Jonah Goldberg Rewrites McCain's Consistently Wrong Record on Iraq
By Jon Perr Tuesday Jun 03, 2008 11:00am
In the Los Angeles Times today, Jonah Goldberg began the right's extreme makeover of John McCain's disastrous record on Iraq. Declaring "there is one candidate who's been consistently right about the war, and it isn't the Democrat," Goldberg invents a fictional McCain at odds with President Bush from the outset of the war:
"Meantime, there was the supposedly dogmatic McCain challenging Bush's approach to Iraq nearly from the get-go."
As the history shows, not so much.
Demonstrating that experience is truly no substitute for judgment, John McCain like President Bush was wrong at almost every turn in promoting the invasion and occupation of Iraq. From his predictions of a short war and claims U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators to his announcements of mission accomplished, his ongoing confusion over friend and foe in Iraq and so much more, McCain's is an unbroken legacy of error.
Here, then, is a brief summary of John McCain's consistently wrong record on Iraq:
On the Run-Up to War
"Look, we're going to send young men and women in harm's way and that's always a great danger, but I cannot believe that there is an Iraqi soldier who is going to be willing to die for Saddam Hussein, particularly since he will know that our objective is to remove Saddam Hussein from power." (John McCain, September 15, 2002.)
"But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991." (John McCain, September 15, 2002.)
"He's a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart." (John McCain, on Ahmed Chalabi, 2003.)
On Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction "
Proponents of containment claim that Iraq is in a "box." But it is a box with no lid, no bottom, and whose sides are falling out. Within this box are definitive footprints of germ, chemical and nuclear programs." (John McCain, February 13, 2003.)
"I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." (John McCain, June 11, 2003.)
On Being Greeted as Liberators
"Absolutely. Absolutely." John McCain, asked by Chris Matthews, "you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?" (March 12, 2003.)
"Not only that, they'll be relieved that he's not in the neighborhood because he has invaded his neighbors on several occasions." John McCain, asked by Chris Matthews, "And you think the Arab world will come to a grudging recognition that what we did was necessary?" (March 12, 2003.)
"There's no doubt in my mind that we will prevail and there's no doubt in my mind, once these people are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators." (John McCain, March 24, 2003.)
On a Rapid Victory and Mission Accomplished
"I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks." (John McCain, January 28, 2003.)
"It's clear that the end is very much in sight...It won't be long. It, it'll be a fairly short period of time." (John McCain, April 9, 2003.)
"We won a massive victory in a few weeks, and we did so with very limited loss of American and allied lives." (John McCain, May 22, 2003.)
"I thought it was wrong at the time. Do I blame him for that specific banner? I can't." (John McCain, on President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech, May 1, 2008.)
"Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?" (John McCain, responding to assertion by Fox News' Neil Cavuto that "many argue the conflict isn't over," June 11, 2003.)
"I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict -- the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished, and it's very appropriate." (John McCain, June 11, 2003.)
"I'm confident we're on the right course." (John McCain, March 7, 2004.)
"We're either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months." (John McCain, November 12, 2006.)
"My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years." (John McCain, February 25, 2008.)
On the Safe Streets of Baghdad
"[There] there "are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today." John McCain, after touring a Baghdad market wearing a bulletproof vest and guarded by "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead, (April 1, 2007.)
"There's problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know." (John McCain, March 8, 2008.)
On President Bush and His Team
We are very fortunate that our president in these challenging days can rely on the counsel of a man who has demonstrated time and again the resolve, experience, and patriotism that will be required for success and the hard-headed clear thinking necessary to prevail in this global fight between good and evil." (John McCain, on Dick Cheney, July 16, 2004.)
"I think he strengthened our national defenses. I think he has a good team around him." (John McCain, on President Bush, September 3, 2004. )
"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence." (John McCain, on whether he had confidence in Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, December 15, 2004.)
On the Non-Existent Alliance Between Al Qaeda and Iran
"But Al Qaeda is there, they are functioning, they are supported in many times, in many ways by the Iranians." (John McCain, February 28, 2008.)
"As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq." (John McCain, March 17, 2008.)
"[Iranian operatives are] "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." (John McCain, March 18, 2008.)
"[It is] common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." (John McCain, March 18, 2008.)
"Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated." McCain campaign statement, (March 19, 2008.)
"To think that I would have some lack of knowledge about Sunni and Shia after my eighth visit and my deep involvement in this issue is a bit ludicrous." (John McCain, March 19, 2008.)
"Do you still view Al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat? Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shiites overall…" (John McCain, questioning General David Petraeus, April 8, 2008.)
