Once again, John McCain wins voters who "strongly disapprove" of the war in Iraq. Voters who "strong approve," by contrast, were split evenly between McCain and Huckabee. What's going to happen when people figure out that McCain loves war?
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McCain and the War
12 Feb 2008 07:11 pm
Comments (44)
Americans are so f'ing stupid.
I am not sure anyone who has lived through what John McCain has, could begin to "love" war.
It's really amazing. It points to how well the media has protected McCain from serious scrutiny. The Republican primary process also helped him since no one other than Ron Paul challenged him on this.
What's going to happen when people figure out that McCain loves war?
I think we know the answer to that, and I can't wait.
I am not sure anyone who has lived through what John McCain has, could begin to "love" war.
Well, singing "Bomb Iran," he didn't seem all that traumatized by the idea of war, frankly.
You would't think a man who endured 4 years of trench warfare on the Western Front, once wounded and later temporarily blinded by mustard gas, would start a world war and practice genocide, would you?
McCain does not love war, and voters who "strongly disapprove" of the War in Iraq were only 12% of the total anyway, so I don't think he has much to worry about. Keep spinning, though.
Besides this point, I'd have to say that McCain is not likely to win based on the data from the exit polls - its going to be close, but I think Huck nicks him by 2% or so if you look at the data across the sample.
Also, as an aside, McCain fav/unfav is now at 48/49 in Rasmussen. It was at 52/43 like two weeks ago and before that, at something like 54/33 in earlier January.
There's no contradiction here, and it isn't rocket science.
Voters who strongly disapprove of the Iraq war are likely to be more liberal than voters who approve of the war. More liberal voters are likely to favor McCain over Huckabee.
These voters are supporting McCain in spite of the war, because they prefer him on other issues.
It's ridiculous hyperbole that McCain "loves war."
The average American has no clue who John McCain is. He would be the first President to have been a POW. Unlike most men in their seventies, he has the temper and temperament of a man half his age. He grew up in a military family. Not merely a family with members who served, a MILITARY family. He's not interested in exploiting no-bid contracts and feathering the nest of defense contractors. He's a warrior. He has scores to settle. He is a true maverick, not someone who pretends to follow his own drummer. Is this what we want?
The average American has no clue who John McCain is. He would be the first President to have been a POW. Unlike most men in their seventies, he has the temper and temperament of a man half his age. He grew up in a military family. Not merely a family with members who served, a MILITARY family. He's not interested in exploiting no-bid contracts and feathering the nest of defense contractors. He's a warrior. He has scores to settle. He is a true maverick, not someone who pretends to follow his own drummer. Is this what we want?
Are they going to figure this out before or after they figure out Saddam wasn't behind 9/11?
First, to reiterate blah's point, some of the respondents may disapprove of the conduct of the war and desire a more wholehearted 10,000 year commitment that they see McCain promising. Polling is like that; the question you think you're asking isn't always the one people respond to, and the response they give doesn't always mean what you think it should.
Second, (as K-Funk says) there's no necessary contradiction between disapproving of the war and voting for McCain. I really really liked Edwards' anti-poverty focus. I care about that stuff. And yet I was able to vote for Obama because I care about other stuff too.
Republicans can disapprove of the war and still prefer McCain for other reasons. One could of course go out and try to persuade those voters that (a) they should place more emphasis on the Iraq war in deciding who they'll vote for (b)
It's not enough to point out some apparent-but-not-really contradiction in support for McCain. If you want to undermine his support, you need to argue that he's bad on the merits: that the war is big damn deal and that McCain's ideas about are disastrous ideas. I swear I've read that someplace... some guy's blog I think.
It's ridiculous hyperbole that McCain "loves war."
That won't stop them, though. We'll be hearing this nonsense till at least November.
But we can fight hyperbole with hyperbole. Just keep saying, over and over again, that Hillary and Obama love taxes and will force you to buy health insurance you can't afford.
