Appearing on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight on CNN, Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein said that John McCain's comments Tuesday that Barack Obama is willing to lose a war to win an election were the most scurrilous he had ever heard by a major party candidate.
On his blog on the Time Magazine website, Klein wrote that the comment "smacks of desperation."
[WATCH]
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A someone once said "He's lost his bearings"
testing...
"Win" the war on terrorism? Right!! The whole point to this bogus "war on terrorism" is that it creates the "perception" of a perpetual "enemy" and that false "perception" perpetuates a perception of the need to engage in global warfare forever. There has never been any intention to "win" the war on terrorism. Also, the bush regime is very selective in its application.
One nation's terrorist is another nation's freedom fighter. And the 21st Century America--formerly, the "land of the free, home of the brave"--has become everything we ever claimed we were opposed to, and now labels as a "rogue nation," "terrorist" or "enemy combatant" anyone, anywhere that objects or refuses to allow us to take from them whatever we want, whenever we want, all to benefit a select few. And this bogus "global" war on terrorism is not being applied equally to all nations across the board--only to those that refuse to give our pathetic leaders what they want without question and without a struggle--have you noticed that? In fact, if they even speak or act like they're going to oppose us, they are immediately vilified or demonized and labeled a 'terrorist
I read from Americans that travel abroad that they find a much friendlier reception in Europe and other countries, if they don't admit they're American, so they claim to be Canadian--that's how negatively the world in general now perceives us. Very, very sad.
We have to lie and say we're Canadian??!!! LMFAO!!!! Someone quick, tell Adamsmith that below!!! Maybe he has already done that. Maybe he has a clue about military industrial conversion in a peacetime economy...
What you think that is something new? I was stationed in Europe from 79-85 and Americans were loved in some countries and hated in others. In Greece we could not travel off base in uniform as it was thought to provoke the local population. I spent a month of my leave each year traveling in Europe when in Paris I ran into a young American couple who told me they just said they were from Canada as the French tended to not like Americans. I can tell you it was more about the arrogance of Americans overseas, why don't you speak English or that's not how we do it in America. As some one who lived in the local community for all my time in Europe learning to speak with your neighbors, being polite, understanding you are a visitor and learning the local customs goes a long way to overcome being American. One of the lasting friendships I made was with a Scouser whose sister was at Greenham Common and after meeting her in 82 I drove on and off base with a CND decal on my car the rest of my time in service.
I agree with your shrewd assessment.
"I read from Americans that travel abroad that they find a much friendlier reception in Europe and other countries, if they don't admit they're American, so they claim to be Canadian--that's how negatively the world in general now perceives us. Very, very sad."
Nothing new about that.
The test should always be 'is the statement valid or not?'. Wesley Clark's statement about McCain being shot down and held as a POW as not being a qualification to be president should have been evaluated on whether or not that is accurate.
McCain's comment about Obama being willing to lose a war to win an election should also be examined. He won't acknowledge that the surge has worked and brushes aside any suggestion that his plan to pull out a year ago would have produced different results as a hypothetical. Well, his insistence on his opposing the war when he wasn't in the Senate to vote on it is also a hypothetical.
Again, the test should be 'is the statement valid?'
The surge will have worked when its goal has been reached. The Iraqis taking control of their own security is the goal. There may be less casualties, but that was not the goal. Anyone that thinks increasing troop strength to reduce casualties was the goal should be strongly in favor of reinstating the draft.
Meltdown in the McCain camp and it's only July. McCain makes Bob Dole look like Senator Obama.
Klein was right on the money.
McCain is telling the truth, Obama still won't admit the surge worked. If Obama was calling the shots we would have left Iraq as losers. Most American don't like the Iraq war, but they don't like losing even more, that is a fact of life.
The surge reduced the number of casualties, it has not "worked" as far as Iraq taking responsibility for it own security, which was the purpose of the surge in the first place.
The surge was supposed to give the political Iraqi "breathing room" to reconcile political differences. The Kurds just walked out on an unconstitutional attempt for a secret vote. So the surge has not worked yet. Sunni Awakening and Sadre's army standdown Months before the alleged surge took place is the primary reason for less violence. CBS left that fact on the cutting room floor after their alleged interview with McCain.
Senator Obama has said that the surge has indeed improved the conditions in Iraq, but to say it has worked or that it has been a success would be prescient. Even McCain has said that the success of the surge is fragile and could fall apart at any time, which implies that its success has not yet been determined, and it would take years for us to know the ending of the surge story. Furthermore, we will never leave Iraq as either winners or losers; we will simply leave. Not only can one neither win nor lose an occupation, but even as we find ourselves in the fifth year of this so called war, no one has ever clearly defined what winning or losing means, no more than our mission or exit strategy has been defined. Americans overwhelmingly want our troops home, and now it seems that Maliki wants our troops out of his country as well. This endless occupation has been based on nothing but lies and talking points, propagated by people like those on Fox News, and it seems that you are one of their fastest learners.
