John McCain: Iraq's Worst Tour Guide
If nothing else, John McCain is an irony producing machine. On the very day Scott McClellan described the Bush administration "propaganda" used to sell an "unnecessary war" in Iraq, talking points McCain himself regurgitated, the Arizona Senator challenged Barack Obama to join him on a Baghdad visit. More ironic still, John McCain hasn't merely been wrong at every turn about the war in Iraq; the closer he gets to the war zone itself, the more disastrously off-base he becomes.
That's the clear assessment from long-time CNN Baghdad correspondent, Michael Ware:
"I mean Senator McCain has been here, what, more than half a dozen times. And we've seen him get assessments of Iraq terribly wrong. So I wouldn't be hanging my hat on the fact that your opponent has only been here once."
But you don't need to take Ware's word for it. John McCain's will do quite nicely.
Just yesterday, for example, Mr. Straight Talk discussed the calm and serenity in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Sadly, McCain made his boast on the very day that Mosul was rocked by two suicide bombings:
"I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it's long and it's hard and it's tough and there will be setbacks."
But McCain's fallacy of proximity is truly on display when he reports from the ground in Iraq. That is, the closer McCain gets to the action, the further he travels from the truth.
One of the more comic moments in McCain's history of misguided Iraq cheerleading came on April 1, 2007. (Literally April Fool's Day - you can't make this stuff up.) Wearing a bulletproof vest and guarded by "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead," McCain briefly toured a Baghdad market to demonstrate that the American people were "not getting the full picture." As ThinkProgress detailed:
McCain recently claimed that there "are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today." In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed "walk freely" in some areas of Baghdad.
Then in early March, Senator McCain returned to a tried and untrue Republican talking point: Iraq is no more dangerous than most major American cities. McCain announced, "There's problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know." In this case, at least, even McCain realized his statement was non-sensical on its face and sounded the retreat. "I'm not making that comparison, because it's much more deadly in Iraq obviously," he said, adding, "But it's kind of the same theory."
Alas, just one week later, the reality on the ground interrupted McCain again. As the AP reported, McCain had a blast - almost - during his trip to Baghdad to commemorate the five year anniversary of the U.S. invasion:
"Explosions rocked Iraq's capital on Monday as Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain visited ahead of the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion."
Of course, John McCain has been consistently - and egregiously - wrong in his statements about Iraq, whether issued here or there. From his predictions of a short war and claims U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators to his announcements of mission accomplished and his ongoing confusion over friend and foe in Iraq, McCain's is a record of unbroken error.
Still, John McCain on Monday threw down the gauntlet to Barack Obama, while offering to be his tour guide in Iraq:
"He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time. If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn't had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly."
Obama spokesman David Axelrod had just the right response. "What does all his experience get us?” adding, "The fact that he goes to Iraq and gets a tour apparently does little to provoke the kinds of questions that should be asked, and what Sen. Obama has been asking since the beginning."
Which is exactly right. You shouldn't be this wrong, this often and still get to play tour guide in Iraq, let alone President of the United States.
(For more background, see: "Is McCain 'Sick at Heart' Over His Own Iraq Mistakes?")
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Excellent take down!
Posted by Donkey_Kong on May 30, 2008 4:05 PMWell said.
Posted by The Kenosha Kid on May 30, 2008 5:28 PM