He's lost his mind. McCain's now trying to claim that he didn't tell voters yesterday that we have drawn down to pre-surge troop levels in Iraq. He's now trying to claim that he said we're DRAWING down, i.e., still in the process, not there yet. But of course, that's not what he said. It's on film. Everyone has seen it. ThinkProgress walks you through it again. It's just downright bizarre that McCain keeps denying that he said what he said. We have video. Bush and Cheney and company tried this for years, and got away with it. They constantly lied about the facts and figured no one would be the wiser. But people finally wisened up. And they don't accept blatant lies any longer. We have not gotten down to pre-surge troops levels - we're not even close. And now McCain is arguing "verb tenses" as an excuse - my, Grandpa, what Clintonian teeth you have. Whether McCain is lying or simply doesn't understand the facts in Iraq, for him to now deny that he said what he said, well, when we have the video, it's just kind of creepy and sad.
You've got to be kidding. As John wrote below, McCain has his facts wrong about Iraq (again). We're talking very basic facts. McCain said yesterday in Wisconsin that the surge is over, all the troops are home. ("I can look you in the eye and tell you... We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.") In fact, 2/3 of the surge troops are still in Iraq (we added 30,000 troops and have removed 10,000, leaving 20,000 still in Iraq). According to Ben Smith, the McCain's campaign response to the criticism of McCain's mistake is to not only invoke "verb tense," but to charge that we're "nitpicking." Wow. 20,000 troops are "nit-picking." (As Ben notes, "[t]his verb tense thing is a novel excuse, with potentially wide future use on both sides. Hillary, for instance, could have been referring to the risk of future sniper fire.")
Remember, McCain raised the issue of Iraq this week, boasting of all his trips over there, and how that makes him so much smarter than Obama about Iraq. Well, all those trips haven't really helped McCain with the facts about Iraq. Expecting a presidential candidate to know very basic facts isn't exactly nitpicking. He thought the surge was over, when in fact it's still 2/3 going on. That's a rather huge mistake for someone who claims that this is his signature issue. The McCain campaign's overreaction to this episode is instructive. They know a pattern is emerging where the candidate's words don't match reality.
The Obama campaign weighed in again, too, via email:
"The McCain campaign still can't explain why John McCain could be so clearly and factually wrong in stating that our troops are at 'pre-surge' levels. They are not, and anyone who wants to be Commander-in-Chief should know better before launching divisive political attacks. Once again, Senator McCain has shown that he is far more interested in stubbornly making the case for continuing a failed policy in Iraq than in getting the facts right," said Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan.
The McCain campaign can't explain why McCain gets the facts wrong -- over and over and over.
John McCain is still living in the pre-Internet world -- definitely the pre-YouTube world. He thinks he can say anything and just make things up... as if there are no consequences, no one will record it, no one will fact check it. That's not the world the rest of us live in anymore.
In the wake of Scott McClellan's book, the American people are paying extra attention to the discussion of the Iraq war. We've had enough deception, propaganda and happy talk. The American people want facts, something John McCain simply doesn't have.
UPDATE: McCain's campaign conference call for reporters is taking place as I write. And his staff is saying that McCain was actually correct about how many troops we have in Iraq because you have to take a look at his "verb tense." Seriously. They're haggling over the definition of "is," "was," and "will be."
It's kind of scary that John McCain, who keeps talking about how many trips he's made to Iraq, doesn't even know how many troops we have there. Yesterday, McCain told an audience in Wisconsin that we are back to pre-surge troop levels in Iraq.
MCCAIN: "So 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."
Actually, Mr. Magoo, two-thirds of the surge troops are still in Iraq.
5. That means we still currently have 20,000 more troops in Iraq than we had pre-surge, or 2/3 of the surge troops are still in Iraq.
We're not at pre-surge levels by a long shot. Sure, the military is talking about kind-of sort-of maybe drawing down our troops to pre-surge levels in by the end of the summer (we've heard that one before). But that's not what John McCain said. He didn't say we're planning to hopefully get down to pre-surge levels a few months, assuming we can safely do so. He said he can look you in the eye and tell you today that WE ARE AT pre-surge levels. And we're not. (Though I am kind of impressed that he can look you in the eye while getting it completely wrong.)
