Steve Chapman: "McCain's Consistent Folly on Iraq". There's a lot of folly in there and, in a lot of ways, Chapman's just scratching the surface. To really put McCain's thinking on Iraq in context, you need to recall his role in the 1990s in building up Ahmed Chalabi and other related antics. Almost all Republicans have been willing to say and do absurd things on behalf of the Iraq War since the Bush administration chose to take the party in that direction. But McCain is one of the handful of major actors in actively pushing the GOP in that direction.
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06 Mar 2008 02:43 pm
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And I'm sure that will make a difference in November...NOT!
And I'm sure that will make a difference in November...NOT!
It's going to make a ton of difference once the surge ends this summer, Sadr ends his truce in six months, and we have a candidate with establishment-type Democratic Party foreign policy types who can go toe-to-toe with the Republicans.
Everything is going to be set up perfectly for a Democratic (I suspect Clinton) victory.
That humiliating and nauseating photo of McCain dry-humping Dumbya should be combined with his moronic "100 more years in Iraq" comment to form a devastating commercial. Want another Bush term? Then vote for this dipshit!
All of that may be true; however, McCain is a dashing Maverick who completely deserves to be Preznit because guys like Chris Matthews have mancrushes on him. So there.
"Establishment-type Dem foreign policy types who can go toe-to-toe with the Republicans" is part of the reason we're in the mess we're in now.
New ideas, new leadership, a Democratic foreign policy agenda that doesn't make we think we elected another soft-Republican... is that too much to ask for?
The bottom line with regards to the miliary is that soldiers supported Obama and Paul. Say what you will about our military, but since Vietnam, the leadership has not represented the views of the junior officers and enlisted men and women charged with executing their (largely) failed policies.
The Obama/Clinton split here is the same split you see re: Dont Ask/Don't Tell. But hey, Joe Strummer, if you're comfortable being on the homophobic side of history, that's your right.
Did anybody read the Chapman article? It is filled with non sequiturs and in no way makes the case for McCain's "consistent folly." Hasn't McCain been the most visible critic of the war's prosecution from near the beginning? Didn't he oppose torture and advocate sending more troops , and hasn't this resulted in moderate improvements in the situation? Chapman's article tries to obscure these basic points by saying McCain "eventually" advocated more troops, which would imply this happened late in the game. That is is not how I remember it, and Chapman's vagueness doesn't give any information on this issue. Certainly the war has been an almost incalculable disaster, but hasn't (yet) cost "trillions of dollars" as Chapman claims. Of those who supported the war, McCain has been almost singularly prescient and reasonable. I hate to see Matt entering a kind of irrational anti-McCain cocoon. I can't decide if he's just being strategic in his anti-McCain invective or really believes it.
Hasn't McCain been the most visible critic of the war's prosecution from near the beginning?
No. No no no no no. No he has not.
Hasn't McCain been the most visible critic of the war's prosecution from near the beginning?
No. While he's playing up the few times he voiced disagreement, he's spent most of the last five years saying that we're winning and the war is awesome.
To be a "visible critic of the war's prosecution" you would have to, among other things, not spend 2004 telling everyone that Bush is the most bestest CiC ever and Iraq is hunky-dory and we're totally winning.
Didn't he oppose torture and advocate sending more troops , and hasn't this resulted in moderate improvements in the situation?
You're confusing McCain's statements with the stuff he's actually willing to do. He says he opposes torture, but he voted for torture (Military Commissions Act). He would occasionally make noises about how the war should be done differently, but he didn't use his powerful position as a Senator (in the majority party until 2007) to do anything about it, hold hearings, etc.
McCain, objectively, has been dedicated to the proposition that everything Bush does is awesome. He supported the surge in 2007 when it killed more Iraqis and he supports it now when violence is merely at 2005 levels. McCain's only consistent position on Iraq is that we should never stop killing Americans and Iraqis there; he has never actually advocated a change in strategy beyond making a comment or two on teevee.
Comments closed March 20, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Against this kind of record, Hillary has a fantastic shot. So I don't really get these complaints that because she voted for war in 2002 that somehow she'd have trouble differentiating herself from the Republican.
Add to that the significant foreign policy experience, including the various military folks who have lined up in support of her, and I think she could very well take McCain in the fall.
Posted by Joe Strummer | March 6, 2008 2:52 PM