Some Questions for Martha Coakley

In their final debate last night, Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown challenged his Democrat opponent Martha Coakley with some tough questions (my personal favorite - “If it’s not 2.1 trillion, what’s the actual number that you want to raise people’s taxes?” Martha’s answer: “It isn’t a number.”). Here are some questions that Scott did not ask. I’d be interested in Martha’s answers:

You are concerned that “we now spend 2.6 trillion dollars a years on health care in this country”. Obamacare will add $200 billion a year. If the problem is that costs are too high, why do you think the solution is to spend more?

You are pleased that “the Congressional Budget Office says that within ten years that health care plan will be deficit neutral.” What does “deficit neutral” mean? Is that another way of saying you’ll raise our taxes to pay the added costs?

You criticize Scott Brown for “legislation that would allow hospital employees to deny emergency care to rape victims if it was their choice.” Do you believe that doctors and nurses should be forced by law to provide contraception and perform abortions if they have moral objections to those treatments?

You say, “I think we have done what we are going to be able to do in Afghanistan…I think we should plan an exit strategy”. When the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, the Soviet Union interpreted the exit as a sign of weakness, and was encouraged to launch Marxist takeovers in Ethiopia (1974), South Vietnam (1975), Cambodia (1975), Laos (1975), Angola (1975), Benin (1975), Mozambique (1975), Afghanistan (1978), Nicaragua (1979), and Grenada (1979). 100 million people lost their freedom and at least 5 million lost their lives in the subjugation of those countries. When the U.S. pulled out of Lebanon in 1983, Osama Bin Laden interpreted the exit as a sign of weakness, and was encouraged to launch the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 3,000 people lost their lives in those tragedies. Do you think that pulling out of Afghanistan would invite similar consequences? If not, why do you think Afghanistan will be different?

You support civilian trials for accused terrorists. If the Federal Court in New York acquits Khalid Sheik Muhammad, the mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks, should he be released?

You say, “if the goal was, and the mission in Afghanistan was to go in because we believed that the Taliban was giving harbor to terrorists…They’re gone. They’re not there anymore.” If the terrorists are gone from Afghanistan, who was responsible for the Dec 30 suicide bombing that killed seven Americans at Forward Operating Camp Chapman near the Afghan city of Khost?

I’m just asking.