McCain has been more wrong than most

January 17, 2008

I first took note for Roger Cohen’s work in the New York Time last summer, when he wrote a very odd op-ed arguing that the war in Iraq is a disaster, but it was worthwhile anyway. In October, Cohen again raised eyebrows, this time with a bizarre NYT piece insisting that the neocons have gotten a bad rap, and aren’t nearly as ridiculous as we make them out to be.

But today, Cohen’s work takes an even more disconcerting turn.

Nobody’s been right all the time on Iraq, but Senator John McCain has been less wrong than most. He knew a bungled war when he saw one and pressed early for increased force levels. He backed the injection last year of some 30,000 troops, a surge that has produced results. […]

McCain was politically dead six months ago, his campaign undone by his backing of President Bush’s Iraq policy. His remarkable resurgence, which has put him in the lead among Republican candidates, according to recent polls, is one measure of the Iraq shift.

Cohen adds some vaguely sycophantic praise for the senator, calling McCain “flesh and blood,” and a “straight-talking survivor.”

First, I can think of a few people who’ve been right “all the time on Iraq.” Al Gore seems to be batting a thousand on this one, and Russ Feingold and Barack Obama have track records that are pretty darn good.

Second, the notion that McCain has been “less wrong than most” is certainly what his campaign press releases have been arguing for months, but for Cohen to make the argument in a New York Times op-ed is rather foolish. Cohen’s piece was a little short on specifics, and that’s a shame — he has the situation largely backwards.

I know we’ve been over this before, but given that Cohen’s piece is bound to get attention — and get circulated by the McCain campaign — it’s worth taking a moment (again) to highlight the fact that very few have been right about Iraq all the time, but McCain has been consistently wrong since before the invasion even began.

First, McCain was very wrong before the invasion. (Note: I’m combining quotes from two different sources)

McCain on CNN on Sept. 24, 2002: “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.”

McCain on CNN on Sept. 29, 2002: “We’re not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.”

McCain on MSNBC on Jan. 22, 2003: “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.”

McCain on NBC on March 20, 2003: “I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators.”

Second, McCain was completely wrong during the early years of the war. (Again, quotes from two different links)

McCain on ABC on Apr. 9, 2003: “It’s clear that the end is very much in sight.”

McCain on MSNBC on Apr. 23, 2003: “There’s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shias. So I think they can probably get along.”

McCain on ABC on Dec. 14, 2003: “This is a mission accomplished. They know how much influence Saddam Hussein had on the Iraqi people, how much more difficult it made to get their cooperation.”

McCain on ABC on Mar. 7, 2004: “I’m confident we’re on the right course.”

McCain to The Hill on Dec. 8, 2005: “I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.”

And finally, McCain said all we had to do was give Bush’s so-called “surge” a chance, and we’d finally see political reconciliation in Iraq. Strike three.

McCain has been “less wrong than most”? If he’s been wrong every step of the way, how is it even possible to be more wrong than McCain?

From McCain’s 2004 speech to the Republican National Convention:

“Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight. We’re Americans. We’re Americans, and we’ll never surrender. They will.”

Obviously the words of ” a man who knew a bungled war when he saw one.”

  • Benen: “If he’s been wrong every step of the way, how is it even possible to be more wrong than McCain?”

    Only a Dem can be truly wrong on Iraq, because all Dems are just naturally weak on security and defense issues. On the other hand, everyone knows that reThugs are always right on security defense/issues, and McCain is righter than anyone else cause he’s a straight talking maverick. Steve, Steve Steve. Your question answers itself.

  • After McCainiac’s 100 Years in Iraq comment, anyone who says he’s right more often than most needs their brain examined.

    I suspect Richie’s came out of a jar marked Abnormal.

  • It’s hard not to get the feeling that McCain new exactly how full of crap all of his pronouncements on Iraq were yet he said them so he could be perceived as the second coming of George W. Bush and thus be a shoo-in in 2008. Times have changed big guy. He cast his lot as a hard-core Bushie and lost. Had he called things as he saw them rather than saying what he thought everyone wanted to hear could very well have had the GOP nomination locked-up by now.

    McCain’s diarrhea of the mouth concerning all things Iraq is his ultimate sell-out for ultimate power. Whatever credibility his “maverick” viewpoints from the long forgotten past had for him is now long gone. He’s a party line whore who will perform any tricks necessary to get his seat in the Oval Office.

  • I wonder if Cohen thinks it’s funny to joke about starting a war with Iran, especially when our troops are overstretched and in such a precarious position right next door, surrounded by millions of heavily armed Shiites. McCain sure does.

    Moron.

  • The media is spreading the meme that the surge was an unqualified success, which, as we know, is demonstrably false. It may have been successful in terms of certain tactics, but the broader mission remains completely unrealized. What ever happened to those benchmarks the White House agreed to and then promptly discarded?

  • What are we all talking about…. Once again: Republicans make up their own reality… That statement is factually true when you run it through the Fox News filter. Democrats have been wrong EVERY time they voted against funding “Supporting the Troops”

    It’s the Bush bubble, that is turning into the McCain bubble…

    EVERYTHING is ALWAYS the Democrats’ fault. Republicans NEVER do ANYTHING wrong. Don’t you get it? How many times does that mantra need to be repeated?

    Get with the program… Why can’t you be more like the average ‘room temperature IQ’ Fox News viewer?

    🙂

  • McCain was politically dead six months ago, his campaign undone by his backing of President Bush’s Iraq policy

    Nonsense. McCain was undone by his support for immigration reform/amnesty. His backing of the Iraq War didn’t help him any, but pretty much all Republicans support the Iraq War, his stance was nothing out of the ordinary.

    McCain’s candidacy is resurgent by benefit of the other candidates being unpalatable, nothing more.

  • I find it pretty annoying that the Republicans keep trying to claim the surge is working recently.

    It “produced results”? What does Cohen mean by that? Does he mean results that matter, or does he just mean results that amount to something you can point to and say “Look, something changed.”

    Of course something was going to change when we added that many troops. But we’ve got to pull those troops out within a few months, because we can’t take care of all the troops we’ve got in Iraq. We can’t keep them all there, and everyone knows it.

    We just spun our wheels with this surge. We helped people out temporarily. We’re not going to be able to keep doing it. Did Iraq’s infrastructure finally get fixed during the surge? No. Everything’s still broken.

    All we achieved is less deaths (for now) so the Republicans can say, “Hey! Less deaths!” They’re not going to mention the “for now” part, of course, and they’re not going to mention that we got there by going around killing people instead of helping the Iraqis build the stuff they need to build (water sterilization plants, power plants, or whatever) so the individual Iraqi toughguy can feel like he’s got more to gain by chilling out and obeying the law instead of going out and fighting. Oops, no one’s interested in that part. Why solve a problem when you can go around hurting people and pretending it’s going to work.

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