Sunday Roundup

This week brought yet more proof that John McCain's grasp of his signature issue -- the war in Iraq -- is less than firm. "I can look you in the eye and tell you [the surge] is succeeding," he told a town hall crowd. "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels." Only we haven't. There are currently 155,000 troops in Iraq; there were 130,000 before the surge. He also announced that Mosul is "quiet" -- even though earlier that day three suicide bombings rocked Mosul and a nearby town, leaving 23 dead. The day before, McCain mocked Obama for declining to accompany him on a trip to Iraq, saying: "We've got to show him the facts on the ground." Which facts are those, Senator -- the ones you're making up as you go?

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Comments

[ianrthorpe]

Weeeeell, I agree McCain seems a bozo, but what we in Britainb are wondering is what Obama meant when he says he wants to "recalibrate"* the Special Relationship with Britain becoming an equal partner.

Is he trying to suggest he will expect us to go dutch on the cost of his illegal wars?


http://greenteeth.blog.co.uk/2008/05/31/the-foundation-of-blair-s-faith-4251735

[RobinL]

uh...you'r­e talking about Obama here---not McCain. Obama will end illegal wars. Do your homework.

[DietrichMoody]

The only thing you British went Dutch on WAS selling the illegal war. Tony Blair did his part.

America's creditors are paying for illegal wars through bonds: China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc and the US citizens are paying for this war. Get off your british high horse.

[DietrichMoody]

This is a ROPE A DOPE attempt. "Ah yes, lets get Obama to expend all his energy on proving how Patriotic he is" But this is as significant as the FLAG PIN ISSUE.

One, its bad politics. It smells of the Bush Era ideology since 9/11 "if you are not with us you are against us" And what this is doing is trying to put the ball in Obama's court, like it tried to do with the Democrats, like it tried to do with France and like it tried to do with other Middle East Countries, painting them as "friends of the enemy." But America enemies are necessarity the REST OF THE WORLDS enemies. Hello. McCain knows crap and doesn't care.

On another note, Rice, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other Senior Presidential advisors have been to Iraq over and over and over. And nothing significant has changed. Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has failed to get the Iraqi parliament to agree on anything. And his police chief in Basra barely escaped assassination, two significant oil pipelines blown up. There is a significant insurrection going on in Iraq and the media is failing to tell the whole story. Just the Admin. talking points.


Obama should go to Iraq, and tell Know one. Keep in a secret. DO IT IN THE COVER OF NIGHT, like Bush. KEEP IT TOP SECRET. Especially when McCain has a BIG GAFFE. It will look very Presidential.

[Binx101]

John McCain is the Republican party stooge.

He's the only man in America desperate enough to run for President (maybe Huckabee too) on the Republican ticket before the party is re-habed.

Hillary Clinton and her desperate campaign have further distracted the electorate and shielded McCain from precise scrutiny.

He does make stuff up. He truly does.

It is shocking - that any American would willingly vote for this unscrupulous liar. What's going to make this more fun - is when he publicly announces Romney as his running mate.

Binx101
The Almost Daily Binx
http://binx101.wordpress.com

[Boboday555]

These days, the Iraq Oil War is about saving face for AWOL Bush and the un-American GOP.
It ain't about spreading Democracy, it ain't about WMDS, it ain't about threats to the Homeland, it is only about AWOL Bush's and the GOP's legacy!
If they can somehow slither away in 2009 and leave the clean up of Iraq in someone else's hands, they can tell their childish base "T''aint our fault, must be them thar other guys who screwed Eye-Raq up."
AWOL Bush and the GOP don't care how many more soldiers die, just as long as their image, in their childish base's eyes, remains untarnished!

[BlueOnBlue]

I think we have to stop concentrating on McCain's gaffe's about Iraq and go after him on the basics. That is, he was one of the main people who agitated for this war, well before 9/11.

Not many people remember that he was one of the neocons who backed Ahmed Chalabi and pushed through legislation to feed millions to that liar back in 1998. He and Lieberman were honorary co-chairs of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

Randy Scheunemann, who now serves as McCain’s principal foreign-policy adviser, was the head of that group, whose membership list reads like a who's who of the neoconservative movement.

People just don't know this about McCain. He was wrong on this war well before it was a war and he shares a great deal of the responsibility for getting us in.

[RightinSanFrancisco]

Two of the principles of leading change are to focus on the future and seek information from diverse sources - particularly those that do not agree with your position. There is now certainly enough evidence (even today's Washington Post editiorial) that the democratically elected Maliki government is getting control of Iraq, that the Obamites should stop focusing on what happened five years ago, and start thinking realistically about the future. The Left may not allow that, but the center in the 2008 election will demand it.
www.RightinSanFrancisco.com

[izAriver]

It's all smoke. This is exaggeration to benefit the repugnicans. Things have calmed down because the militants they are fighting have been ordered to back off. They're positioning themselves like hamas did. When they don't get what they want they will reassert themselves. This article is the kind of propoganda that was used to get us into this mess.