McCain has done this a lot with regards to Iraq (though it's not clear if he's simply lying to the American people, or if McCain is just getting too old to keep his facts straight). He keeps visiting the country, then telling us things about "happy" Iraq that aren't true. Remember his old chestnut about how our commander over there travels without security? (Not true.) Then there was the time he said he was visiting markets and it was totally safe (except that he was wearing a bullet-proof vest, had 100 troops as bodyguards, and had several attack helicopters overhead). Or the time when McCain, repeatedly, got confused between the Shia and the Sunni in Iraq and Iran. I'm not sure I want Barack Obama, or any politician, visiting Iraq if all they're coming home with is misinformation. You can watch the video of McCain from yesterday for yourself, it's short and to the point. McCain has no idea what's going on in Iraq (or anywhere else, I fear):
Michael O'Hanlon, surge shill and general embarrassment to foreign policy professionals everywhere, outdoes himself in the pages of the New York Times (William Kristol! David Brooks! Mike O'Hanlon! Your favorites from the "liberal" New York Times!) with his conclusions-without-evidence op-ed about how Iraq's political situation is doing just fine
I'd say more, but my colleague Ilan Goldenberg gets it exactly right. Including:
Here’s the best thing about this. There is no way to refute it because his scoring isn’t up anywhere. It’s not in the Iraq Index and the closest thing he has is an A, B, C grading system from a month and a half ago. So, five out of eleven it is because that’s what Mike O’Hanlon tells me it is.
Ilan Goldenberg tells us that the "Anbar Awakening" forces, essentially the Sunni groups we gave money and weapons to so they'd drive out the minor (if oft-cited) al Qaeda elements in Anbar, are close to open conflict with the major elected Sunni parties. I know, it's hard to believe that giving a large group of people a bunch of money and weapons might make them think about using it to gain political power (and not just do whatever we tell them), but it's true:
It looks like tensions have reached a new level between the Sunni Green Zone politicians and the "Awakening" movement. What's scary here is that the level of distrust and hatred in intra-Sunni politics probably doesn't even come close to what you have to deal with in terms of getting the Awakening Groups and Concerned Local Citizens integrated into national Shi'a dominated institutions. And trying to change the leadership by holding elections may only make the situation worse. On top of that, if violence between the Green Zone politicians and the Awakening Councils breaks out in Anbar we're in for a whole new set of problems and "bottom up reconciliation" could very well go up in smoke.
The Bush administration strategy in Iraq continues to make things worse, not better. Day by day, worse and worse.
I was going to close this post by linking to a report of the latest US deaths in Iraq, but CNN doesn't have that information on its front page . . . or it's "World" page . . . or the front page of its "Middle East" section. Fitting, I guess.
I've been occasionally following the discussions of Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism," and Sam Boyd hits on a crucial point in terms of the entire analysis:
Goldberg reminds me of a friend of mine with a taste for arguments about philosophy. His secret was that he cheated. He'd argue some seemingly absurd premise but then retreat to a definition of a key word that was so different from a reasonable one that it was unrecognizable. You'd try and keep in mind his weird vocabulary, but the words maintained the force of their original meaning and it was hard to keep your argument straight. A similar thing is going on with Godlberg.
I don't have much to add to that very solid analysis, except to say that this kind of bait-and-switch, whether about words or concepts, seems to be increasingly prevalent on the right. I think this is mostly because so many conservative ideas have been implemented to such disastrous results that there's an intense period of rationalization going on. In my little area of knowledge, though, I notice it most often with talk of the surge. Since it didn't work as planned, now proponents are retreating to talking about it as focused on something totally different. It's nearly impossible to have an honest discussion about significant ideas when this is the default style of argumentation.
I have a lot of respect for thinkers/bloggers/pundits who have educated themselves about Iraq despite starting out with a completely different area of expertise or focus. I mean, four and a half years into war, one would think that everybody could learn the basics -- but many, including plenty of people who comment authoritatively (or "authoritatively"), still haven't made the effort to understand the situation, so those who have deserve credit.
