troung

January 17, 2008
McCain has been more wrong than most
Posted January 17th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com...ves/14272.html
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I first took note for Roger Cohen’s work in the New York Time last summer, when he wrote a very odd op-ed arguing that the war in Iraq is a disaster, but it was worthwhile anyway. In October, Cohen again raised eyebrows, this time with a bizarre NYT piece insisting that the neocons have gotten a bad rap, and aren’t nearly as ridiculous as we make them out to be.

But today, Cohen’s work takes an even more disconcerting turn.

Nobody’s been right all the time on Iraq, but Senator John McCain has been less wrong than most. He knew a bungled war when he saw one and pressed early for increased force levels. He backed the injection last year of some 30,000 troops, a surge that has produced results. […]

McCain was politically dead six months ago, his campaign undone by his backing of President Bush’s Iraq policy. His remarkable resurgence, which has put him in the lead among Republican candidates, according to recent polls, is one measure of the Iraq shift.

Cohen adds some vaguely sycophantic praise for the senator, calling McCain “flesh and blood,” and a “straight-talking survivor.”

First, I can think of a few people who’ve been right “all the time on Iraq.” Al Gore seems to be batting a thousand on this one, and Russ Feingold and Barack Obama have track records that are pretty darn good.

Second, the notion that McCain has been “less wrong than most” is certainly what his campaign press releases have been arguing for months, but for Cohen to make the argument in a New York Times op-ed is rather foolish. Cohen’s piece was a little short on specifics, and that’s a shame — he has the situation largely backwards.

I know we’ve been over this before, but given that Cohen’s piece is bound to get attention — and get circulated by the McCain campaign — it’s worth taking a moment (again) to highlight the fact that very few have been right about Iraq all the time, but McCain has been consistently wrong since before the invasion even began.

First, McCain was very wrong before the invasion. (Note: I’m combining quotes from two different sources)

McCain on CNN on Sept. 24, 2002: “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.”

McCain on CNN on Sept. 29, 2002: “We’re not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.”

McCain on MSNBC on Jan. 22, 2003: “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.”

McCain on NBC on March 20, 2003: “I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators.”

Second, McCain was completely wrong during the early years of the war. (Again, quotes from two different links)

McCain on ABC on Apr. 9, 2003: “It’s clear that the end is very much in sight.”

McCain on MSNBC on Apr. 23, 2003: “There’s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shias. So I think they can probably get along.”

McCain on ABC on Dec. 14, 2003: “This is a mission accomplished. They know how much influence Saddam Hussein had on the Iraqi people, how much more difficult it made to get their cooperation.”

McCain on ABC on Mar. 7, 2004: “I’m confident we’re on the right course.”

McCain to The Hill on Dec. 8, 2005: “I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.”

And finally, McCain said all we had to do was give Bush’s so-called “surge” a chance, and we’d finally see political reconciliation in Iraq. Strike three.

McCain has been “less wrong than most”? If he’s been wrong every step of the way, how is it even possible to be more wrong than McCain?

__________________
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

citanon

He was completely correct on all these accounts. The cost we paid was small compared major combat operations in past conflicts other than GWI. We did not get into house to house fighting in Baghdad, and the Iraqis did greet the US as liberators.


He was also right on both accounts. The end of the first phase was in sight. There was no history of violent conflict between the two before Saddam and violent conflict did not flare up until Al Qaeda strikes a year (iirc) later.

Now they are just taking him out of context. What was he referring to?

We were seeing progress in some parts. Unfortunately they were not at the centers of gravity. He was trying to shore up shaky support.

Political reconciliation has been taking place at the grassroots level and political accommodation is occurring, for now, between the different political parties outside of official channels. The problem is with the Iraqi government. However, it is by no mean the dominant political force in Iraq at the moment, so we can say that the degree of reconciliation is mixed, tenuous, and dynamic.

Unfortunately this kind of selective memory, distortions of the facts and plain stupidity has characterized liberal attitudes toward the war.

dalem

I like this post over at Powerline.

Linkydink.

I think it's a good summary of why conservatives are so torqued off at McCain, but also how it might not turn out to be that bad should he become POTUS.

Another way to frame it would be to say that it outlines how we'd creep toward being the most powerful Socialist basket case on the block, of course.

-dale