the Bush administration line of 'bully countries that don't agree with you 100% even though they are your ally, democracies and part of NATO'.
Scary.
Also, according to some people, when the reporter said:
"I'm talking about the president of Spain." McCain responded with "What about me?"
Maybe he just needs a hearing aid? :0
Republican presidential nominee John McCain suggested this week that he would continue President Bush's policy of having cool relations with the government of Spain, despite having made starkly contrasting statements to the Spanish press earlier this year saying he looked forward to normalized relations with the NATO ally.
In comments that have caused a kerfuffle in Spain, McCain seemed to lump Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in the same category as the anti-American leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. McCain's remarks came during in an English-language interview with Radio Caracol WSUA 1260AM in Miami, part of the Spanish-language radio group Union Radio, conducted Tuesday.
President Bush has never forgiven Zapatero for pulling troops out of Iraq shortly after his victory in 2004. Though the Spanish prime minister has tried repeatedly to rebuild relations and win an invitation to visit Washington, Bush has yet to hold a formal bilateral meeting with him.
Zapatero is a center-left politician, but McCain has suggested that as president he would seek to repair relations that have been badly frayed in Europe during Bush's tenure. In an early-April interview with a reporter from Spanish newspaper El Pais, McCain said, "This is the moment to leave behind discrepancies with Spain."
He added: "I would like for [President Zapatero] to visit the United States. I am very interested not only in normalizing relations with Spain but in obtaining good and productive relations with the goal of addressing many issues and challenges that we have to confront together."
The reporter for the Miami radio station seemed surprised that McCain, after discussing anti-American antagonists in Latin South America, acted so coolly to the idea of meeting with Zapatero.
"I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion," McCain said, throwing in words of praise for the Mexican government.
The reporter asked a second time: "Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government?"
McCain repeated his talking point: "I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America."
The reporter pressed again, and McCain replied: "I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not."
At this point, the reporter sought to clarify that McCain was not mixing up South America with Europe.
"I'm talking about the president of Spain," she noted.
Given this fourth opportunity to extend an olive branch, McCain stuck to his guns: "I'm willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom and I will stand up to those who are not."
That McCain would lump Zapatero in with such Latin American bad guys as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez comes as a surprise, because Zapatero and Juan Carlos, the King of Spain, were the protagonists in one of the most public anti-Chavez moments in the Spanish-speaking world.
At an Ibero-American summit meeting earlier this year in Chile, Chavez was complaining about Zapatero's conservative predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, who was close to Bush and sent Spanish troops to Iraq. Zapatero challenged him in a polite and gentlemanly manner, but Chavez kept at it, until the exasperated king jumped in and said to Chavez ,"Why don't you just shut up?"
The confrontation resulted in mega-headlines around the Spanish-speaking world and pitted Chavez, Castro and others against the Spaniards.
So, was McCain purposely trying to diss the Spanish leader? Questions about whether McCain forgot which country Zapatero leads, got confused about Spain's geographic relationship to Latin America, or confused Zapatero with the Zapatista rebels from Mexico have exploded on blogs since reports of the interview first surfaced.
McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Sheunemann said McCain's answer was intentional.
"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail.
In the El Pais interview, McCain had also said, according to an English translation of the Spanish translation of his remarks (which is admittedly not exact), "We have to understand that there are things that happen during election campaigns, things that are said, decisions that are made in certain political circumstances, and we have to understand also that there can be coincidences and discrepancies."
He added: "But I think this is the moment to leave behind those things... and to look forward with the perspective that we have many more values and goals that unite us than differences that divide us."
And also: "I believe it is to our benefit, that of the United States, as well as to the benefit of the government and the people of Spain, to continue the level of close relations that we have maintained for many years."
Asked to explain McCain's apparent shift in tone and position since April, Scheunemann gave almost no ground.
"In this week's interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally," he said in an e-mail. "If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America's adversaries. It's called keeping your options open, unlike Senator Obama, who has publicly committed to meeting some of the world's worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office."
Neither Obama nor Biden took up the issue of McCain's remarks about Zapatero Thursday. But Tony Blinken, a longtime foreign policy aide to Sen. Joe Biden who is now on his campaign staff, said in a phone call on Thursday evening that it was unfortunate that McCain would "preemptively poison the well" with a NATO ally.
Worse still, Blinken said, would be if the McCain campaign were adopting a new, hardline policy toward Spain just to cover up a gaffe.
Radio Caracol is part of the Union Radio station group that is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate Groupo Prisa, which also owns El Pais.
"The reason we asked the question about Spain is that we're owned by this big company in Spain. They wanted us to ask that question in the interview," explained Radio Caracol news director Madelin Prendes, reached by telephone this morning.
Yoly Cuello, the reporter who interviewed McCain, said she repeatedly asked McCain about Spain because "he didn't want to answer my question."
"I think he was just trying not to answer the question, I think he understood" who Zaptero is and where he's from, Cuello said. She conducted the phone interview on Tuesday when McCain was campaigning in Miami and it aired Wednesday on Union Radio's 74 Spanish-language radio affiliates nationwide and on its stations in Colombia, Mexico and Spain.
Cuello said she cannot believe the attention her interview has earned, noting that she's heard almost nothing about it from her listeners in Miami.
"People here are worried about lots of things, the economy, immigration. Not about Spain."
Interview:
QUESTION: Senator, finally, let's talk about Spain. If you're elected president, would you be willing to invite President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?
MCCAIN: I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. I intend to move forward with relations, and invite as many of them as I can, those leaders, to the White House.
QUESTION: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the president itself?
MCCAIN: I don't, you know, honestly I have to look at relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.
QUESTION: So you have to wait and see if he's willing to meet with you, or you'll be able to do it in the White House?
MCCAIN: Well again I don't, all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region.
QUESTION: Okay... what about Europe?
MCCAIN: What about me what?
QUESTION: Okay... are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?
MCCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those that do not.
Either McCain is mixing Spain up with Bolivia and Venezuela (which makes me question the extent of his 'foreign policy experience') or he's going to continue the Bush administration line of 'bully countries that don't agree with you 100% even though they are your ally, democracies and part of NATO'.
Scary.
Also, according to some people, when the reporter said:
"I'm talking about the president of Spain." McCain responded with "What about me?"
Maybe he just needs a hearing aid? :0