Thursday, April 05, 2007
McCain and Iraq
A quick note on John McCain who so far is being out-fundraised by both Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. I continue to like McCain for several non-Iraq reasons such as his outsider tendencies and his military background. Yet, increasingly I become convinced that his Iraqi policies may indeed doom his chances of becoming president.
To McCain's credit, he consistently supported a larger and stronger American show of force in Iraq when it was desperately needed back in 2003-2005 -- while the current administration believed a smaller and sleeker military would work better. McCain was correct.
But now McCain is making the Bush-esque mistake of viewing Iraq with rose colored glasses. After a recent trip to Baghdad, McCain reported things were much better than expected and that the media was actually at fault for under-reporting the progress being made.
Perhaps. But the actual correspondents on the ground have now fired back. And it should be noted they do so without the the benefit of McCain's military-enforced around-the-clock security detail.
CBS News' Allen Pizzey: "Now, McCain and some other senators were there on Sunday, and they claimed, "Oh, we walked around for a whole hour…and we drove in from the airport. Gosh, aren't we great, we drove in from the airport." Excuse me, Mr. McCain, you drove in in a large convoy of heavily armed vehicles. The last one had a sign on it saying "Keep back 100 yards. Deadly force authorized." Every single car that they approached or passed pulled over and stopped, because that's the way it is. When one of those security details goes by, every ordinary person gets the hell out of the way, in case they get shot.
To McCain's credit, he consistently supported a larger and stronger American show of force in Iraq when it was desperately needed back in 2003-2005 -- while the current administration believed a smaller and sleeker military would work better. McCain was correct.
But now McCain is making the Bush-esque mistake of viewing Iraq with rose colored glasses. After a recent trip to Baghdad, McCain reported things were much better than expected and that the media was actually at fault for under-reporting the progress being made.
Perhaps. But the actual correspondents on the ground have now fired back. And it should be noted they do so without the the benefit of McCain's military-enforced around-the-clock security detail.
CBS News' Allen Pizzey: "Now, McCain and some other senators were there on Sunday, and they claimed, "Oh, we walked around for a whole hour…and we drove in from the airport. Gosh, aren't we great, we drove in from the airport." Excuse me, Mr. McCain, you drove in in a large convoy of heavily armed vehicles. The last one had a sign on it saying "Keep back 100 yards. Deadly force authorized." Every single car that they approached or passed pulled over and stopped, because that's the way it is. When one of those security details goes by, every ordinary person gets the hell out of the way, in case they get shot.
# posted by Jeff Briscoe : 4:29 PM