On a Permanent American Military Presence in Iraq
"We cannot keep our forces indefinitely staged in the region. Were we to attempt again to contain Saddam, we would eventually have to withdraw them. The world is full of dangers and, more likely than not, we will need some of those brave men and women to face them down." (John McCain, February 13, 2003.)
"We have had troops in South Korea for 60 years and nobody minds." (John McCain, June 7, 2007.)
"Make it a hundred." John McCain, told that President Bush had said American troops could remain in Iraq for 50 years, (January 3, 2008.)
"I asked McCain about his 'hundred years' comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 'a thousand years' or 'a million years,' as far as he was concerned." (David Corn, January 3, 2008.)
"The U.S. could have a military presence anywhere in the world for a long period of time." (John McCain, February 20, 2008.)
"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom." (John McCain, May 15, 2008.)
"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." John McCain, on a day when Mosul was rocked by suicide bombs and U.S. troop strength remained abve pre-surge level, (May 30, 2008.)
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As the saying goes: You are entitled to your own opinion.... you are not entitled to your own facts.
"There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today."
--prior to visiting a Baghdad market while being flanked by 22 soldiers, 10 armored Humvees, and two Apache attack helicopters
One could argue he was right about the need for a surge, but Gen. Eric Shinseki already forsaw that and wanting it in the initial invasion, and then another general, who's name I no longer remember, was backing a surge of manpower, and a hold philsophy of soldiers actually getting to know the populace. This latter was the prototype for the surge,
"I think I'd just commit suicide."
~McGrampa in October 2006, on the prospects of the Democrats taking back the Senate in the November election
"Make it a hundred...That would be fine with me."
~McGrampa to a questioner who asked if he supported President Bush's vision for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 50 years
The media need to be called liars very LOUDLY!
It's overdue.
more media matters, etc
more Raw Story
more greenwald
more......
rinse and repeat
Jonah the Doughy Pantload (love that nickname) is full of ... well, you can guess what.
Mr McCain and Mr Pantload don't need no stinkin' facts - they got a ideology!
Favorite MsSame-ism is his sponsoring campaign finance reform he later opposed.
I was just watching McCain somewhere at a town hall meeting. The audience looked as though they were a bunch of people herded in and forced to sit through the whole thing. They had no expressions on their faces and they seemed to clap on cue. It was a strange thing to watch. He just can't fire up a crowd, but it did look like he was putting them in a trance to be followed by deep sleep.
ysbaddaden @ 3:
there was never a need for a surge. all the violence is being instigated by american forces. when the Iraqis called for truces, the strategy changed to invading neIghborhoods looking for Al CIAda. the entire meme has always been false and it is not redeemable by any stretch of logic. no concession of fact is possible or sensible. those generals who were not removed have been taking their marching orders from PNAC members. there was never a justification for attacking Iraq (or Afghanistan for that matter). there was never a justification for a surge. this has only been about oil, just like the plan for Iran.
Dr. (Bitter Hussein) Matt @ 4:
I'll be waiting for this then... although I think he's lying just like always.
why don't jonah goldberg and tom friedman just get married? they have soooo much in common. bill kristol can be bridesmaid for both. it's a marriage made in ... well, california i guess.
pissed off patricia @ 10:
Yeah, I caught a few minutes of it too. The audience looked completely bored and were unenthusiastic.....strangely surreal. The word "lobotomites" describes that scene.
the media is going all-out for the election.
I can hardly wait for the next Bin (cash)laden tape
or the terror alerts
or the arrest of a group of homeless would-be terrrrists
or the revival of "Hussein-the-closet-muslim"
or the revival of "barack-the-magic-negro"
or the divided democratic party
but certainly, we'll never get THE REAL MCCAIN from our no-longer-disguised-PRAVDA
if you are going to write opinions ofr a major newspaper, then at least educate yourself. otherwise fire this guy, any twit can lie.
ysbaddaden @ 3:
one could argue that.
of course they would be wrong.
but they could still argue that point.
seeing everything thru a military-prism produces a military-solution for all problems. and, ys, i am NOT saying that that is how you see things, just making a larger point about our political climate.
"supposedly"??? That doesn't seem like an extremely strong statement.
I, admittedly, haven't read the piece, but usually when someone puts a "supposedly" in the middle of a sentence, there is a "but" that follows.
I should probably go and read the article.
echoman2000 @ 13:
because when they ask:
David Brooks will start screaming
Dr. (Bitter Hussein) Matt @ 14:
.
Jonah Goldberg, the man who calls Liberals fascists...
