Would McCain Rather Win Than Catch bin Laden?

On today's Situation Room, when Wolf Blitzer asked him about his vow to catch Osama bin Laden, John Mccain said, "Well, I'm not gonna telegraph a lot of the things that I'm gonna do, because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But look, I know the area. I've been there. I know war. I know how to win wars. And I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden...I know how to do it."

Which begs four obvious questions:

1) Is John McCain privy to some intelligence or strategy that would better our chances of capturing bin Laden?

2) If so, why hasn't he shared this information with the current administration?

3) Would he rather win the election than see bin Laden captured?

4) Also, exactly which war(s) has he won?

Would somebody in the MSM please...PLEASE ask him any/all of these?! Please? Seriously -- how many stupid things does this guy get to say before somebody with a microphone calls him on it?

Seth Grahame-Smith is the author of Pardon My President: Ready-to-Mail Apologies for 8 Years of George W. Bush.

Comments

[savagenation916]

Maybe McCain is privy to the stated information. Who knows? What kind of question is that? And if he is privy to such information, how do you know who he has and/or has not spoken to about it? This article seems like it was written by someone who has a backwards political agenda, or perhaps they just dislike McCain because he is (slightly) conservative and a republican.

Oh, and McCain has never won a war. Never. However, he has fought in a war, he was a prisoner of war. He is aged and experienced, unlike your man Obama. Obama on the other hand, has never served in the military, never fought in a war, moreover, he's young and inexperienced. With that said, who do you think knows how to better protect America?

I'm not blind; I'll take Mr. McCain ANYDAY over Obama. Study your history.

[BlackJAC]

Of course McCain would rather win than catch bin Laden. Political office is essentially a contract consulting job, and the primary goal of any contract consultant is to keep the contract going as long as possible. Remember that Winston Churchill was voted out of office immediately after VE Day.

[cassidynj]

How is a man so quick to question other people's patriotism so sensitive to being second-guessed himself?

I realize Vietnam is very important to John McCain, but do Vietnam-era Presidents such as Nixon need to be his model?

[eden4barack08]

Seth, how dare you make such a preposterous request to the MSM? Why, for them to pose such fact-finding, deep and relative questions to the All Time War Hero McCain would be utterly disrespectful!
Don't you know he was a POW for five years? What has he done to deserve such questioning from the MSM? After all, he's ONLY running to be President and Commander in Chief of the USA! Why would we need to know the answer to such crucially relevant questions?
He has earned the special treatment the MSM, aka 'his base' reserves for him. They have an obligation to provide him with a free pass on all the gaffes he makes, and even edit them out if need be, and spin everything against his opponent.
Whatever made you think you could legitimately ask the MSM to give up their right-wing bias?

[libbygirl]

When I saw this interview yesterday I had the same questions. "Delusional" is a word that came to mind as my mouth dropped open in disbelief. I couldn't get to my computer fast enough to put my comment on the CNN site.

[JeanPaulSatire]

A FIFTH question that absolutely needs to be asked is, "If he DID provide W et al. with the specifics that he won't tell us about, but W et al. did not follow through, why is he still W's biggest cheerleader when it comes to the GWOT?"

And the SIXTH required question is, "If he DID provide W et al. with the specifics that he won't tell us about and W et al. followed through but were unsuccessful, how can he continue to make the absolutely false claim that he 'knows' how to get OBL when his plan failed?"

[Chillinout]

I have been wondering these same things for months now. The MSM just lets whatever Johhnyboy says fall by the wayside without any scrutiny at all.

[ffny]

if he (McCain) can catch Bin Laden is he holding back the info for politcal reasons like winning an election, which might be more important then catching Osama Bin right now and he feels this can help him politcally.

[peterg76]

Just like McCain "knows" how to deal with the stiuation on the Iraq-Pakistan border...

[GolfDem]

Please get McCain into a nursing home as soon as possible after the election. We had a President with Alzheimers in Reagan his last term. We don't need another. McCain now thinks he figured out how to win wars as a prisoner of war and that it's ok to torture prisoners. He's going down hill fast mentally.

[Torus34]

I'm not given to entering the 'No spin zone' but just might do so if Mr. O'R were to ask Senator McCain these four questions. It would be the best entertainment since the introduction of the barroom bull ride machine.

[Coattails]

1) McCain might have several ideas, but he is not in any military position right now, and don't forget where Bin Laden is most likely hiding is the lawless tribal regions on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan that even the Pakistani government has trouble dealing with.

2) Maybe he has, and maybe it is in the works, no one knows, you don't want to tell the most wanted terrorist in the world what your plan is on capturing/killing him is do you?

3) I see what you did there... he never said bringing Bin Laden to justice would be a bad thing or he would oppose it.

4) Well if you want to get technical, we congress hasn't declared war since 1942, however the term is used loosely these days, every thing else has been a police action or conflict, but are typically are referred to by people who are educated and should know better as wars.

I would say though that McCain has a good military background both in his career and in his upbringing, that may not be "war" winning experience but I am playing devil's advocate here.

Oh and Wolf Blitzer, thats funny, wasn't it a couple days ago when he was asking a commentator the question about if he thought the media was in the tanks for Obama, and then cut off the person (and basically answered his own question) for "BREAKING NEWS," Obama's plane has landed safely in Tel-Aviv.

[eden4barack08]

If he has several ideas,as you suggest, he has the obligation to share them with the current administration for the good of his country. He need not wait until he gets in any "military position". But if he is waiting, then he's the one who would put his country at risk in order to win an election. That's not very patriotic for a man who you claim "..has a good military background both in his career and in his upbringing..."

[loria]

Don 't you mean the border between Pakistan and Iraq? That is the border Mc Cain seems to believe exists. Even if he misspoke he makes so many foreign policy mistakes these days that you have to wonder if he really gets what he is talking about. We don't need another C student leading our country.

[WarriorLemming]

Thank you, Seth, for asking the questions the MSM seems too chicken to ask maybe afraid of losing those high paying jobs or stepping on someone toes. I'm resigned to the fact that there are no investigative reporters left and must read my country's news from publications overseas.

I lost all respect for MSM during the the 2000 elections followed by the 9/11 attacks with each network reporting in "lock-step" with each other. I wanted to shake Wolf Biltzer by the collar during the interview he had with Cheney he appeared so afraid to throw any hard hitting questions at the VP it was hard to watch Biltzer recoil when Cheney gave him that, "Don't get smart with me, boy" look.

Then we have the infamous Fox News which is a ridiculous caricature mostly fashioned from SNL comedy news skits, laughable to think anyone watches it for serious enlightenment.

[luvangelHussein330]

No actually, McCain claims he knows how to find Bin Laden....intresting however...one would have thought he would have excersed thous skills long before today. Silly season has begun and McKeatingFive is running ammature hour on the stright talk express that the media love to cover up.

[tcagle]

Nixon tried this same stuff about Vietnam in '68, and Johnson called him on it. Good luck getting Bushwacker to bite on this, of course.