[research]

War Criminals always would prefer you stop focusing on the past.

[zippywpinhead]

just like the last several times things calmed down for awhile before the shit hit the fan once again...

and someone from the party that nominated a guy still fighting the Vietnam war in his head accusing his opponents of not looking to the future is absolutely hysterical­...

[rkx13]

McCain could have an apartment in the green zone and could not figure this war out.
It is not a problem of geography but a problem of perception.

[NicoloM]

Exactly. The admiral’s son of an admiral’s son who has been immersed in the spin of politics and power in Washington DC since 1977. He may actually believe he is really finding out what happens in Iraq on his photo-ops, who would dare tell him he isn’t. The corruption of perception is one of the problems with elite classes, like Bushes and McCains.

[Thundrdrum]

I'm just so tired of all the lying that accompanies political races. Haven't heard the truth except from the rats leaving the sinking ship. I wouldn't know how to act if somebody actually told the truth about the state of this nation. Washington, D.C is the black hole of the universe--the white house is the center of it.

[oncethere]

Ah, there's nothing that does my spirits better than to wake up and read that things are going well in Mosul. I plan to walk with my head held hight today, with a spring in my step. I was saddened the other day when I heard that there was trouble in the Ashbob province of Makwa.

In Orwell's 1984 you will recall that the Govt. of Oceania brought the people daily reports of brilliant military successes in far off places in the world.

[LTCKal]

In the Carter-Ford debate, when Gerry Ford refused to acknowledge that Poland was under the yoke of Communism, I suddenly woke up, "my God, this idiot doesn't know anything, and he is the PRESIDENT!!!" I am convinced that John McCain is the same; the Russerts and Mathewses won't hold him to account, will dismiss his misstatements as gaffes. It's up to you, Ariana, to expose him, no more Presidents who don't know anything -- you're all we've got!

[sowhatdemos]

Arians's site is doing a fantastic job but she's not our only progressive.
We also have Michael Moore, Amy Goodman, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Sean Penn, Cindy Sheenan, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Phil Donahue, Robert Greenwald, Robert Fisk, John Cusak, Whoopie Goldberg, the brave soldiers who refused to kill for Boy George, all the folks who protest and get arrested AND ALL OF US!!
But, you are right stupid Presidents lie all the time and McCain is too old and senile to go up against Barack and win. If the Dems can't win this year with the cool crowd we have, the whole world is screwed!

[Stuart1948]

McCain has transposed so many names and concepts its looking like more than the occasional gaffe. He seems to be exhibiting the symptoms of semantic paraphrasia when names like sunnei and shia or Osama and Obama get transposed or substituted. In the elderly, it can be an indication of more serious neurological disorders.

[Jan6]

I remember the debate and I don't believe Jerry Ford was being stupid because he didn't know Poland was under Soviet control. At the time it was considered correct to say what he did because the alternative was to admit Soviet control AND the fact that we were doing nothing about it. This way America could talk about freedom and democracy but ignore it at the same time. Jimmy Carter was truthful, but at the same time he legitimized Soviet control of Poland by acknowledging it without responding to it in any way. So he was stupid too and threw all of Poland under a bus to make a debate point.
I believe McCain is a very basic kind of stupid and arrogant. He says what he says with no thought of goodwill or concern for the people we send to fight and for the Iraqis whose lives are being torn apart. He just refuses to learn or care. Obama will approach it differently, with an intent to learn all he can and to do right by all the people involved. He has a great attitude.

[thecanadian]

Thanks for being there Arianna. We all look forward to your comments and topics.

WomensGroup

[emerywood]

If McCain is elected in November, he would indeed be the nail in the coffin for the downfall of this Superpower. Fool me once is apparently not enough for the American people. We yearn for total destruction of our nation. God bless America, indeed !

[BlackWidowPilot]

No we do not. Are you forgetting that the previous two presidential elections were on the evidence *stolen?* by the GOP through election fraud in Florida and Ohio? The corporate press aided and abetted those thefts, and this is why We The People must take our country back, by (1) voting in record numbers, and (2) by being active, informed participants in our democracy that refuse to back down in the face of corporate criminality and intimidation.

If there be a nail in anyone's coffin, it's the 900+ documented lies about WMDs and debunked claims of connections between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, the over seventy (70) GOP honchos indicted and/or convicted of sex crimes against children (see http://www.armchairsubversive.org for the full list case by case) while "Hundred Years War" McCain has stood silent, the fact that "Hundred years War" McCain can't tell a Sunni from a Shiite, and never met a K Street lobbyist's "contribution" he didn't like starting with Charles Keating.

