McCain is odd man out as debate on war in Iraq dramatically shifts to Obama’s favor

16 comments July 21st, 2008

As the Bush administration relents on a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki expresses favor for Barack Obama’s plan for withdrawal, John McCain FINDS HIMSELF in a box.

POSTSCRIPT: Efforts to cast al-Maliki’s embrace of Obama’s plan as misunderstood or mistranslated have pretty much COME TO NAUGHT.

An offer he can’t refuse?

1 comment July 20th, 2008

George W. Bush and his good buddy John McCain have said on several occasions that American troops should remain in Iraq only so long as they are welcome by that country’s democratically elected government.

Hewing to that promise, at least in outward appearances, hasn’t been easy of late. Any conspicuous signs from the Iraqis that they want the Americans out have had to be tamped down.

Take, for example, the little drama that played out yesterday:

 The German magazine Der Spiegel published an interview with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in which he was said to have endorsed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from his country within 16 months.

The magazine also quoted al-Maliki as saying that keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for any prolonged period, as McCain has suggested, “would cause problems.”

The prime minister added this: “So far the Americans have had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat. But that isn’t the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory.”

All of this created quite a stir in American political circles. As soon as Reuters moved the story on its wire, the White House apparently went into panic mode and accidentally dispatched it to all the reporters on its distribution list.

And before long, al-Maliki seemed to have found a horse’s head in his bed, courtesy of the folks who want to keep American troops in his country as long they would like, no matter what he or the Iraqi people would prefer. The offer of these troops apparently is one that the prime minister, as Vito Corleone might say, can’t refuse.

Accordingly, a spokesman for al-Maliki wasted no time in telling the world that the prime minister somehow was misunderstood by the German magazine.  His words somehow were mistranslated.

Yeah, sure they were.

A pretty good account of this episode can be found on THIS Fox News blog, of all places.

UPDATE: HERE’s another interesting take.

UPDATE II: And ANOTHER (this one disputes the claim that al-Maliki was misquoted).

George (or)W(ell) Bush and his awesome “general time horizon”

Add comment July 19th, 2008

(NOTE: Don’t miss the updates at the bottom of this brilliant satire.)

Only our Dear Leader could show us the rhetorical error of Barack Obama’s ways.

Obama, a man of dubious loyalties, has long favored a “timeline” for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.  But that would be folly, Dear Leader has warned. That would send a signal to the terrorists that we’re leaving Iraq to the Iraqis.  That would be bad.

Instead, Dear Leader has come up with the IDEA of a “general time horizon” for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Those words, of course, will cleverly confuse the terrorists, who are not familiar with Dear Leader’s mysterious linguisticismizings.

So brilliant is Dear Leader’s plan for a general time horizon that even the ordinarily intransigent Obama has conceded that it’s “a step in the right direction.”

But, you ask, what is the reaction of John McCain, the would-be successor to Dear Leader? Well, McCain, the poor sap, characteristically has come up with a pathetic ALTERNATIVE name for the plan. He calls it a “conditions-based withdrawal.”  Lord, help us! Even the terrorists likely will cringe at the lack of poetry in that phrase.

General time horizon!  It’s a term that will take its place in history alongside the other great generals — Washington, Grant, Eisenhower, Motors, Mills, Electric.

All hail Dear Leader!

UPDATE: Uh-oh! The prime minister of Iraq SAYS he prefers Obama’s plan for withdrawal of troops, and he adds that McCain’s plan for “prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems.”

UPDATE II: Send in the clowns! It says HERE that “The White House this afternoon accidentally sent to its extensive distribution list a Reuters story headlined ‘Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine.’”

UPDATE III: Ezra Klein SAYS Obama would lose the election if the Iraqi PM had dissed Obama’s plan and endorsed McCain.

Here’s John McCain’s “documentary” faulting Barack Obama’s statements on the Iraq war

Add comment July 17th, 2008

A battle of ads on the Iraq war

2 comments July 16th, 2008

It was oil all along

18 comments July 7th, 2008

Bill Moyers is a national treasure:

This anti-McCain ad is unfair

15 comments June 21st, 2008

There’s a lot of buzz of late about this 30-second spot sponsored by MoveOn and AFSCME and currently airing in Wisconsin and certain other states and on CNN and MSNBC.

The ad is effective on an emotional level, but it’s a distortion in terms of the political facts of the matter. It implies, for example, that we now have a military draft and likely will have one in decades to come.

In short, the ad is powerful but unfair:

McCain unfairly mugged by critics for his “not important” remark regarding troops in Iraq

4 comments June 12th, 2008

With certain qualifications, I feel obliged to defend John McCain against the firestorm of criticism he’s getting for having said it’s “not important” exactly when U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq.

I mostly agree with Marc Ambinder’s VIEW of the matter, especially regarding the implication from some critics that McCain doesn’t care about the travails of the troops and their families.

Make no mistake. I still think McCain is wrong about the war.  But I’m not going to say his “not important” remark betrayed an innate callousness. Rather, I think it simply demonstrated that he has a political tin ear and is inclined to say the wrong thing sometimes.

UPDATE: It’s been more than seven hours since I posted this defense of McCain, and not a single commenter here has praised me for my magnanimity. Boy, there’s just no pleasing some of you people.

Why not just come right out and say he lied?

2 comments June 6th, 2008

The New York Times, in an otherwise spot-on EDITORIAL today, beats around the bush (so to speak) on whether President Bush and his gang lied to the American people during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

In commenting on a Senate Intelligence Committee report issued Thursday, the Times says administration officials  ”knowingly twisted and hyped intelligence…ignored dissenting views and telegraphed what answers they were looking for…knew they were not giving a full and honest account of their justifications for going to war…took vague and dubious intelligence reports on Iraq’s weapons programs and made them sound like hard and incontrovertible fact…glossed over inconvenient facts.”

But, then, the Times offers this weasely and illogical conclusion: “We cannot say with certainty whether Mr. Bush lied about Iraq. But when the president withholds vital information from the public — or leads them to believe things that he knows are not true — to justify the invasion of another country, that is bad enough.”

Incredible! The editorialists at the Times seem strangely unable to understand that when the president leads Americans “to believe things he knows are not true,” he’s lying.

As the saying goes, if it walks like a duck….

POSTSCRIPT: Here’s another ANGLE on something I mentioned yesterday — namely that the Iraqis want us to get our troops out of their country. If we refuse to accede to the wishes of Iraq’s elected Parliament in this matter, then ours is an army of occupation.  That kind of thing doesn’t sit well with the Arab world.

Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq statements were untrue

10 comments June 5th, 2008

McClatchy has a STORY about a Senate Select Intelligence Committee report made public today and its conclusion that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.

UPDATE: A British paper REPORTS that the Bush administration is negotiating a secret deal that would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

UPDATE II: A member of the Iraqi Parliament TELLS a U.S. House subcommittee that as many as 70 percent of the Iraqi people want U.S. troops withdrawn from their country.

UPDATE III: How’s this for counterintuition?: David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush, SAYS John McCain will win the presidency if the election pivots on the war in Iraq.