McCain's Mighty Understanding

Here's a good one, John McCain smacks Barack Obama around for not realizing that force levels in Iraq are already down to pre-surge levels. This shows, according to McCain, how Obama's not having taken a recent guided tour of Iraq makes him unqualified. But of course McCain's wrong about how many troops are in Iraq! It's almost as if being a cranky and arrogant old man isn't the same as possessing actual understanding. Here's the video:

I think the general idea is that if McCain asserts loudly enough that Obama doesn't know what he's talking about, that people will believe it.

Comments

And Obama possesses actual understanding because he is, after all, the Messiah.

'Nuff said.

Word.

Posted by True Believer | May 30, 2008 1:25 PM

Your link in the first sentence goes to the Bob Dole story, Matthew.

Posted by Al | May 30, 2008 1:25 PM

I think the general idea is that if McCain asserts loudly enough that Obama doesn't know what he's talking about, that people will believe it.

Or at least the media. Not a bad bet on his part.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | May 30, 2008 1:29 PM

Nope. Would've worked with Kerry- won't work with Obama, because his campaign pounces on these things pretty fast. Which forces the media to cover it.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | May 30, 2008 1:31 PM

McCain's wrong about how many troops are in Iraq!

Linky, please?

Posted by Ryan | May 30, 2008 1:32 PM

C'mon, people, let's not nitpick McCain's verb tense. That would be a distraction, you know. He obviously meant to say they WILL be at pre-surge levels. Duh...

Posted by Stacy | May 30, 2008 1:34 PM

Or at least the media. Not a bad bet on his part.

It's clearly a lot easier route for McCain to take then for him to actually start learning the whole shia-sunni thing, or other "facts".

Posted by Christopher Colaninno | May 30, 2008 1:35 PM

By the way, McCain's defense about this error is that we will soon be down to pre-surge levels later this summer and Obama shouldn't be so nit-picky about verb tense.

No, really.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/McCain_campaign_Dont_nitpick_his_verb_tenses.html#comments

Posted by Jennifer | May 30, 2008 1:36 PM

He never expected to be in a campaign where he'd be whacked so quickly and effectively for this kind of BS. That's why he flounders with Clintonesque logic-chopping when he's caught.

Hey rethugs- forget 2004. You're in a whole new ballgame now, and you haven't even figured out the rules yet. Heh.

Posted by Steve LaBonne | May 30, 2008 1:46 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 1:57 PM

"This shows, according to McCain, how Obama's not having taken a recent guided tour of Iraq makes him unqualified."

Yes, of course, an Iraq visit will make all the difference.

To have a visit just like McCain; clad in a Kevlar vest and helmet, with a dozen or so armed troops to act as your personal bodyguards and a US attack helicopter flying overhead at all times, tracking your every step, that will give Obama an accurate, realistic picture of what the conditions on the ground in Iraq are.

But just be sure to give Iraq the Catherine the Great treatment! Be sure to scoop up the raw sewage from the street and do something with the pile of smoking corpses down the block. Or else one of those unpatriotic news cameramen might give the public the wrong idea.

Posted by Raindog | May 30, 2008 1:57 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 1:59 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 1:59 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 2:01 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 2:01 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 2:01 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 2:01 PM

Fauxbama hasn't been to Iraq since 2006, come on now. Fauxbama is afraid that he will see progress and have to admit that the surge is working. That Mac is right, not to mention it will put emphasis on how little Fauxbama knows about the war. How little he knows about the knowledge required to handle the aspects of a presidency that includes making the type decisions required by a Commander-in-Chief.

Posted by Vicki Hampton | May 30, 2008 2:02 PM

Vicki Hampton the swarm is calling you back to the hive for an service check.

Posted by Northern Observer | May 30, 2008 2:08 PM

I wonder if double posts still count fully towards earning your McCain swag.

Posted by Gabriel | May 30, 2008 2:09 PM

Vicki, shut the fuck up already.

Posted by Ryan | May 30, 2008 2:09 PM

Vicky? Easy on those triple espressos...

Posted by ao | May 30, 2008 2:10 PM

Vicki-

Say it as many times as you would like, it's still bullsh*t. Violence is down, not gone, just down. And that wasn't the point of the surge in the first place. The point was to reduce the level of violence so the Iraqi Government could get their act together and pass the various oil, reconciliation and other bills to better the life of the Iraqi people. That has not happened.

That's so rude of them, those mean Iraqis, not acting polite so the GOP can have its precious talking points.

