Attack of the “surrender” monkey
I’m kind of looking forward to Barack Obama’s response to John McCain’s latest batch of schoolyard taunts, as reported by the Associated Press:
Republican John McCain on Monday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for not having been to Iraq since 2006, and said they should visit the war zone together.
“Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost,” the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview, noting that the Illinois senator’s last trip to Iraq came before the military buildup that is credited with curbing violence.
“He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time,” the Arizona senator added. “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, who has all but clinched the Democratic nomination, says he will remove U.S. combat troops within 16 months of taking office, though sometimes he shortens it to 11 months.
“For him to talk about dates for withdrawal, which basically is surrender in Iraq after we’re succeeding so well is, I think, really inexcusable,” said McCain, who has been to Iraq eight times, most recently in March.
. . . “I go back every few months because things are changing in Iraq,” he said. McCain questioned whether Obama has ever been briefed by Petraeus. “I would also seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way.”
Since McCain’s attack is right out of the daddy-framing handbook — where the strong daddy (McCain, the Shrub-in-Chief, and the military commanders) knows everything, and the children aren’t supposed to ask questions — I expect Obama will look to emasculate it by repositioning McCain’s would-be assertion of authority as empty bluster, disconnected from the reality that the voting public already understands far too vividly.
Perhaps he’ll start by noting that the presumption that McCain will “educate” Obama is more of the arrogance Americans would like less of in their next president. Especially since the supposed educating will occur in the shelter of the Green Zone and fortified U.S. bases — the only places it’s safe for American politicians to go in Iraq, despite McCain’s puffed-up talk of “succeeding” and victory.
Does McCain really think Obama will learn some truth about the situation in Iraq from the spin he gets in closed-door meetings and choreographed photo ops? (In Jim Webb’s famous words to Sen. Lindsey Graham, “You haven’t been to Iraq, Lindsey. You go see the dog and pony show. That’s what Congressmen do.“) Barack can point out McCain’s experience with that, because Mr. Double-Talk Express is the guy who sauntered through a Baghdad market wearing a flak jacket and surrounded by a hundred armed U.S. troops, backed up by several helicopters, and went on TV to claim it was proof of how safe Iraq was.
If that’s the kind of education McCain has in mind, I think both Obama and the American people will say, no thanks, we already know enough.
Update: The actual Obama response via TPM Election Central (just minutes after I completed this post) –
“John McCain’s proposal is nothing more than a political stunt, and we don’t need any more ‘Mission Accomplished’ banners or walks through Baghdad markets to know that Iraq’s leaders have not made the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge. The American people don’t want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military, and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer.”
Stumble it!
May 27th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
[...] try to make Obama out to be the bastard child of Algore and Johnkerry. And if McCain manages to lure Obama out to Iraq with him, they may manage a Dukakis moment as well. (I personally would like to see [...]
May 28th, 2008 at 8:12 am
The unfortunate reality is that McCain continues to drive the debate, while Obama is reduced to responding — even if his responses are strong. McCain gets out there first simply because he’s the defacto Republican nominee.
That the Democrats have two such seriously flawed candidates in this critically important election is a crime. It’s a sad testiment to our nominating process and the ineptitude of party leadership. A campaign “season” lasting two-and-a-half years serves no one, most of all the American voter. I don’t want to hear about how this is the first time in decades that both the sitting president and vice president aren’t running, making this a unique situation.
There has to be a better — and cheaper — method of involving 50 states (and , don’t forget Guam, Puerto Rico and Americans Abroad!) than this “kumbaya” endless primary charade. Wagging fingers and stamping feet at naughty Michigan and Florida is an embarrassment and reminds one of an earnest mother trying to be friends with her tantrum-throwing twins having a meltdown at the supermarket.
People are tired, angry and dispirited. Whoopie.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:47 am
[...] McCain invited Barack Obama for a photo-op trip to Iraq together: (h/t Needlenose) Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain’s top surrogates, laid the groundwork for [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
[...] kills people. John McCain invited Barack Obama for a photo-op trip to Iraq together: (h/t Needlenose) Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain’s top surrogates, laid the groundwork [...]