Add another thing to the "just beyond Matt's grasp" list. Here's the explanation, Matt, and it's not hard:
There are a non-trivial number of Republicans who want to fight to win, and have been unhappy with what they perceive as non-serious war fighting. The left has a hard time imagining such a position, so its existence is simply inexplicable to you.
McCain wins GOP voters who strongly disapprove of the Iraq War because the the US isn't kicking ENOUGH ass. These are the people that applaud reports of US air strikes that kill 50 Iraqi "terrorists" and 10 women and children. If the ongoing US air campaigns in Iraq were reported more openly -- these voters would be happier with the conduct of the war. It doesn't matter that more reports of bloodshed would turn off 70% of Americans or 90% of the world. They want more blood from their war, not less.
There are a non-trivial number of Republicans who want to fight to win, and have been unhappy with what they perceive as non-serious war fighting.
But not so unhappy as to do something real about it, like volunteering to join the Army and Marines. Or raising taxes to pay for this war. Like their idol, Jonah Goldberg, they're too busy fighting the real enemy at home.
The left has a hard time imagining such a position, so its existence is simply inexplicable to you.
Actually, it's very easy to understand such a position: going out and blowing up people and things, without any risk of facing the same, obviously appeals to the wargamers in all of us. But unlike the unthinking Repub rubes, those of us in the reality-based world understand war is not a game.
Which reminds me, James, Mixner, et al - when are you going to volunteer to fight for O.peration I.raqi L.iberation again?
Sigh. It's not a matter of "wanting more blood". It's a matter of "which approach ends the war faster, and ends up, on balance, saving lives".
Again, the left can't imagine such an idea, much less understand it.
What, exactly, is to be won in Iraq?
Sigh. On balance, the US spending $1 trillion dollars in Iraq to make Iran more powerful, produce 2 million Iraqi refugees, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis is just about the stupidest approach to "saving lives" in the history of mankind.
Again, the right can't imagine such an idea, much less understand it.
Repeat that all you want James, it won't make it any less silly.
What, exactly, is to be won in Iraq?
Democracy, stability, security, prosperity, freedom, peace. That kind of thing. The same kind of things that we won for Japan and Germany after WWII.
On balance, the US spending $1 trillion dollars in Iraq to make Iran more powerful, produce 2 million Iraqi refugees, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis is just about the stupidest approach to "saving lives" in the history of mankind.
Er, the U.S. isn't doing that. Perhaps you would have preferred a continuation of the sanctions that had already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by the time we ended them, plus a continuation of Saddam's genocidal regime? Yeah, that would have been so much better.
The same kind of things that we won for Japan and Germany after WWII.
Japan and Germany were post-war occupations. Iraq is currently in a civil war plus a war against the occupation. Stop rejoicing in American deaths and the waste of American dollars on a useless government program (the Iraq war) so you can get off on your WWII nostalgia. The situation will not be analogous to Japan and Germany until the war is actually over; are you willing to kill Americans for 100 years in order to get to that point?
Perhaps you would have preferred a continuation of the sanctions that had already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by the time we ended them, plus a continuation of Saddam's genocidal regime? Yeah, that would have been so much better.
Actually, since more Iraqis currently are being killed than under Saddam's regime in the pre-war period (Saddam was bad, but not as bad for Iraqis as the genocide of 2004-2008), yeah, that would have been better.
So you're happy that Americans are being killed to make Iraq worse off than under Saddam. That makes total sense, Mixner.
Mixner, your grasp of military and political history is as limited as a gopher's understanding of the internal combustion engine powering the John Deere that just ran over his hole and squished his guts into small, squishy things.
MA,
Japan and Germany were post-war occupations.
So what? We invaded Germany first, and we would have had to invade Japan if it hadn't surrendered after we dropped two nukes on it.
Iraq is currently in a civil war plus a war against the occupation.
No it isn't. But even if it were, that would be irrelevant to the goals I described.
Stop rejoicing in American deaths and the waste of American dollars on a useless government program (the Iraq war) so you can get off on your WWII nostalgia.
I'm not. Stop rejoicing in Iraqi deaths so you can get off on hating George Bush.
