McCain campaign triangulates, takes on Obama and Bush on Iraq
By Steve Benen Thursday Jul 17, 2008 7:00pmTwo weeks ago, the misguided ideologues at the Wall Street Journal editorial page offered a novel argument: it’s Barack Obama, not John McCain, who’s actually “running for … Bush’s third term.”
It was unusually dumb, even for the WSJ editorial page, and was premised on a series of bizarre lies and distortions. Even unhinged conservatives were reluctant to run with it, and the incoherent talking point quickly faded.
Today, the McCain campaign brought it back.
The McCain campaign is taking their effort to distance their candidate from the unpopular President Bush to a whole new level: McCain’s advisers are now openly attacking Bush on Iraq — and not only that, they’re also saying that Barack Obama is the one who is like Bush on the war!
On a conference call just now with reporters, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann compared Barack Obama’s insistence on a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq to Bush’s insistence that we were winning even as things went badly for years.
“I think the American people have had enough of inflexibility and stubbornness in national security policy,” Scheunemann said. When asked later by the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein whether the campaign was disparaging President Bush, Scheunemann dug in: “We cannot afford to replace one administration that refused for too long to acknowledge failure in Iraq with a candidate that refuses to acknowledge success in Iraq.”
That’s quite a triangulation strategy, isn’t it? The new line is that McCain sees both Bush and Obama as stubborn.
Let’s take this one step at a time.
First, it’s probably safe to assume the McCain campaign’s internal polls show McCain getting hammered on the “Bush’s third term” line of criticism. They’re so desperate, McCain’s aides are now trying to argue that Obama is just like Bush. This is just so pathetic, I almost feel sorry for the McCain campaign
Second, it’s fascinating to hear the McCain team triangulate off of Bush’s refusal “to acknowledge failure in Iraq.” Um, guys? McCain was the one cheering Bush on while he was “failing,” telling Americans we had to “stay the course.”
Third, let’s also note the irony of this claptrap coming from Randy Scheunemann. As David Kurtz noted, “Scheunemann was, of course, a significant proponent of the Iraq invasion and as Josh noted the other day worked closely with Ahmad Chalabi and the other usual suspects in pushing the U.S. toward war with Iraq.”
But perhaps most importantly, I can’t help but laugh at the notion that McCain is supposed to be the sensible, flexible one in this equation. Is McCain open to a withdrawal timeline? No. Is he open to a phased redeployment? No. Has he ever visited Iraq thinking, “I’m perfectly open to changing my mind about whether to support the president’s policy”? Of course not; he’s traveled to Baghdad with his mind made up in advance.
McCain is committed to continuing Bush’s policy indefinitely. He gladly concedes that he won’t change his mind, won’t waffle, and won’t do anything differently. McCain’s mind is made up.
Now, McCain is certainly entitled to this position. I think it’s dangerous and foolish, but that’s just me. But where does the McCain get off arguing that Obama is “inflexible” and “stubborn”? Weren’t these the same guys who were arguing last week that Obama is all over the place, and he’s too flexible and not stubborn enough?
The entire McCain operation is just a joke. I shudder to think that these guys would be like running the country, though I think the last eight years offer a pretty big clue.
Login or Register to post comments.
me
OK, Main's a fuck.
Vote for Obama.
Put your brain to rest, because Obama will make things right.
Yeah, vote Obama.
He will make you feel better.
"unusually dumb"?
It was like blaming Jewish infants for the death camps.
They're kind of right, but not how they think. McCain is just the last person in America that thinks we should stay in Iraq until the end of time.
McCain's not open to facts on the ground either: this is the guy who went to an Iraqi market with armed soldiers and air support and proclaimed the markets "safe." Just like Bush, he's not willing to let facts get in the way of what he believes.
VietVet8666 @ 2:
Considering the next president will have 60-odd years (by the conservative (there's a strange term to use here) estimate, that is) of fuckupitude in politics to deal with in addition to the 7.5 years of Bushfuckupitude, it wouldn't matter if it was a Yehoshua bar Yosef-Gautama Buddha ticket, it still wouldn't be fixed barring eight years for a reformer president, and eight years for a reforming VP of that reformer president. Saying Obama will "make it right" is a dangerously GOP form of naiveness, and the GOP is indulging in it in full as of now.
