On Monday, the New York Daily News reported that the Obama campaign had “scrubbed” its website to “remove criticism of the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq.”
The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a “problem” that had barely reduced violence.
“The surge is not working,” Obama’s old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks – not U.S. military muscle – for quelling violence in Anbar Province. The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.
Obama’s campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an “improved security situation” paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007. It praises G.I.s’ “hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice.”
Campaign aide Wendy Morigi explained to the Daily News that Obama is “not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events.”
This makes sense. There doesn’t seem to be any grand conspiracy here — the goal is to keep the site up to date. This week, the Obama campaign was going to be emphasizing national security and foreign policy, so aides updated the site with the newest content on national security and foreign policy.
This would be problematic if Obama had changed his position, and was scrubbing the site to remove evidence of his previous opinion, but Obama’s policy remained largely the same. The “surge” is over, Obama is offering an updated assessment of what’s happened and what he wants to do next. Obama has acknowledged — online and off — what went right with the surge and what went wrong. It’s all pretty straightforward.
Nevertheless, the right completely freaked out, and the McCain campaign fanned the flames. To hear Republicans tell it, for a campaign to change its website to reflect new policy positions, especially on the war, is clear evidence of being a “flip-flopper.”
Well, it’s funny they should say so.
It didn’t draw any real attention at the time, but in May, the McCain campaign quietly did a little scrubbing of its website, too. Adam Jentleson had the story:
John McCain’s new website, unveiled last week, features a significant policy change on the Iraq page.
Until Tuesday, this paragraph was the first point on the old Iraq page:
“A greater military commitment now is necessary if we are to achieve long-term success in Iraq. John McCain agrees with retired Army General Jack Keane that there are simply not enough American forces in Iraq. More troops are necessary to clear and hold insurgent strongholds; to provide security for rebuilding local institutions and economies; to halt sectarian violence in Baghdad and disarm Sunni and Shiite militias; to dismantle al Qaeda; to train the Iraqi Army; and to embed American personnel in Iraqi police units. Accomplishing each of these goals will require more troops and is a crucial prerequisite for needed economic and political development in the country.”
On the new page, that entire paragraph has been deleted. The new page does not call for more troops and makes no mention of the “critical prerequisite” of disarming Sunni and Shiite militias.
So, did McCain change his policy? Does he still support the position that his website used to promote? No one asked. The media that has been practically obsessed with the changes to Obama’s site never mentioned the changes to McCain’s site.
Truth be told, I really don’t care much about the change to McCain’s site. It seemed to alter his official position a bit, but it was relatively minor. It would have been nice to a see at least one reporter at a major news outlet acknowledge the quiet change to McCain’s site, but that didn’t happen.
But with that in mind, why the major-league freak-out over Obama’s site? Will these same news outlets report the changes to McCain’s site with similar gusto?