The situation will not be analogous to Japan and Germany until the war is actually over;
What are your criteria for "the war is actually over?"
Actually, since more Iraqis currently are being killed than under Saddam's regime in the pre-war period ...
No they're not. And it's not just a matter of comparing the death rates over two fixed periods of time, anyway. If we had retained the sanctions and allowed Saddam to remain in power indefinitely into the future, hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions more Iraqis would have died, in addition to the hundreds of thousands that had already been killed. There was no sign that Saddam was likely to have been removed from power by internal Iraqi forces. He could have been in power for another twenty years, as he groomed his equally thuggish sons to take over from him. There was just no end in sight to his genocidal regime.
Democracy, stability, security, prosperity, freedom, peace. That kind of thing. The same kind of things that we won for Japan and Germany after WWII.
The Germans and Japanese are not Arabs, Mixner, in case that has escaped you. The idea that we are going to implant these things in Iraq is based on ridiculous liberal "non-discrimination" thinking that assumes that everyone everywhere is the same.
The only way we will get democracy, stability, security, etc. in Iraq is if we kill all of the Iraqis and replace them with a less tribalistic people.
In any case, victory is not, I think, in sight, despite a temporary reduction in violence.
Matthew Yglesias already ably replied to this line of argumentation in a post titled Relative Costs.
Long story short, if these self-proclaimed humanitarians really cared about saving lives, there are hundreds of projects that don't involve killing a bunch of people, that cost a lot less and that, best of all, actually work. Any one of those, if humanitarian concerns were actually foremost, would be a far better choice for humanitarian intervention.
At the end of the day, tinpot dictators just don't kill nearly as many people as diarrhea and malaria, but they do have the funding advantage of giving our bedwetters a chance to talk tough.
Bo,
Long story short, if these self-proclaimed humanitarians really cared about saving lives, there are hundreds of projects that don't involve killing a bunch of people, that cost a lot less and that, best of all, actually work.
So, your argument is: "The humanitarian argument for the Iraq War is wrong, because I don't believe the people who are making it are being sincere." Brilliant.
If you think you can make a serious case that continuing the sanctions and leaving Saddam in power would clearly have resulted in fewer total casualties than the war, I'd love to see it. But as long as your style of argument includes referring to those who disagree with you as "bedwetters," you're unlikely to persuade me that you really are serious, or that your position is based on reason rather than emotion.
And of course, it's all ultimately speculative. We cannot know what would have happened if we had chosen some other policy towards Iraq instead of the war. But I think the idea that the war clearly has caused more death and destruction than would otherwise have occurred is just nonsense, given the known effects of the sanctions and the lack of evidence that Saddam was likely to have been removed from power in some other way.
What $155 billion dollars a year in Iraq buys...
- healthcare for 45 million uninsured Americans
- universal preschool for 3 and 4 year olds in US
- implementing all of the 9/11 commission recommendations
- doubling US cancer research
- immunizations for childhood diseases for every child on earth
Keep believing the Iraq War is money well spent. Do you believe in unicorns as well?
joejoejoe apparently understands the principle of opportunity cost, while Mixner and James Robertson apparently do not.
Gee, if we just gave up a few trivial discretionary items like DVDs, dog food and casinos, we could afford universal healthcare too! Damn those opportunity costs!
I guess we can scratch that second 'apparently' from my previous post.
What is now apparent is that you don't even understand your own citations.
What's going to happen when people figure out that McCain loves war?
Nothing. These anti-war Republicans will vote for the presumptive Republican regardless of his positions on anything.
It's okay Mixner; take it slow. Nobody's really expecting you to understand new economic concepts just from a quick scan of a Wikipedia page. Maybe sleep on it, or think of it in a neutral way divorced from the Iraq War (like choosing to bike or drive to work), or read up on related topics like the Broken Window Fallacy and TANSTAAFL. If that doesn't work, local community colleges offer reasonably-priced Econ 101 courses that will introduce this and other basic economic principles in a more structured manner.
