California Republican Senate primary contenders Tom Campbell, Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore had an hour radio debate today, their first, slated to focus on national security issues. I listened closely to the first 43-minutes, leaving to play 1-on-1 with my son after school and watch the basketball tryouts. I was struck that at the tryouts there was none of the under the basket elbows and knees I was used to from Brooklyn schoolyard basketball. But there was plenty at the debate.
Campbell shot right away in his opening: there’s “no place for calling me an anti-Semite and then denying it…that ends today.” Fiorina, calling from home instead of being in the studio court where opponents actually face each other, launched into a list of non-specific position platitudes. DeVore scored big with his impressive tallest on the court bio of Middle East expertise and travel, deep experience in military and national security posts, as well as legislative.
The game went on from there. Campbell took the ball detailing his actual votes and associations re: Israel and a terrorism supporter, taking responsibility for fumbling the ball on the latter but always being a strong supporter of military aid to Israel and backing Israel should it decide to take-out Iran’s nuclear basket. Fiorina admitted “I don’t believe you’re an anti-Semite” and then ignored the details from 10-years ago, repeating the bullets that she asserts make him anti-Israel. DeVore chimed in that “there’s a pattern from the Fiorina campaign making unsubstantiated charges.” Later in the game, Fiorina ironically charged a foul against DeVore for citing a 10-year old thesis she’d written advocating a “massive increase” in federal aid to education.
Fiorina called a penalty on Iran to “impose crippling sanctions.” Campbell has said that it’s time to go beyond a weak, sputtering, too late in the game sanctions play and take away Iran’s nuclear ball.
DeVore scored a hoop shot in citing a Defense Department response to a freedom of information request, that Fiorina had only attended 2 of 7 DOD advisor meetings. Fiorina shot back that she was “battling cancer.” That time-out failed to sway as DeVore replied her game non-attendance was before Fiorina took ill.
Going into the next quarter, discussing the Gitmo opponents, supported by Senate incumbent player Barbara Boxer, Fiorina said they have “not earned the rights of American citizens” to defense in US civil courts. DeVore jumped higher with his specific experience actually studying the laws of war in which they are “terrorists.” Campbell the law professor tipped the ball in that “in international law we have a precedent” in how we used to treat pirates: “capture and hang…that’s where the analogy should be drawn.”
The three players then threw barbs about the status of Jerusalem, Campbell defending playing on the Bush I team in opposing a congressional motion to pants the president, Fiorina playing Monday-morning critic that all but 33 members of Congress supported his opposition. Campbell deflected that ball by citing then Israeli Prime Minister Barak preferring his direct negotiations with the Palestinians about the status of Jerusalem over the US interfering in the game.
According to news reports I’ve seen of the fourth quarter, it was more of the same, with a few economic plays about who would best fight against more taxes to pay for the over-profligate D.C. team.
In sum, Fiorina’s platitudes and bullets were unexciting, pedestrian ball-handling. Campbell is competent in defense and offense. DeVore demonstrated deeper and more articulate defense, dribble and shoot skills based on deeper hands-on experience.
(My play-by-play quotes are as I wrote them down. -- The short MSM news reports focus most ink on the ink sold by H-P to Iran under Fiorina’s reign. I wonder whether they listened to the game at all.)
P.S. #1: Missing The Current Live Ball
Overnight, the MSM coverage improved some, but still focused on past shots and blocks re: Israel. Jennifer Rubin, of Commentary’s Contentions blog, leads the charge against Campbell, repeating these as enough to question how Campbell can score against Boxer in the big game, should he win the Republican primary semi-final. Yet, Rubin and other strong pro-Israel critics of Campbell miss the live ball.
Last September, 16 Democrat Senators, including Boxer, joined 14 Republican Senators in a letter to Secretary of State Clinton asking that the State Department block any punitive measures by the UN against Israel stemming from the Goldstone Report that criticized Israel for excessive measures during its incursion into Gaza to halt missile firings into Israel, saying “this biased report ignores many of the key facts.” This website does an admirable job of pulling together the ignored facts, including uncritical reliance upon Hamas sources and downplaying of Israeli, Israel’s avoidance of civilian injuries beyond what the US or Europe has, and distorting international law to undermine the right of self-defense. The Moslem countries and their third-world allies who dominate the UN’s General Assembly continue to use the Goldstone ball to shoot against Israel, despite Israel’s defensive reports that show the fouls in the Goldstone charges.
The implication of the Goldstone Report goes beyond Israel or Gaza. Acceptance of it ignoring lawful rules of war play and purposely umping against the defender adds to the hampering of other teams, like the US’, in its play against terrorists and their state sponsors.
Meanwhile, last month, I asked Campbell his position on the Goldstone Report, to which Campbell replied “I have not read the Goldstone Report, and would need to do so before offering an informed opinion.” This reply is either legalistic -- indicating that even at that point Campbell has not read the report despite the international uproar for previous months and its implications for Israel and the US’ defense – or downright ignorant or evasive of knowledge about it. In any of those playbooks, Campbell displayed a failure to either investigate or to practice as a winning player must. Boxer, and the other 29 Senators who signed their letter last September, probably didn’t read the Goldstone Report either but at least they knew enough about its fouls to publicly recognize and criticize them.
P.S. #2: Thank you to those who enjoyed the basketball theme of this post. You may be interested to note that Jewish players were stars of basketball in the first half of the 20th Century, basketball sometimes referred to as JewBall. It’s widely played in Israel now, its Maccabei Tel Aviv team capturing five recent years’European championships. A new documentary tells the story.
P.S. #3: Paul Mirengoff addresses the California Conumdrum. We in California want a winner, period.
Tracked: Mar 07, 19:22
Tracked: Mar 16, 17:54