The Transitivity of Timetables

As the right continues to try to sort out a coherent response to the Iraqi government's embrace of Barack Obama's vision for Iraq, John McCain tries a new gambit -- he thinks Maliki's timetable is just fine:

So if McCain likes Maliki's timetable, and Maliki likes McCain's timetable, then logically McCain has to like Obama's timetable. But that's not how McCain sees it -- Obama's policies still equal doom. Or maybe we're supposed to be playing by Ken Pollack rules where if we get the numbers all wrong, then McCain and Maliki have similar positions.

Comments

Haven't you heard of non-Euclidean geometry?

McCain too is practicing non-rational logic where the transitivity of liking does not hold. Too sophisticated for people educated in Cambridge. Even for this graduate of the Harvard of the West Coast.

Posted by gregor | July 26, 2008 12:02 PM

"He won't, he won't... I think it's a pretty good time horizon but it has to be based on conditions on the ground"

Wow, it's like he knows that conditions won't be suitable for withdrawal in 16 months. I'm going to vote for him, 'cause he's clairvoyant. Obama's cool, but he's got no magical powers.

Posted by Jeff S. | July 26, 2008 12:09 PM

"So if McCain likes Maliki's timetable, and Maliki likes McCain's timetable, then logically McCain has to like Obama's timetable."

I think you mean Maliki like's *Obama's* timetable.

Posted by Jorge | July 26, 2008 12:10 PM

Ugh. As stupid as this sounds to people who have been following the campaign closely, I'm afraid it may be smart politics. There are a lot of people out there who hate McCain's actual positions but have a gut loathing for democrats. If McCain takes essentially Obama's position, then mischaracterizes Obama's position using all kinds of right-wing buzz words that may be a more or less sound strategy. It lets people say there are no real policy differences, the election is about "trust." And who can trust an angry, naive, foreign-sounding, etc., etc.?

Posted by Leo | July 26, 2008 12:34 PM

We've become Kafkaesque!

Posted by Swan | July 26, 2008 12:37 PM

So if McCain likes Maliki's timetable, and Maliki likes McCain's timetable, then logically McCain has to like Obama's timetable.

Once again an Yglesias typo obscures the point he's trying to make.

Posted by southpaw | July 26, 2008 12:38 PM

A more honest (if equally stupid) position for McCain to take is that Obama is right, but for the wrong reasons. But apparently that's treading dangerously close to admitting error (rather than just reversing course without admitting error), so McCain is reduced to transparent hairsplitting.

Posted by RSA | July 26, 2008 12:39 PM

Leo has a point.

Posted by cnnr | July 26, 2008 12:44 PM

Leo has it exactly right. It is a referendum on Obama now, and McCain is saying you know me, you trust me, but you don't know where this other guy came from. It's a one-dimensional, negative strategy from Red, but Blue should know this. Thank the old fella for his service to his country, give him his gold watch, and escort him off stage.

Posted by James | July 26, 2008 1:00 PM

Please remember: "time horizon" does not mean the same as "timetable". A horizon recedes as you approach it. A horizon is always one friedman unit away.

Posted by Arun | July 26, 2008 1:24 PM

It's a change gamer.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 26, 2008 1:57 PM

There is never a game changer. When you have 85 percent of the press you win. When you have 85 percent of the press you have 260 house seats, 60 senate seats and the presidency. When the media takes sides like in russia you win.

McCain wants it based on conditions on the ground and the recommendation on the commanders.

Maliki just yesterday said it was based on conditions on the ground.

There is a huge difference between that.

McCain was praising Maliki for saying based on conditions on the ground.

The commanders on the ground said Obama's plan is impossible.

Even his advisors are saying he is only using talk and his plan would require 80,000 troops.

So Obama is lying for votes.

This is Obama who said the extra troops would have the opposite effect and cause more sectarian violence.

This is Obama who on the senate floor said it would be wrong to ever set timetables.

This is Obama who for years voted for funds of the troops until the primary.

Posted by Jason | July 26, 2008 2:06 PM

Man, the quality of the paid trolls sure goes down on the weekends.

Posted by live | July 26, 2008 2:20 PM

McCain could have avoided this latest gaffe by using the unambiguous language Rudy Giuliani effectively communicated this week, while appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe:

Giuliani: A year ago...Barack Obama was calling for 'no surge'...'pull out.' Which would've been a big loss for the United States. The only reason Barack Obama's able to make this trip to Iraq is because the surge that he didn't support worked, which I think says something about his lack of experience in foreign policy. If Barack Obama had been president, we would have had a major loss in Iraq. We would not be talking about a surge that was working. We would not be talking about tentative pull-out dates. And I have the same position I've always had about this, and I think it's the sound one. Pull-out happens on success. If that's 2010, wonderful. And the only reason that would be the case -- because our soldiers did such a good job with the surge. To give the enemy a timetable of your retreat has never happened at a time of war. That would be a terrible mistake. It was a big mistake when Barack Obama did it a year ago. The facts have proven that. And I think it's going to hurt him a lot in the presidential campaign. He was dead wrong about the surge.

Q. You have the White House putting out a time horizon, which -- I'm sorry, I don't see a lot of difference between timelines...

Giuliani: Big difference.

