Sam Stein

BIO

Sam Stein

The Huffington Post

McCain Recycles 2001 Pro-War Column For 2008 Speech

McCain Recycles 2001 Pro-War Column For 2008 Speech

March 26, 2008 12:24 PM


digg Share this on Facebook Huffpost - stumble reddit del.ico.us RSS

Yes, you have heard this speech before.

On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain delivered a "major" foreign policy address, in which, as part of his defense for a continued presence of U.S troops in Iraq, he positioned himself as a "realistic idealist," someone who is acutely aware of the cost of war.

"The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die," McCain told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. "Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us... we cannot wish the war to be a better place."

It is a repackaged graph.

Six-and-a-half years earlier, McCain used the almost the exact same language to drum up popular support for military action in the greater war on terror.

"War is a miserable business," the Arizona Senator wrote in a Wall Street Journal oped in October 2001. "The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted, economies are damaged. Strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that will be lost when war claims its wages from us. Shed a tear, and then get on with the business of killing our enemies as quickly as we can, and as ruthlessly as we must. There is no avoiding the war we are in today, any more than we could have avoided world war after our fleet was bombed at Pearl Harbor.... War is a miserable business. Let's get on with it."

To be sure, politicians are free and often eager to use old lines, especially those they think are persuasive. What these two, nearly identical, remarks suggest is that McCain's view of combat -- and, perhaps more importantly, its human costs -- has not really changed throughout the course of war. That is, despite five years of military operations in Iraq and more than 4,000 troop deaths, he still sees the "lives lost" and the "merciless realities" as necessary sacrifices to make.

It is a position that undoubtedly remains popular with a great number of primarily conservative voters. But it is also a sign of an unbending, almost stubborn, nature on the war that McCain's critics will certainly hold over his head during the presidential campaign.


 
Comments
70
Pending Comments
0
iPhone App Promo

Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to

View Comments:
Page: 1 2 3 4 Next › Last » (4 pages total)

New Flash:

"We aren't the only people taking notice that John McCain is breaking campaign finance law by blowing past public finance spending limits.

We've gathered over 22,000 signatures on out complaint to the Federal Election Commission, and on Wednesday CNN picked up the story.

Check out the CNN video and let your friends know about our efforts to keep the John McCain's campaign within the limits of the law.

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/pt/mccainfec/

With this momentum on our side we've moved our mass-signature delivery to early next week and set an aggressive goal of gathering 30,000 signatures before we drop of them off to the FEC.

Please take a moment to pass the news along to your friends and ask them to sign the letter to the FEC.

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/pt/mccainfec/"

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:58 PM on 03/29/2008

What makes the fact that this was a recycled speech all the more frightening in the context of McCain the potential President is his incompetence at reading it. It was bad enough when he might have had the excuse that it was a newly written speech that he had not had time to learn without stumbling; that even gave it a patina of versimilitude; the reluctant leader, taking on the challenge because no one else is capable of the task but longing to return to the homestead before planting time. Now we learn that it is a speech he has had the opportunity to practice for years. Is this just his attempt to channel Ronnie? Will he say to Hillarack "There you go again?"

In a perfect world, Hillary and Barack would sit down and agree to one someone that either of them would have in their cabinet; Vice President would be the best, but I'm not that naive. Perhaps Al Gore would agree to serve as Energy Secretary. The point is that with an agreed choice for a critical post, they would have someone who could go out and promote the party rather than a candidate, thus allowing this wonderful spectacle that has not been equalled since Jesse Ventura ran for office to continue without continuing to put the victory in jeapordy by falsely equating the contest with the competence of the contestants....

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 04:01 PM on 03/27/2008

"Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war."

Sound like Bush all right.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:41 AM on 03/27/2008

The brilliant military strategist thinks that Shia Iran is responsible for Sunni al Qaeda activities.
If Sen. McCain can't even keep Shia and Sunni straight, what hope does he have for making any sense whatsoever in our foreign policy affairs? It scares the hell out of me.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:54 AM on 03/27/2008
photo

and yet the media keeps propagating the myth that this superstitious, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, lobby controlled, doddering mistake is knowledgeable on foreign affairs. oy kavult!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:58 AM on 03/27/2008
photo

missing here is mccain's quoting of Osama Bin Laden, that Iraq will be the place from which they will achieve their goals (something like that anyway). What's funny is that he accepts bin laden's words as truthful while presumably (from their behavior) rejecting other prophecies from him, such as we will financially cripple you in afghanistan as we did the soviets. I think the Marx Brothers could do a better job running things, and we could have at least had a laugh or two, an intentional laugh or two that is.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:21 AM on 03/27/2008

All that foreign affairs experience and a missed opportunity. He could have simply repurposed something that the Governor of Massachusetts said in a speech?