Shocked. Shocked I tell you. Not that McCain makes such stupid remarks. Its that CNN actually let anything negative be said about McCain. God knows they've given him a pass on everything else he's said. I wonder how Fox is spinning this story.
what story
Staying free of the personal and without malice to John McCain, I'm reading the current Foreign Affairs magazine, and I was struck by the complexity and number of fresh challenges America faces in the future. Old cold war warrior that McCain is and to be remembered fondly for it, he's just not the right man for the new millennium. It's going to take a cool-headed president to deal with China, health care, international trade and monetary policy, just to name a few problems on several fronts. In his recent desperate attacks on Obama, McCain shows he doesn't have the "cool" to deal with obstreperous international "rivals" or "partners". I fear, like Bush, McCain would turn everyone into an enemy with his inability to control his anger. He'll think cold war thoughts when we require someone who can think in new world calculus. Or who at least understands a computer. Sorry, John, I'm 70 myself and love your old curmudgeonly self, but curmudgeons won't do in the third millennium CE.
I am really impressed with John McCain: I was questioning how badly he wanted to win and, as it turns out, he is willing to lie with viscious ferver to gain any edge that he can. Bravo, Sir - Bravo!
Signed,
Niccolo Machiavelli
Yep
ROFL!!! Well done!
McCain was the only person supporting the surge, at the time he said he would rather lose an election than lose a war, he was serious. I thought he was crazy, I couldn't see how the surge could possibly work, I thought it could only get worse, but I WAS WRONG, Maybe Obama should try saying that too.
"I thought he was crazy, I couldn't see how the surge could possibly work, I thought it could only get worse, but I WAS WRONG, Maybe Obama should try saying that too."
The surge, aka Whack-A-Mole?
it did in afghanistan
Obama was not wrong. We still don't know if the surge worked, and we can't even begin the process of judging or ascertaining the success of the surge until we leave. Even as McCain persists in saying that the surge has worked, his only platform for the presidency, he has also said that the surge is fragile. So what does this mean? It means that if it's fragile, it is vulnerable to disintegration, and as such, one cannot say whether it has worked or not. Nor can one say that if we had not surged, and had withdrawn our troops instead, Iraq would be in no better or worse condition than it is now. Senator Obama acknowledged the improvement in Iraq and gave credit to the surge for much of the improvement, but it is not wrong for him not to say that the surge worked, and it is not wrong for him not to say that he was wrong!
McCain couldn't be more right...Th
McCain is right, are you right? The standing of America grows worse by the hour and even the Iraqi government propped up by the Bush administration wants the U.S. out? What alternative reality are you living in? The entire left is hugely invested in America being beaten in Iraq? Beaten by whom? Al-Queda that wasn't in the country until we brought them in with our 5 year occupation? There is a democratic government in Iraq? Thats not democracy, thats colonialism. The impetus for colonialism is usually, usually, an economic interest we feel entitled to, namely, OIL. The problem with the right is that it is stuck in the 1940s-1950s, cold war dogma that has nothing to do with modern reality.
Iraq belongs to the Iraqis. Period. They have made it clear they want us out. It has been pretty clear from the beginning that we had no honest reason for invading them. Actually the inspectors were in Iraq. Saddam let them in, if you actually check the facts the inspectors said there was nothing there and they had to get out right before we invaded. Quit swallowing Bushie revisionist history.
If you need and exact date that the inspectors were let in Sept 17, 2002. Six months before we invaded. The US demanded that the inspectors get out of Iraq March 17, 2003. Exactly 6 months later. Guess what Smithie. Old newspaper records are available.
Consider that Richard Nixon actually did it. Google "nixon sabotage paris peace talks" and read how he traded American lives for his 1968 election. If there is a God, then Tricky Dickie is burning in hell.
The saddest thing of all about McCain and his candidacy is that the average America knows only what the media wants them to know about this man. They do not know the truth, they do not know his past, they do not know his record, they do not know the real John McCain. John McCain makes a great movie but a lousy book.
The movie would have him flying planes, the book would have him crashing many.
The movie would show a brave heroic man, the book would show him as an adulterous backstabber.
The movie would show him as a Annapolis graduate, the book would tell you that he was a poor student.
The movie would show him as honest, the book would make him one of the keating five.
The movie would show him as a maverick, the book would show him as a Bush lap dog.
The movie would show him as a man of principle, the book would show him as a swift boater.
This man is not who America thinks he is. He is very lucky that most Americans do not pay attention to facts but rather have uniformed opinion to guide them in the election booth.
You must be from Arizona as we know all that you have said to be true plus some like Don Diamond .
Good job
CNN is now calling mcbush on his falsehoods.
http://caf
McCain basically accused Obama of treason - how much lower can you get than that. The Republican Party is retrogressing rapidly to the party of Joe McCarthy.
Retrogressing rapidly? Hello? Just land here did you?
Mc Bush what a piece of work, just like an old fart to make it up as he goes.
Outlandish stories, half-truths, irrelevant trivia, and ignorant misinformation, so
if he is Cliff Clavin who is Norm.?
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First Posted: 07-23-08 02:32 AM | Updated: 07-30-08 05:12 AM