Q. Big difference? Really?

Giuliani: Sure, you talk about -- maybe if the facts dictate it. You could get out in 2010, 2011, 2012. You don't give a timetable of your retreat.

Q. That's a shift, though, from the administration. I mean, they used to talk about no timelines, not talking about time at all because it's dangerous. And now they're seeing a shift probably because the surge appears to be working?

Giuliani: Well, the president said -- it was a year and a half ago -- 'withdraw on success.' We are now having success. It seems to me the only reason we can realistically and seriously talk about withdrawal is because we're having success. He wouldn't talk about it when we had failure. That made sense. If you're getting to the point where you're having success, you can start talking about withdrawing troops. And they have drawn back some of the surge, if not all of the surge at this point, although we have more troops there than in 2007.

Q. So, where does that leave John McCain then?

Giuliani: It leaves John McCain in the very, very enviable position of having been the strongest proponent of the surge against tremendous criticism in the Senate, particularly from Barack Obama. John McCain turns out to be right. I know the media has a hard time with this, but Obama turns out to be completely wrong.

Q. You could argue, though, that if you continue on the path that John McCain is putting forward, that our troops are going to be worn thin and not used in areas where they are needed. And when you think about what's happening in Pakistan, and when you think about what's happening in Afghanistan, and you think about some of the problems percolating in Iran. Are we going to be ready if we continue this engagement at this level, and do we need to be continuing this? Do we need to "win?"

Giuliani: Mika, you could say that, but it would turn out to be wrong. John McCain has turned out to be right. That, by having the surge, we were now able to draw down troops. And we were able to draw down troops in the way in which America should draw down troops. And you ask me should America should win? The only person I could think of that didn't want America to win was Harry Reid, when he announced prematurely that America had lost already. Of course, we have to win. And it's not about winning, like a baseball game. It's about avoiding chaos in the Middle East. It's about avoiding civil war there. It's about having an American ally next to a country that is dangerous to the United States, Iran, rather than having a country there that is an ally of Iran. These are all fundamental issues of foreign policy which I think Barack Obama misses, because in the coverage of Barack Obama, we've missed how inexperienced he is.

Posted by argo | July 26, 2008 2:20 PM

The "likes" relation is not transitive, nor are timetables (whatever that could mean). What we have here is the following inference:

McCain likes Maliki's timetable.
Maliki's timetable = Obama's timetable.
So, McCain likes Obama's timetable.

Whether or not the inference is good depends on whether McCain knows Maliki's timetable = Obama's timetable (he does), and whether McCain is rational enough to draw the relevant conclusion (questionable).

Posted by pedant | July 26, 2008 2:27 PM

There is a huge difference between that.

I want some of what Jason is smoking.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Obama's admission that conditions on the ground could change the timeline was big news back in the primaries. Hillary jumped up and down on it for days.

But McCain is pretending Obama never said that, because he knows his supporters are stupid.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | July 26, 2008 2:38 PM

Wait, it seems like "Jason" is "Dan" from last weekend (both say 85% of the press, both use the same talking points).

Posted by adlsad | July 26, 2008 3:53 PM

Whether or not the inference is good depends on whether McCain knows Maliki's timetable = Obama's timetable (he does), and whether McCain is rational enough to draw the relevant conclusion (questionable).

It doesn't even necessarily depend -- it depends on whether in "McCain likes Obama's timetable" the term 'Obama's timetable' appears de dicto or de re. In "John flew to X" X is always de re; if John flew to Hesperus then he flew to Phosphorus, even if he doesn't know that Hesperus and Phosphorus are the same thing (Venus). In "John intends to fly to X" then X can be de dicto; if John wants to go to Hesperus but wants to avoid Phosphorus (not realizing they're the same), then we can say that he intends to fly to Hesperus but that he doesn't intend to fly to Phosphorus.

If "John likes Obama's timetable" is a de re ascription then the inference is good whether or not McCain knows that it's good. He may not think he likes Obama's timetable, but it's Obama's timetable he likes. I actually think that after 'likes' it has to be de re. I'm not sure we can make sense of "John likes aubergines, John doesn't like eggplants, but aubergines and eggplants are the same thing." Aubergines/eggplants are a vegetable, and either John likes that vegetable or he doesn't.

For more on de re and de dicto see here; as McKay and Nelson point out, nobody actually agrees on exactly what these things are.

Posted by Matt Weiner | July 26, 2008 5:50 PM

"Man, the quality of the paid trolls sure goes down on the weekends."

That's because the weekend trolls are the really stupid ones who aren't EVEN getting paid.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 26, 2008 6:25 PM

Leo has it exactly right. It is a referendum on Obama now, and McCain is saying you know me, you trust me, but you don't know where this other guy came from.
Why should anyone trust him? He changes policies on a dime, is a foreign policy 'expert' that doesn't get much right, and promises nothing but more war.

Posted by joe | July 26, 2008 7:21 PM

Leo's comment: "If McCain takes essentially Obama's position, then mischaracterizes Obama's position using all kinds of right-wing buzz words that may be a more or less sound strategy."

....neglects the fact that McCain isn't smart enough to pull it off ....and the "base" has withered....all over!

Posted by Goyo | July 28, 2008 12:36 AM