Wait until Sistani issues his “it’s okay to kill US troops if they don’t leave by “X” date” fatwa. It should happen just after the US and the Puppet Regime in Baghdad sign that long-tong security deal that lets the US stay in Iraqi for a week after forever. Things will get lively again.

Posted by Raindog | May 30, 2008 2:11 PM

Vicki,
I think everyone can live with your trolling as long as you learn how to post correctly.

Posted by Ted2 | May 30, 2008 2:13 PM

8 times?

That’s a sure sign of a passive aggressive attitude.

You might want to think of some kind of new insult besides, “Fauxbama”, though. That one is just too stupid, saying it is like picking up a pile of crap with your bare hands to throw at someone else.

Posted by Raindog | May 30, 2008 2:18 PM

for vicki, Stolen from steve benen at the carpetbagger;

Right around the same time McCain was boasting of the “quiet” in Mosul, “Another suicide bomber driving a police vehicle struck Iraqi commandos earlier Thursday in Mosul, killing three of them and wounding nine other people, according to battalion commander Capt. Aziz Latif. The victims were from a unit sent from the southern city of Kut to participate in the Mosul crackdown, Latif said.”

And then shortly after that, just outside Mosul, “A suicide bomber killed 14 police recruits and two policemen in northern Iraq on Thursday, police and military sources said. An attacker wearing a military uniform detonated an explosive vest near a police recruiting centre where about 200 applicants queued at Sinjar, near Mosul, police said. Ten police recruits and five police officers were wounded, police and military sources said. Sunni insurgents have carried out frequent attacks on police recruits, killing hundreds.”

Posted by dj spellchecka | May 30, 2008 4:16 PM

Perhaps Vicki Hampton is too much of a noob to know that the Atlantic comment posting script flows like molasses. That'd be the charitable pov.

Otherwise, what a nutter. BTW, at the bottom of the linked blog: "My blog is worth $0. How much is your blog worth? Powered by Technorati."

Hey, Technorati works! Who knew?

Posted by cmholm | May 30, 2008 4:30 PM

"Fauxbama" sounds French to me. Are you one of them America-hatin' Frenchies?

Posted by croatoan | May 30, 2008 5:57 PM

If the IT morons at The Atlantic knew how to run a frickin' Web site, maybe we'd know whether these nuts are trolls or just computer illiterate.

STOP WITH THE INTERNAL SERVER ERRORS ALREADY, YOU MORONS!

Don't these jerks know how to configure Apache?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 30, 2008 6:26 PM

"Fauxbama" sounds right to me. I think the number of brigades might be up, but the number of troops might be down---which I don't expect the surrender-monkey lefties to comprehend.

They hate the US military & the military protects their right to hate.

Kind of like Scott McClellan being raised from well-deserved obscurity and then selling out his master for thirty pieces of silver.

No loyalty on the left or among Judases.

Posted by daveinboca | May 30, 2008 7:05 PM

Here's the count, morons:

US to withdraw 4,000 troops from Iraq
http://www.dawn.com/2008/05/30/int1.htm

Money Quotes:

"The US military announced on Thursday the withdrawal of another 4,000 “surge” troops from Iraq after reporting that violence across the country has hit a four-year low.

It said the latest pullout was to be completed by next month. It is the fourth brigade to withdraw from Iraq out of five that deployed under the controversial “surge” of American forces in February 2007.

Washington has said it wants to complete the withdrawal of the 30,000 surge troops by July and have a 45-day evaluation period before considering the overall level of US troops.

Earlier this month, the Americans said they had 152,500 troops deployed across Iraq together with an estimated 10,000 troops from other countries contributing to the US-led coalition."

Bottom line: We are NOT YET down to pre-surge levels. McCain was WRONG. It will be two months before we are allegedly down to pre-surge levels - and then Betray-Us will probably ask for more troops during the 45-day "evaluation" period.

None of which is relevant, because it is widely acknowledged among the military analysts that the only reason the violence is down is 1) Sadr's cease fire - which is being deliberately threatened by US and Iraqi forces as we speak; 2) the Sunni insurgency decided it couldn't fight both the Shia militias and the US at the same time, so it made a deal with the US to get paid to rearm and refit to fight the Shia while dumping its Al Qaeda allies.

Otherwise, nothing has changed in Iraq. The Sunni and Shia still hate each other, and ALL the Iraqis except the quislings in the government want the US out yesterday.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 30, 2008 8:03 PM