Once voters realise McCain's views on the war won't he will sink just as Rudy did among Republicans once they realised his unpopular (among Republicans)views?
Mixner: "If you think you can make a serious case that continuing the sanctions and leaving Saddam in power would clearly have resulted in fewer total casualties than the war, I'd love to see it."
Typical Mixner: create a phony straw man to contrast with the rational approach. He did this with torture with the stupid "ticking bomb" crap, and he's doing it here.
The reality is that the sanctions should have been lifted early on because they were 1) worthless, and 2) damaging the wrong people.
Leaving Saddam in power was CLEARLY preferable than the Holocaust that has been visited on Iraq at enormous cost to the US as well. Most Iraqis believe that to be true now, and most Americans do, too.
Leaving Saddam in power almost certainly would have resulted in fewer deaths over the coming years. Saddam was seriously weakened since the 1991 Gulf War, and would have had no capability to commit any new wars against anybody around him, even if he intended to.
If the UN inspectors had been left to do their jobs by Bush, they would have cleared Saddam of having any nuclear weapons or other serious WMD, and installed a monitoring program which would have prevented Saddam from ever having nuclear weapons.
At this point, the worst Saddam could be doing was his usual execution of random enemies among his own group, the Sunni, or the Shia. He couldn't even hurt the Kurds much given the no-fly zones. In short, little different from any other Third World country, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, countries we support.
Instead, at a minimum cost of one trillion dollars, the US caused the deaths of over one million Iraqis, the displacement of four million more (and the two million externally displaced are virtually the entire administrative and technical class, which is why the Iraqi government can do nothing), the deaths of nearly 4,000 US troops, the maiming of scores of thousands more, massive PTSD among the remainder, massive loss and wearing out of US military eequipment, the weakening of the entire US military including the National Guard, massively increased hatred of the US worldwide, numerous future terrorists being created in Iraq for generations to come, and in general, "dogs and cats living together - MASS HYSTERIA!"
All of which Mixner thinks is just fine.
Which is why he's an advocate for torture - he's a psychopath.
Not to mention a fucking moron.
What's going to happen when people figure out that McCain loves war?
A stupid crack by Iglesias, who thinks all freedoms come from a scrap of paper that was obtained and maintained blood-free. McCain as a professional military guy who suffered for it and buried friends and comrades who died on duty in peacetime and war - understands better than most of us how freedom isn't "free". Blood shed in freedom's cause makes the Constitution more than a scrap of paper lawyers haggled a deal on. The blood and lives and treasure anchor the document in patriotism, sacrifice, lives spent for ideas and structures of government our society has.
Liberty, habeas corpus, to be secure enough to enjoy the fruits of liberty? Sometimes you have to kill people to keep it.
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joejoejoe - These are the people that applaud reports of US air strikes that kill 50 Iraqi "terrorists" and 10 women and children.
As an ex-officer who helped kill Iraqis in the Gulf War, I would have no problem getting superior's approval to task a mission to bomb and kill 50 of the enemy along with 10 women and children from hitting a vital target.
Nowadays a strike that kills 50 terrorists and 10 family members? That would be a deal! Minor collateral damage. Killing 50 Iraqi terrorists at the price of whacking 10 civilian terrorist family members is well worth it to save the dozens, possibly hundreds of innocent Iraqis that would have been killed by the Islamists. Such a mission would be worth it if it only saved 3 American lives and prevented 5 American casualties. Not even factoring in the carnage on Iraqis the terrorists cause.
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Convict Hack - If the UN inspectors had been left to do their jobs by Bush, they would have cleared Saddam of having any nuclear weapons or other serious WMD, and installed a monitoring program which would have prevented Saddam from ever having nuclear weapons.
Hardly. "UN left to do their jobs" have been utterly ineffectual in peacekeeping, stopping genocide, preventing proliferation of WMD. UN inspectors have never stopped a war, a genocide, or any nation from developing whatever weapon they want.
