Guest Post by Adam
Earlier this week, when CBS was revealed as having edited an interview in a manner that omitted a pretty serious foreign policy error on McCain’s part, I assumed the problem was ignorance, rather than a deliberate effort to hide what had happened. It’s one of the major shortcomings of the evening news format that stories are often condensed in ways that leave out important information. It seemed likely to me that whoever edited or produced the piece simply wasn’t aware that McCain had reversed the chronology on the Anbar Awakening and the Surge, and thought McCain’s attack on Obama’s patriotism made the segment more dramatic. Given that the entire interview was posted online, it’s hard to imagine CBS thinking they would have gotten away with anything by leaving something that significant on the cutting room floor.
But it’s really hard to imagine that anyone could be this ignorant.
On the July 22 broadcast of the CBS Evening News, while airing portions of an interview anchor Katie Couric conducted that day with Sen. John McCain, CBS News did not air McCain’s response to a question in which he characterized the Iraq war as “the first major conflict since 9/11,” apparently disregarding the war in Afghanistan, which Couric addressed in her question and which began in October 2001.
It’s not like McCain doesn’t know there’s a war in Afghanistan, he simply forgot. But he’s also running on his expertise on foreign policy, meaning journalists should be giving more scrutiny to his claims, not less. Instead, it seems like even egregious foreign policy mistakes by McCain are overlooked, simply because he is believed to be expert, which is the opposite of how things are supposed to work.
But McCain seems to be having some trouble remembering other things as well.
Yesterday, McCain went after Obama for “speaking at a rally or political gathering any place outside the country”:
“I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering any place outside of the country after I am president of the United States,” McCain told O’Donnell. “But that’s a judgment that Sen. Obama and the American people will make.”
John Cole links to several posts indicating that McCain actually has spoken at political gatherings outside the United States, like this one from MSNBC’s Mark Murray.
However, on June 20, McCain himself gave a speech in Canada — to the Economic Club of Canada — in which he applauded NAFTA’s successes. An implicit message behind that speech was that Obama had been critical of the trade accord. Also, McCain’s trip to Canada was paid for by the campaign.
Not only that, but as Atrios points out, McCain also took trips to Colombia and Mexico in order to favorably contrast his foreign policy experience with Obama’s. It just wasn’t as high profile as Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe, and that’s partially because the McCain campaign acted as Obama’s hypeman in making the trips such a big deal in the first place.
Trade, drugs and immigration will top the agenda of U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain during a visit to Colombia and Mexico this week designed to showcase his foreign policy experience over that of Democratic rival Barack Obama.
McCain, an Arizona senator who has wrapped up his party’s White House nomination, was to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and other officials in Cartagena on Tuesday and Wednesday in the first leg of a three-day journey to South and Central America.
That was earlier this month.
I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that McCain may have forgotten to run a “respectful campaign” after basically accusing Obama of wanting the United States to lose a war earlier this week.
Just for the record, I don’t think this has to do with age. I think it has everything to do with a candidate who has gotten good press for so long that he hasn’t had to think much about making mistakes or being consistent. But McCain, who has referred to the political press as “his base,” seems to have forgotten about all that too, complaining that the press now favors Obama.
“You have billed this event as a Presidential Town Hall, and I sincerely hope that the next president is here today,” McCain said. “My opponent, of course, is traveling in Europe, and tomorrow his tour takes him to France. In a scene Lance would recognize, a throng of adoring fans awaits Sen. Obama in Paris – and that’s just the American press.”
Maybe they just stopped bringing him donuts.