"Bush agrees to time 'horizon' on Iraq troop cuts"...
But see, we didn't say anything about withdrawal timetables, so this is different. Just like we aren't flip-flopping on Iran...
bush is unpopular...hey let's tie obama to bush's plan. mccain's strategists must be desperate.
it's amazing this assjacket can say or do anything the media will say that he's just mccain. they even lie about how popular he is and withhold the polls that show Obama kicking his ass!
The media is already planning their attack on Obama and his trip to Europe and the Middle East. It was on NBC nightly news, at the end of the report, the report brought up the question of whether or not a warm reception for Obama might backfire as Europe trying to meddle in our election. Yep, those will be the stories we will see soon.
McCain is what his pal Gramm slandered the American voters with several days ago: '...a whiner...'
he is an old fool that has no new ideas and no real solutions to pretty much anything, and it's because he is too tired and old and with a mindset that exists in the last century to even care. when the word 'change' comes up folks don't think of McCain. they only think of 'bush', 'GOP', 'failure', and other words when they see McCain. all he has now is negativity and slander. he offers nothing of any value. he is a GOPer and that's enough of a reason not to vote for him this fall.
Phil Gramm, aka "Foreclosure Phil" http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html, who helped create the nation of whiners he complained about quits http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080719/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_economy
Kyle @ 10:
you are right as I saw those same stories. oddly, they weren't throwing that meme out when McCain was touring the Middle East and Colombia recently. oh right, it's because no one cared about McCain touring those places. he isn't interesting, and he really is 'old' news. works for me as he is really not relevant.
Lets face it. Corporate American will shield McSame any chance they get. They will pounce at every turn. For all of McSame's faux pas, barely a mention. Obama farts, catastrophe!
This will backfire. Or at least not go anywhere.
The last meme they've pushed is that he's a flip flopper on Iraq... going with what's needed "needed to be elected and popular." They can't continue that tack with this one if they want to be taken seriously.
It's a good thing these people are retarded. Let's play clips from their flip flopper video followed by clips from this meme. They're just falling over themselves trying to get something to stick at this point.
so what's the story on mcsame and phil gramm ???
first mcsame flipped and denounced gramm
then I heard that he kissed an made up with gramm
now I hear the he renounced and dejected gramm
or something like that
this guy is a verbal acrobat
Sorry for invoking the delete clause, admins.
She's still a Bush Whore.
Actually, I should've used "triggering", instead of "invoking".
i thought it was terribly dangerous of mccain to be telling when obama would be landing in iraq
i think it gives elements in al-qaeda a timeframe in which to get their missles ready (or elements in our own govt who have interest in keeping us in iraq... and blaming it on terrorists)
it was just a very very bad idea for mccain to have said those things.... but he is probably hoping someone will fix his problem for him
Typical Republican tactic. Wait till 7:30 pm on a Friday night when Obama is getting ready to go on his trip and a whole lot of people are lining up to see Batman, and poor old Phil Gramm officially resigns as McSmaes Co Chair. Priceless.
www.rawstory.com.....With comments from K.O.
NOW booosh's reversals on Diplomacy in IRAN and a timetable for troop pullout from IRAQ all make sense. He is now taking the point position so that McScumbag can take the opposite and say how is different, while in actuality he is the same as booosh has been and wishes he could stay that way, but the oil money is driving this lame duck.
I am waiting for a statement from the WH that they always had a 'general time horizon for meeting aspirationa; goals" and that Obama stole their idea.
I felt totally INSULTED when McCain inferred that Obama can't know what's going on in Iraq because he hasn't been there for a while. You know what... Mr. Dick-Head McCain... I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON IN IRAQ and I have NEVER been there. You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind's blowin' and I don't need a general on the ground to tell me things are SCREWED UP.
We are on the verge of winning.
The surge is on the verge of being a success.
Pigs are on the verge of FLYING.
Americans are getting electrocuted IN THEIR OWN SHOWERS.
Military intel DIDN'T KNOW the Teliban was gathering strength and preparing to over-take that out-post in Afghanistan.
They STILL don't have electrical power in Baghdad.
NINE BILLION DOLLARS IN CASH... still missing.