Jonah Goldberg, the man who mischaracterizes facts...
Jonah Goldberg, a modern day fiction writer... as nothing he can write is truthful, insightful, or historically honest!
.
Jonah Goldberg is full of shit? That's unpossible!
Reslugs have always been and will continue to be consistently wrong on everything.
and a big thank you to John Perr
Jonah Goldberg is probably the dumbest man writing columns for major publications (far surpassing Bill Kristol, though not for lack of effort on Kristol's part). His columns are syndicated in the Chicago Sun-Times, and I read one in which he tried to argue that the type neoconservative foreign policy that led to war in Iraq has been an ideal of the country since its creation. Odd, odd man.
Jonah Goldberg is an accomplished revisionist! Highly trained.
I know, I know, hindsight is 20/20;
We had no business invading Iraq unless we had a real reason which we didn't.
There's still time to impeach the war criminals.
Wait a minute.
Why is Goldberg writing op-eds for the LA Times???? Who in the fuck thought this was a good idea? I'm calling them right now and ending my subscription.
Un.Fucking.Believable
How can McCain be an "expert" on anything? Even though all politicians put on a "public face" - Americans are not so stupid they can't see through an act.
That editorial page lost all creditability when they dropped Scheer, who provided provided balance to Boot (who stayed), and brought in Goldberg. The guy is an absolutely insult to the intelligence of anyone but a 28 percenter.
This is one of the many Goldberg editorials demonstrating his selective reading of historical facts.
McCain lies. That is the message that everyone should repeat when they hear a MSM lie like this.
get a load of this doosy from this intellectual pipsqueak:
"Jonah Goldberg: Iraq Was a Worthy Mistake
We know now that invading Iraq was the wrong decision, but that doesn't vindicate the antiwar crowd."
now THAT is some pure jonah-illogic there.
bwahahaha, this is one of the rightwing's top guys, too. quite the indication of just how low the GOP has to scrape to find defenders of their poison.
Jesus Hussein Christ @ 28:
max boot wasn't enough to drive you away before?
The editorial by Mr. Pantload is so devoid of facts, I don't know why someone would write it. Why doesn't he just leave a blank page.
rain @ 29:
He's an expert at destroying military aircraft. Not too many people get to say they destroyed five of them.
Samson- @ 32:
Does anyone think that a Democrat in the White House would do any better? Remember how Clinton indiscriminately bombed Iraq and engaged in a pre-emptive war in Bosnia? Just because it's a different political party doesn't mean that the crooks and liars will leave the government.
jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com
let goldberg know what you think...
[Deleted. off topic. Feel free to repost in an open thread-Sitemonitor]
The bigger,more important question is this: Yes, the facts are out there, but will Democrats- and the media- do anything about bringing them to light? History suggests they will not. Say hello to President McCain. Guaranteed.
dennis @ 39:
*sigh*
a video created by the RNC, that links back to the GOP homepage, titled 'dems against obama', that is 'not available for viewing'...
ah, dennis, off to a great start, hee hee
Well, I'll say one thing for McCain,
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He's Boring
"The opposing argument is that experience yields good judgment. The battle-scarred soldier, the trial-tested lawyer, the accomplished surgeon -- these people tend to have better judgment precisely because they've clocked a lot of field time."
Of course, a well-connected Mommy, Likud Party, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Heritage Foundation, and American Enterprise Institute beat the daylights out of time, well, every time.
Exhibit A: Lucianne Goldberg's Obese Little Boy on the pages of The Los Angeles Times. Never covered a four-alarm fire, automobile accident, or city council meeting. Yet Lucianne Goldberg's Little Boy, one-half of the D.C. Cocktail Party circuit couple known as Saddam and Gavora, writes Op/Ed for The Los Angeles Times.
Who needs time or experience when you've got Mommy, Likud, AIPAC, AEI, and Heritage?
Consistently wrong Goldberg is part of FRFN (Far Right Fox News), pronounced "farfin" which rhymes with "barfin."
When are we going to make a collection of these statements in a video before Goldberg's lies take root in the MSM?
pissed off patricia @ 10:
He said "my friends" so many freakin' times and was talking so fast , he sounded like a pigeon on speed or an out-of-control robot...........
Jason @ 38:
I think he's an idiot and completely full of shit.
Samson- @ 41:
Sadly, she is too myopic and afraid to google "conservatives against mccain".
Mark @ 43:
What annoys me even more about Doughy Pantload is he thinks he's a serious player. He's the laughingstock of academia. The good news, unconscious dweebs like him are fun to pick on. He's my favorite punching bag.