Whatever heroic deeds McCain may have performed while a "guest" of the Hanoi Hilton occurred over 30 years ago; what "Hundred Years War" McCain has done since is what is at issue.

McCain is simply another morally bankrupt member of the "Greedy Old Perverts," the bought dog of K Street lobbyists who is demonstrably incompenent to occupy the White House, let alone continue to occupy the Senate.

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[watererbob]

"Learn the facts on the ground"? One book that should be an absolutely essential "read" for any potential POTUS - considering the situation we find ourselves in, is "THE UGLY AMERICAN"!
It disects, deftly & clearly, how "fact finding tours" are orchestrated to insure that the impressions one gets from these "tours" is what the MIC desires!
From my own experience - I can say that they are a waste of time for all involved, and just an extra burden on the troops at the Taxpayer's expense!

[BlackWidowPilot]

Back in the day these congressional 'tours" were called "junkets," and were recognized as such.

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[rabrophy]

Anyone who has been in the military and has had the misfortune to be caught in one of these ridiculous dog & pony shows knows they are pure bull-shit. McCain spent much of his adult life as a ranking Naval officer and probably ran a bunch of these himself. So he knows he being bullshited and his response is to ask them to pile it higher and deeper!

I'm laughing but it's realy very sad.

[willyloman]

Many of our ranks in the progressive left have been taken in by this book from Scott McClellan.

He's not a whistle-blower or a hero; He's the same administration enabler that he always was.

He lied for them then, he lies for them now.

Isn't it proof enough that he admits the administration viewed his book over a month ago, and he even met with them to discuss it's content?

It's revisionist history right before the election.

http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/the-naive-left/

[research]

Since he is giving evidence of war crimes by BushCo, you logic collapses.

McClellen's books is damaging enough that it could be the tipping point toward impeachment of these war criminals.

Please more tell-all books!

[Mike789]

Barack is being cudgeled to visit Iraq for a Potemkin visit. I heard that McCain got wind of Barack's initial intention and beat him to the punch?
He should go alone and ask difficult questions for the press to absorb:
1) What is the sustainable goals for continued commitment? Is delaying withdrawal going to preclude what are being touted as disastrous inevitabilities? Are these goals subject to corruption in a one resource economy.
2) All we not a surrogate "strong man" enabling the civil war to exist in a padded cell of security?
3) Is our presence inhibiting the growth of a sense of nationalism in the Iraqis? We are anesthetizing the threats to Iraq's nation state.
4) Risk/Reward?
5) Is the unknown always exaggerated in pitch and moment. The Bush administration exaggerated the positive factors on the way in and is now emphasizing the potential negatives on the way out.
6) Are we playing into the hand of Iran? If we depart is Iran presented with a bigger problem?
7) Who is baiting whom? What is the bait?
8) Should we not be reimbursed for providing security? If the Iraqi Congress cannot get their act together in a world of instantaneous communications, why are they not paying us for our risk? Put a price on it and maybe they'll get off their duffs.

By all means, do not get on a plane with McCain. Go alone and present yourself in a Presidential manner.

[MsDoc]

The problem here, of course, is "of whom would he ask these questions?" Finding anyone in the military in Iraq to answer them honestly would be putting that person's career in jeopardy, and finding a politician with honest answers would be a Herculean chore.

This country has far too long lived by that ancient ditty "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest". We have been a very docile populace far too long and I think it's time we held our elected leaders accountable. We need to yell and scream and demand honest answers to difficult questions from our representatives and if these answers are not forthcoming, then we need to replace company men with people who WILL give these answers, pretty or not. I am tired of being paralyzed by apathy.

It is far too dangerous a world for us to remain ignorant in the name of "protecting the sheep"... a phrase actually used in some agencies.

[Jan6]

So here is an opportunity for Obama. His leadership skills will show in his ability to get the information he needs and not just take what is fed to him. I believe that he and his staff and advisors will be able to do this. The problem we are in now has not been caused by good leaders being given the wrong information. Bush and Cheney have sought the information and "facts" they wanted to see and McCain is the same.

[SRaley]

I wouldn't have a hamburger with McCain let alone go to Iraq with him. You can trust the guy about as far as you can throw him... All this talk about the dangers of Obama's presidential bid here at home, I can only imagine how dangerous it would be for him to take a trip with the GOP. Eh!

[Vajara]

Great work, Ariana. You have consistenly raised serious questions and concerns about McCain, yet there are few pundits who call him on his lies, deceit and fear mongering. Thank you for being here for those of us who care about our soldiers, their families and America.