A hundred-thousand AK47's were released into the Iraqi population by General Betray-us' contractors.
A hundred thousand innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq. Millions have been displaced.
See... I didn't even have to GO THERE to learn all that!
If the WSJ thinks Obama is Bush's third term, does that meant hey are going to vote for him?
Why wont Obama just stand up to McCain and tell the world that he is quite glad that he doesnt have McCain or Bush's same foreign policy experience, since what they both know and want to do have caused world wide hatred against the US, foreign policy failures led of course by Iraq and letting Osama run free.
Obama has to pull a Rove and abuse McCain for his vast foreign policy experience. Just like Rove abused McCain for his veteran status in 2000.
First this bunch of jokers incl.McSame said that Obama was to "naive" to even think of going the diplomatic route with Iran and other hostile governments. What are they doing now? Exactly that. Who are the "naive" ones now? Geeeez
Obama can show all of them how it is being done, he has the intellect that Bush and McSame are missing, big time
it's all about the legacy to chimpy. he lies and says he's for a nebulous "withdrawl".
the american sheep go "yaaay..baaa"
mccain goes ballistic and attacks chimpy, saying "stay forever, arrrhgarble"
the american sheep go "yaaay...baaa"
mccain says, "i'm not bush...i'm not obama..they're cut and runners"
and the american sheep go, "yaaaay...baaa"
and in the end, mccain doesn't have a clue that he's been thrown to the wolves again by chimpy along with the gop into serving the stupid pro war stance because they can't be seen as like bush.
it's all about th legacy to chimpy. it's amazing more republicans aren't livid over how totally screwed he's left his party in the name of his legacy.
“We cannot afford to replace one administration that refused for too long to acknowledge failure in Iraq with a candidate that refuses to acknowledge success in Iraq.”
Isn't it like a Dem to try and make sense of that stupid comment?
The response is simply really. You say "well, do we have failure in Iraq or success? Because frankly, you aren't making any sense pal".
You laugh and kick the ball back in their court but Dems lose stupid arguments if they spend time trying to make sense of of Republican non-sense. If a Dem said that same comment, a Repug would just laugh you right out the door.
These guy are not making any sense SO please DON'T try and rationalize it for them. They have been give too many excuses for far to long for us to put up with it any more. You just say "WHAT!" Then laugh them right out the door. Tell them as the go to put down the free beer before making any comments.
Well, McCain is definitely the "flexible one". When was the last time you saw a politician that "flexible" on so many issues?
Ministry of Truth.
I don't understand how McCain can trot out the constant justifications for going to war in Iraq. When these republicans never ever mention the staggering cost of US and Iraqi dead -- how do they expect anyone not to view them with disgust? One aside that I've not seen -- Chalabi's family owned 100 square miles of land in Iraq before Saddam took over. When all we ever hear from the Neo-cons is what a patriot Chalabi is -- doesn't the idea he might just want that land back ever cause them to question? Since Chalabi was known to travel to Iran, and get along with highly placed officials -- I would assume there might be a deal, we'll let you keep your family homestead just convince the USA to invade and eliminate our favorite enemy neighbor.
All right now, repeat after me:
Obama is a far-left radical who is just like George W. Bush.
Obama is a radical muslim, whose Christian Pastor keeps getting him in trouble.
Unless John McCain is trying to destroy robots by blowing their minds with logical inconsistencies, then I'm afraid he doesn't make much sense.
OK, so the McCain campaign is complaining because Obama's not flip-flopping all over the place, Especially on IRAQ?
So he's going to Iraq to refine his plan. What is wrong with that? I make refinements in my plans all the time. Refine doesn't mean the same thing as 'throw out' or 'flip-flop'.
Anyone think that the BushCO loyalists are trying to flatten McSame? I mean, first the mention of troop reduction and a possible timetable, as well as possibly talking with Iran........this, after strong condemnation leveled by McSame at Obama for not understanding that you "can't" negotiate with "those people" and we need to remain in Iraq for up to 100 years.
If I wasn't so cynical, I'd just think it coincidence.
EAST COAST @ 29:
I take it you're a juliana fan.
A time table is still a time table. Obama was right McCain/Bush was dead wrong. Any word you want to use is fine but it is still a time table.
Login or Register to post comments.