You should probably stick with pitching him as too old to be President.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:05 AM on 03/27/2008
photo

Look when your 72 it's difficult to remember things, like who's fighting who in Iraq, and what to write down for a speech, so he went to his file cabinet and pulled out one of those oldies but goodies.
I heard if he wins he's ordering that phonographs be brought back into the WH because when asked if he used a blackberry he said yes every morning on my toast!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:58 PM on 03/26/2008
photo

his age wouldn't be a problem if at least he'd attained wisdom in it.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:23 AM on 03/27/2008

At 70 years old, you better believe McCain's got a deep rustle bag. Not a lot of new ideas in there on Irag or the economy. This type of tired presentation really reflects poorly on his staff and shows a stubbornness that can easily be exposed in a change election. He needs new counsel and fresh input. Even if he only talks to lobbyists, it's got to be better advice than what he is getting from his secretary of defense-in-waiting Lieberman and his valet Lindsey Graham.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:39 PM on 03/26/2008

Saint John the somnabulist, ready to preen in the sun and cast his righteous shadow on the
caskets of the young.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:23 PM on 03/26/2008
photo

They still call him the Straight Talk Express, unbelievable.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:23 PM on 03/26/2008
photo
Moderator's Pick

HuffPost's Pick

Well, war IS a miserable business. Always has been, always will be, and he and and his family know this because of firsthand experience. Do you think he should have changed his viewpoint on this in the last few years? Here's another excerpt from today's speech:

"When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well. I detest war. It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description."

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:02 PM on 03/26/2008

* will the real john McCain please stand up
Sen. John McCain - October 19, 1993

The criteria should be to bring them home as rapidly and safely as possible, an evolution which I think could be completed in a matter of weeks.
Our continued military presence in Somalia allows another situation to arise which could then lead to the wounding, killing or capture of American fighting men and women. We should do all in our power to avoid that.
I listened carefully to the President's remarks In fact, his remarks have persuaded me more profoundly that we should leave and leave soon.
What is the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia. And if we do not do that and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured because we stay too long--longer than necessary--then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home quickly and safely as possible. . .

I can tell you what will erode our prestige. I can tell you what will hurt our viability as the world's superpower, and that is if we enmesh ourselves in a drawn-out situation which entails the loss of American lives,

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:51 PM on 03/26/2008

McCain? Is he still alive?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:43 PM on 03/26/2008
photo

Yes and if this old man is elected we will hear and see the same old lies, and flip flopping for the next 4 years while the country falls deeper and deeper into disrepair while McCain gets closer to stepping on that banana peal.

I wonder if the ghost of George Washington is sitting somewhere sobbing.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:27 PM on 03/26/2008

The way the Democrats are imploding - if the Democrats are not careful - McCain will be able to take the rest of the year off - still win - and be the next President.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:24 PM on 03/26/2008

have you ever heard of the story of the tortoise and the hare? Slow and steady wins the race. The whole country knows that a democrat is taking office this year, so why not take our time and figure out which of the candidates would be the best outfitted for the job at hand?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:09 AM on 03/27/2008
Page: 1 2 3 4 Next › Last » (4 pages total)
Comments are closed for this entry

You must be logged in to reply to this comment. Log in  or  Connect

 
Right Now on HuffPost
WHY DID SHE QUIT?

***SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO OF PALIN'S RESIGNATION SPEECH...

Sarah Palin Turns Pro

I wish Hunter S. Thompson had lived to see this. As...

Send us tips and comments:

huffpolitics@huffingtonpost.com
GTalk/AIM: NicoPitneyIM


2007-09-27-feed.jpg FEED

HuffPost Reporters
Nico Pitney is National Editor at the Huffington Post.
Read More

Thomas B. Edsall is the Political Editor of the Huffington Post. He is also Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
Read More

Sam Stein is the White House correspondent for the Huffington Post. Previously he worked for Newsweek Magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity.
Read More

Ryan Grim is the senior congressional correspondent for the Huffington Post. He is a former staff reporter with Politico.com and Washington City Paper.
Read More

Jason Linkins is editor of Huffington Post's media commentary blog Eat the Press. He is based in Washington, DC, and previously contributed to DCist and Wonkette.
Read More

Rachel Weiner is Associate Politics Editor at the Huffington Post.
Read More

Katharine Zaleski is the Senior News Editor at the Huffington Post. She is based in New York.
Read More