Ezra Klein, whose blog I imagine many AMERICAblog readers frequent, is a health care wonk. He can talk capitation and cost control and coverage -- and even all the topics that don't start with "c"! -- with the best of 'em; in fact, he *is* one of the best of 'em when it comes to that stuff. He also, however, has managed to educate himself about the broad realities of the war in Iraq. This summer, I decided I didn't know nearly enough about what I thought was the most important domestic political issue, health care, so I bought a bunch of books and started reading. But even just getting the basics was hard! So I'm correspondingly impressed when a health wonk recognizes something like this:
The surge sort of dramatized this effect [the damaging and misguided US focus on military focus rather than political efforts] by coinciding with a complete loss of faith in the Maliki government's ability to pursue consolidation: The security situation and the political situation really aren't linked, at least not in that direction. The idea that stability would accelerate reconciliation was always backwards. There's a lack of stability because there's an absence of reconciliation -- and the relationship there is causal.
Right. The idea that you can stop attacks primarily instigated by 1) Sunnis who feel politically marginalized and 2) Shia groups fighting each other for dominance by capturing or killing the fighters is, when you think about it for more than five seconds, absolutely crazy! Terrorists, yes: kill and capture. We don't want to be negotiating with al Qaeda; there's no room for compromise there. But much of the violence in Iraq -- and especially the environment that enables it -- results from the political situation. Which is why the dual idiocy of pretending that violence in Iraq is all about al Qaeda AND trying to "create room for compromise" by escalating our troop presence is so disheartening and wrongheaded. In particular, as Ezra memorably observes,
The surge was like trying to stop someone with a cold from sneezing by pinching their nose really hard. It didn't cure the cold, and it sort of created a mess.
Right now, we have 168,000 US troops enabling corrupt and intransigent governance in a foreign nation that most people still have no conception of nearly five years into war.
Even with cutbacks promised by President Bush, the United States may wind up with thousands more troops in Iraq next summer than before the buildup of forces he ordered in January.
So the chimp lied. Again, show of hands for those who are surprised.
CROWLEY: . . .One key congressional aide that told me today, if the situation has not improved for Republicans come spring, then what looks like a very bad year for Republicans will become even worse. [CNN, Situation Room, 9/13/07]
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: He's really trying to win over some queasy Republicans who you will remember a couple months ago were thinking about siding with the Democrats in terms of setting a timetable for troop withdrawal. [CNN, 9/13/07]
. . . . But in fact, most of his audience and most of his popularity now really is -- the speech really is aimed towards Republicans. [CNN, from CNN NEWSROOM, 9/13/07]
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN AMERICAN MORNING ANCHOR: … some of those Republicans had been placated by what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker said earlier this week.
But they're still not really happy. They need something better than that to take to their constituents because there is a growing sense in this country that this war was not worth it, that the U.S. should get out as soon as it can. [CNN, 9/13/07]
DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: Well, Chris, if that`s what the president does tonight, as Tim Russert has reported here, that`s going to cause a storm. You know, he will not have Democratic support, and I think many Republicans will abandon him on that. And you know, it`s one thing and it`s bad enough this President`s going to leave a mess in Iraq and probably Iran, it`s unbelievable that he would also try to make a long- term commitment to a country that basically hardly exists. [CNN, 9/13/07]
You know, the security pact in Korea was one to defend South Korea from an invasion from the north. This kind of long-term security pact looks more like we`re going to try to just prevent chaos within Iraq... [MSNBC HARDBALL, 9/13/07]
CNN JOHN JOHNS: "So the pressure is on the small group of Republican moderates -- what, nine to about a dozen Republican moderates. Some whom have expressed some concerns about what's going on in Iraq and also expressed concerns about going back to pre-surge levels which some say, again, is just about the status quo." [CNN, 9/13/07]
APRIL RYAN, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO NETWORKS: And you have people like Republican Congressman Chris Shays, who is very upset with President Bush right now for that. They are saying there should be a deadline and we should be withdrawing troops once a month. This is a Republican congressman, not a Democratic congressman. So word is already coming in from the Hill as to the dislike for the president`s statements tonight. ." [CNN, 9/13/07]
