Marathon Pundit: Bloggers' conference call with John McCain

John McCain has been holding blogger teleconferences for months, for the first time, I was invited to participate, and I was able to ask the senator a question.

Following the maxim "All politics is local," I asked the senator's opinion on Chicago's indignity of being the city whose residents will soon pay the nation's highest sales tax, and how he felt that the man behind it, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, was enthusiastically endorsed for that office by Barack Obama two years ago.

Mine was one of the last questions, and Senator McCain reiterated that he is the low taxes candidate.

The senator talked about a wide variety of topics, and started out commenting what he observed during his "Time for Action" tour. McCain visited places not often visited by presidential candidates, particularly Republican ones, spots such as New Orleans' Lower Ninth Road, Gee's Bend, Alabama, and Inez, Kentucky.

Commentary Magazine's Jennifer Rubin asked the senator about Hamas' support of Barack Obama's candidacy. This was McCain's response:

All I can tell you Jennifer is that I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare....If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.

McCain was also asked about Bill Ayers and some recently uncovered audio tapes of the unrepentant terrorist spouting out extremist opinions:

I'm a bit surprised there hasn't been more discussion of his comparison of an unrepentant terrorist – and that's what Mr Ayers is — and a great American citizen who goes back to Oklahoma on weekends and delivers babies. He's a man who brings life while Ayers was involved with an organization that was dedicated to taking innocent life... I'm offended by the comparison. A man like Tom Coburn he may be a lot of things to liberals, but he's not comparable to a man who who brags about his association with an organization like that, who was underground for ten years, who is unrepentant. I mean, there were people killed by the Weathermen organization... Perhaps [Senator Obama] can make some argument that Ayers made some contribution to society since then, but this organization was a terrorist organization by any description [I think he meant 'definition'] and Americans and the media are right to ask questions.