Samson- @ 41:
Was in the middle of a couple things and in a hurry. Just a video of several Democrats echoing what Jonah Goldberg was saying in his column. Or rather that Jonah was merely echoing what the Dems have said about the now presumptive nominee.
[Deleted-Sitemonitor]
All the neocons have is historical revisionism for McLame and King George the Lesser.
[Deleted. Off topic-Sitemonitor]
Dr. (Bitter Hussein) Matt @ 35:
Not to mention an entire aircraft carrier.
I saw this dimwit talking about his “Liberal Fascism” book. This is where he described Nazism as a form of socialism, and of the left. Hitler, a rabid anti-communist & anti-socialist, who went after the left before anything else, who was funded and resurrected by big German industrialists and bankers and had no connection to working class parties was a “socialist” because he was part of a party called the “national socialists” (it would have taken five minutes of research to find that the Nazis did so only to attract working class support, there was little to nothing “socialist” about their program). That type of intellectual laziness typifies the corporate press.
I realize that the corporate press is owned by people who have interests in opposition to the public, that they have an incentive to not educate people on the issues, but I sometime wonder about their competence at even being good propagandists. Fine, assume the public isn’t the brightest, after all, the public tends to fall for the conventional anti-logic of the corporate press, but how dumb would people have to be to give a second of thought to this illogical nonsense?
Honestly, how stupid a comment do you have to make to get pulled from the corporate press’ dumbed down political shows? Is there a point when an executive hears something so stupid that they are forced to not bring the person back? It seems that as long as someone says something stupid in an interesting way they have a good chance of getting their own show. Witness Glenn Beck.
D.G. Bowman @ 7:
Vienna sausages?
Samson- @ 17:
Oopsie
Samson- @ 17: Says
seeing everything thru a military-prism produces a military-solution for all problems. and, ys, i am NOT saying that that is how you see things, just making a larger point about our political climate.
My point wasn’t that it would work, but that it’s not original with mccain.
Your friendly neighborhood army patrol frankly sounds oxymoronic and not likely to succeed in a wider perimiter than an immediate neighborhood.
______________________________________________________
D.G. Bowman @ 7:
You got that right about Jonah !! How can he keep stringing the same bulls--- with a straight face?? Does he not watch himself over and over on the TUBE, making an ass of himself???
This is a genuine question: Isn't he like Joe L- the independent- seeing things in a most unusual way?? wink wink!
I sent a copy of this blog page to jonah.... wonder if he will read it. And if he does, will he learn anything??? Why is he employed at LAT anyway??
Dr. (Bitter Hussein) Matt @ 4:
See, McAlzheimer's doesn't keep campaign promises!
So, either McCain was right and Bush/Pantload/Neocons were all wrong
or
McCain was wrong and Bush/Pantload/Neocons were merely mistaken
or
Pantload is just lying and making #$@%$ up again.
Anyway you slice it, Jonah was wrong. Where's that admission?
Pepper @ 54:
Not sure what the threshold is, but apparently we haven't hit it yet.
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery... yada, yada, yada
...and that's not change we can believe in; hum-hu-hu. My Friends...
Thanks for this nice summary!
MCMetal @ 46:
At least it's still plural.
If looking at the Obama crowd you see America. When looking at the McShame crowd you see a pasty looking bunch who never saw any sunshine. I did see one black face
If the Doughy Pantload said it, it must be true and double plus good, mustn't it?
Stray Talk Expressions - Change Depends On Me
From economic ignoramus to professor of economics in less than a month?That seems to be what McShame is trying to tell his friends, the term, used by him, gives me the feeling that I have been insulted
Looks like Jonah Goldberg has been inhaling too much cheeto dust again.
Jonah Goldberg has to be one of the biggest assclowns around, ranking up there with Bill Kristol. Never let the facts get in the way of my thesis, says Jonah.
I've written to him after some of his stupid columns and received no response. I also complained to his publisher about the cover of his book that depicted liberals as a smiling Hitler happy face; didn't get a response from those idiots either.
So here's to both of you. Keep up slinging the dirt; it will catch up with you.
The Navy, which educated, employed and assessed his competence, wouldn't trust him with a ship. Why are some Americans eager to trust him with the entire country?
[Deleted. All Caps-Sitemonitor]
Why am I not surprised by this? After all, it is the same Jonah Goldberg that blamed Naziism on the left right?
Didn't Goldberg say that the reason he did not join the military to fight the ter-rist in Iraq was because he had a family to support?
Any media owned by a corporation should not be taken seriously.
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