McCain held another call with bloggers this morning, which was a bit of a surprise since I think most of us had assumed these calls would stop once he locked up the nomination. McCain jokingly put our fears to rest, "I'll never forget you were the only guys who would ever listen to me for a period of months there, you think I'm going to bail out on you now?" He opened the call talking about his win in Virginia, saying "a nine point win is quite good, and I'm happy about it." He said he'd spoken with Huckabee last nigh, and that Huck will continue his campaign. McCain said several times that he "would not in anyway dissuade him from doing so." Still, he noted that he had made "significant progress on the delegate count" with his Chesapeake sweep. I thought it was pretty funny when he praised the Iraqis for passing a budget, a provincial election law, and a "limited amnesty bill." You'd think he would have banished the word from his vocabulary. He then went on to describe the Democrats as having made the "absolutely wrong assessment on Iraq" before turning it over to questions. Jennifer Rubin asked about Obama's vote against telecom immunity in the FISA bill, specifically whether this raised doubts about Obama's judgment. McCain said he wouldn't judge Obama's judgment, and then pointed out all the things he'd been wrong about, with specific attention to Iraq:
I don't know if he has the judgment or not, but I can tell you that he was wrong. He was wrong when he called for immediate timetables and withdrawal from Iraq. He was wrong when he said we couldn't win militarily, he was wrong when he said the Iraqi government couldn't function politically, which they are beginning to do. I won't make a comment as to whether he has the judgment, all I can say is we will all be responsible for our record, particularly on national security issues.
On telecom immunity he said simply, "look, when the federal government goes to a corporation or an enterprise and says 'we want you to help us in the war on terror'...should it astonish anyone that they cooperated?" Ed Morrissey got a good laugh out of McCain by suggesting George Romero--the man responsible for Night of the Living Dead--should do the documentary on McCain's campaign. He also asked if McCain had met with Governor Romney, to which McCain responded that the two staffs were trying to coordinate a meeting. Further, McCain said he believes he is "gradually improving" his ties with the party's conservative base, that he wants a united party, and that everyone will have a seat at the table in a McCain administration. I asked the Senator whether he would have any reservations about the execution of the six detainees on trial at Guantanamo Bay for their role in the 9/11 attacks, whether he is comfortable with the current legal regime for trying detainees, and whether the interrogation techniques used there cast doubt on the fairness of the trials. His response:
No. I would not have concerns. I rely to a large degree on my friend Lindsey Graham, who is a JAG lawyer and who has been intimately involved in this whole process. These are not individuals who deserve the protections of the kind of judicial process that a citizen of the United States would have. We did not give those rights and privileges in the Nuremberg tribunals...these tribunals as far as I can tell...are appropriate and they are the way to address these particular cases...and there's nothing in the Geneva Conventions or any other rule of law that I've ever seen that said that the same rights and privileges apply to them as apply to American citizens.
That will be music to conservatives ears. More from Jim Geraghty, Jennifer Rubin, and Captain Ed.