"you said you could not find a republican who wanted president bush to give this speech. Why? Well, I think Republicans, many of whom are now critics of this war, were very willing to stand with General Petraeus. . . but the president going on television tonight, he is reminding the American public that this is, of course, the policy of George W. Bush that they are supporting. And this comes from republican presidential candidates as well. They would just as soon that the president had kept quiet and just leave Petraeus's statements stand for themselves. [CNN 09/13/2007]
David Gergen: "What I do think emerged tonight is what you started with, in that what was new tonight was about this enduring, long-term commitment to Iraq. [CNN 09/13/2007]
CNN 09/13/2007 22:12:00: ... "it does present, as you mentioned, obstacles for republicans coming into this presidential election. Your basically going to have a presidential election with large numbers of U.S. forces still on the ground here. Well, that's the down side of this for Republicans because it's almost certain now that we're going to have 100,000 troops or so in Iraq come November of 2008. And that makes -- that is a perfect setup for democrats to run not only for the white house, but for the congress saying this party -- the Republican party won't end our war in Iraq. We will. And that's going to be a powerful argument. [CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, 09/13/2007]
It's a war without end and now we're starting to realize it's a surge without end. The Bushies were already backing away from a 30,000 troop reduction before Bush even gave his speech. A reduction of 30,000 would bring the troop level back to "pre-surge" levels. Bush isn't going there:
“Somebody made a back-of-the-envelope calculation and put a number, 30,000, out there,” a senior administration official told reporters hours before the speech. “As you know, we have tried to make clear to people in this room and outside this room that no one in the administration has ever used that number. And we cautioned against using that number.”
White House officials said the administration does not want to make predictions “beyond what you can do with reliability.” That means that Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will come back in March “and give a fresh assessment on how we’re doing on the ground, what they can foresee, because we’re six months further down the road at that point, and what the situation will bear.
“So we expect, at that point in March, to hear about additional forces coming home,” the official said.
Wait another six months. It's an endless surge in an endless war. The only thing that is going to end for sure is the second term of Bush's seemingly endless presidency.
When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to “find common ground” on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to “start doing some redeployment,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.
“No you’re not, Mr. President,” Ms. Pelosi interjected. “You’re just going back to the presurge level.”
That's called perjury, in some parts. It's also called, someone in the Pentagon has Petraeus' number and is leaking information. Not so well respected after all, is he?
NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus....
Even some supporters of the surge effort wonder whether Petraeus isn’t thinking as much about selling the war as winning it....
John Arquilla, an intelligence and counterinsurgency expert at the Naval Postgraduate School, is even harsher in his assessment of Petraeus. “I think Colin Powell used dodgy information to get us into the war, and Petraeus is using dodgy information to keep us there,” he said. “His political talking points are all very clear: the continued references he made to the danger of Al Qaeda in Iraq, for example, even though it represents only somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of the total insurgency. The continued references to Iran, when in fact the Iranians have had a lot to do with stability in the Shiite portion of the country. And it's not at all clear why things are a little better now. Is it because there are more troops, or is it because we're negotiating with the insurgents and have moved to small operating outposts? On any given day we don't have more than 20,000 troops operating. The glacial pace of reductions beggars the imagination.”....
Petraeus called in a large press gaggle to observe training exercises at his local Iraqi military training academy. Later, back in Baghdad, Bremer shook his head and laughed indulgently. “He loves headlines,” Bremer said.
I wonder if General Petraeus will mention this when testifying to Congress today on how well General Petraeus has done in Iraq?
And by the way, general - lying to congress, even if you're not sworn in, is a crime. Just thought I'd mention that since you've gotten into so much trouble in the past (and got balled out for it) for lying to the media, the congress and the public about the number of Iraqi security forces you supposedly trained, but really didn't. Someone in congress needs to ask Petraeus about this today while testifying - did he or did he not get bawled out by Negroponte for misrepresenting the situation on the ground with the Iraqis security force training?
"Selling" -- that's what they do in the Bush White House. Whatever it takes, whatever needs to be said, whatever statistics need to be manipulated, whatever facts need to be cherry-picked:
Another new arrival in the West Wing set up a rapid-response PR unit hard-wired into Petraeus's shop. Ed Gillespie, the new presidential counselor, organized daily conference calls at 7:45 a.m. and again late in the afternoon between t
