Legal Commentary

Rick Warren Open Thread

By TChris

Pastor Rick Warren* is interviewing Barack Obama and John McCain this evening, asking each candidate roughly the same set of questions for an hour each. Obama first. One of Warren's questions asked about the contrast between the investment America makes in its educational system and the investment it makes in its "we're number one!" prison system. Disappointingly, Obama gave a fine (to me) answer on education while ignoring the "prison nation" aspect of the question entirely. I expect John McCain to do the same (although McCain's take on education may be less reasonable).

Here's a place to weigh in for those of you who have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than to watch the candidates chat with Rick Warren. Follow the rules please, particularly with regard to insults.

Update: McCain, when asked the same question, praised "choice and competition," home schooling, and charter schools. Like Obama, McCain ducked the part of the question that quietly damned the American imprisonment rate. McCain channeled his answers to well rehearsed excerpts from stump speeches, complete with frequent insertions of "my friends" into his answers. He played well to the crowd. Obama held his own, I think, but McCain's performance was the crowd favorite, my friends. [more ...]

By the way update: McCain expressly lodged his disapproval of Ginsberg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens while giving love to Alito and Roberts. Kennedy, we would have to think, is on shaky ground on McCain's list of Supreme Court favorites.

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* A link to an interesting piece of writing is not necessarily an endorsement of its author.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 16, 2008 (boomark / email).