Saddam, in interrogation in 2005, said that he thought he had enough UN people, as well as Arabs, Russians, French bribed to block Bush's war and throw out the inspectors and resume full nuclear, nerve gas, and missile work in 2003. His main motive was "to defeat any accursed Persian efforts".
"Hardly. "UN left to do their jobs" have been utterly ineffectual in peacekeeping, stopping genocide, preventing proliferation of WMD. UN inspectors have never stopped a war, a genocide, or any nation from developing whatever weapon they want."
None of which is relevant to the issue of Iraq in 2003.
"Saddam, in interrogation in 2005, said that he thought he had enough UN people, as well as Arabs, Russians, French bribed to block Bush's war and throw out the inspectors and resume full nuclear, nerve gas, and missile work in 2003. His main motive was 'to defeat any accursed Persian efforts'."
Oh. we're listening to Saddam now, are we? Wonderful credibility, Ford.
The reality is that once the UN inspectors had cleared Saddam of having nukes, a monitoring system was to be put in place which would have made it impossible for him to ever construct a nuclear capability - and if Saddam refused the UN resolution that required him to comply, that would have made using force legal and would have resulted in the same situation we're in now, most likely.
And if he had all those people bribed to "block Bush's war", moron, then why did we have the war?
You're truly an idiot.
Calling people names while citing bogus stats and banging on endlessly with unprovable, speculative assertions is not a way to make credible arguments.
The toll of Saddam Hussein's regime, including the wars of aggression it launched, was in the millions, and the best evidence available indicates he was far from finished.
The best and latest stats on Iraqi casualties from the UN WHO represent about 15-20% of the "million" figure bandied about here based on nothing more substantial that the risible and utterly discredited "Lancet" study done by Johns Hopkins researchers. This political joke was about ten times higher than all the other studies done by that time, and was described by its authors as aimed at influencing the 2004 election. Not much of claim of credibility there.
All of this leaves aside the vital interest we have in an international order that discourages wars of aggression, genocide, the development and use of wmd's, and genocide. Anyone who thinks we'd be better off today with Saddam Hussein sitting on the fulcrum of the world economy, in a nuclear arms race with Iran and Saudi Arabia (at least), and competing with Teheran and Al Qaeda to be our biggest headache, is deluded.
Blood shed in freedom's cause makes the Constitution more than a scrap of paper lawyers haggled a deal on. The blood and lives and treasure anchor the document in patriotism, sacrifice, lives spent for ideas and structures of government our society has.
Just because sometimes you need to go to war to defend freedom and because we call our military "the Dep0artment of Defense" does not mean that all wars are fought in defense of freedom or have the effect of defending freedom.
The best and latest stats on Iraqi casualties from the UN WHO represent about 15-20% of the "million" figure
As I understand it, these are not the gross death toll of the war but the net death toll (i.e. deaths in excess of what we would have had in Iraq had we not gone to war), so the belief that we have on net saved lives in Iraq is not supported by these statistics.
Robert Powell - If by 'discredited' you mean employs best practices then I agree!
BBC, 3/26/07: "The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt....a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."
Powell, you bullshit people on a daily basis, but complain when you're called on it.
You have nothing but assertions to make. You haven't provided one shred of evidence from anybody to back up anything you've said on this subject since you started posting here.
So, yes, you're an idiot.
"The best and latest stats on Iraqi casualties from the UN WHO represent about 15-20% of the "million" figure bandied about here based on nothing more substantial that the risible and utterly discredited "Lancet" study done by Johns Hopkins researchers."
And those stats come from a UN WHO study conducted by the Iraqi government, which has a vested interest in not getting the figures right. Besides that, the author of the Lancet study correctly points out that a lot of families in Iraq will not talk to a government researcher, especially to admit that members of their family might have died fighting that same government.
The other study done recently by an independent polling organization clearly puts the excess death toll greater than one million.
So shove your assertions.
Comments closed February 26, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
The only way to square this pentagon is to think that these voters strongly disapprove of what they think is the inept handling of war. They vote for McCain because they believe he can right the ship.
Posted by blah | February 12, 2008 7:18 PM