It’s almost entertaining, in an academic sense, to watch multi-faceted Republican attacks unfold before our very eyes. This week, for example, the GOP decided that it was really important that Barack Obama hasn’t traveled to Iraq over the last couple of years.
It started over the weekend, with Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain’s most loyal lackeys, insisted in a TV interview that Iraq is vastly improved since 2006, and Obama should join John McCain for a joint-visit and a briefing from Gen. David Petraeus. Asked whether he’d be willing to take such a trip, McCain told the AP, “Sure. It would be fine.”
On Monday, Memorial Day, McCain pushed this meme, telling reporters Obama’s lack of Iraq visits means he hasn’t “had anything to do with” the war since 2006. He added that he’d like to travel to Iraq with Obama so he could “educate” the Illinois senator “along the way.”
Soon after, the Republican National Committee unveiled a clock on counting the days since the Obama last visited Iraq. RNC Chairman Mike Duncan argued that Obama’s lack of “firsthand” knowledge necessarily “disqualifies him from being commander in chief.”
And soon after that, McCain was in high dudgeon on the issue.
John McCain strongly criticized Barack Obama Wednesday for not visiting Iraq in more than two years and for turning down the Arizona senator’s suggestion that the two should make a joint trip to the country.
“Senator Obama has been to Iraq once — a little over 2 years ago he went and he has never seized the opportunity except in a hearing to meet with Gen Petraeus,” McCain said at a campaign event in Reno, Nevada. “My friends this is about leadership and learning.”
Again raising the issue of Obama’s willingness to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, McCain also said of the Illinois senator, “he wants to sit down with the president of Iran but hasn’t yet sat down with Gen. Petraeus, the leader of our troops in Iraq?”
It’s amazing that McCain and the RNC think Americans are this stupid. Greg Sargent noted yesterday, “It’s hard to imagine they’ll get any real traction with something as transparently silly as this.”
The Obama campaign’s response included a couple of angles. First, on Tuesday, the campaign rejected the idea of a Baghdad stroll out of hand: “John McCain’s proposal is nothing more than a political stunt, and we don’t need any more ‘Mission Accomplished’ banners or walks through Baghdad markets to know that Iraq’s leaders have not made the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge.”
Yesterday, after McCain’s latest diatribe on the issue, the Obama campaign added: “On the day after the former White House press secretary conceded that the Bush administration used deception and propaganda to take us to war, it seems odd that Senator McCain, who bought the flawed rationale for war so readily, would be lecturing others on their depth of understanding about Iraq.”
By last night, though, campaign aides acknowledged that Obama has planned to take an overseas trip upon wrapping up the nomination, and Iraq “would obviously be at the top of the list of stops.” Obama told reporters, “I think that if I’m going to Iraq, then I’m there to talk to troops and talk to commanders, I’m not there to try to score political points or perform. The work they’re doing there is too important.”
As for why this entire line of attack is ridiculous, McCain and his foolish friends seem to believe the only way to understand U.S. policy in Iraq is to go to Iraq. That’s absurd.
Last year, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Lindsey Graham had a rather heated discussion on “Meet the Press” about Iraq. In one contentious exchange, Webb told Graham, “You know, you haven’t been to Iraq.” Graham snapped back, “I’ve been there seven times.” Webb, a decorated veteran and a former Secretary of the Navy, replied, “You go see the dog and pony shows. That’s what congressmen do.”
Jonathan Finer explained shortly thereafter that Graham isn’t the only one basing opinions on scripted, uninformative tours.
Policymakers should be commended for refusing to blindly trust accounts from diplomats, soldiers or journalists. But it’s worth remembering what these visits are and what they are not. Prescient insights rarely emerge from a few days in-country behind the blast walls. […]
It goes without saying that everyone can, and in this country should, have an opinion about the war, no matter how much time the person has spent in Iraq, if any. But having left a year ago, I’ve stopped pretending to those who ask that I have a keen sense of what it’s like on the ground today. Similarly, those who pass quickly through the war zone should stop ascribing their epiphanies to what are largely ceremonial visits.
McCain knows this. He’s hoping you don’t.