Heads, McCain wins; tails, McCain’s critics lose

December 18, 2006

What a pleasure it must be to be John McCain’s press secretary. McCain has apparently reached a point in which major media personalities believe he’s right, even after having been proven wrong. It’s not only stunning, it must leave his press operation terribly bored. Why bother spinning when talking heads do your job for you?

Following up on a point from last week, McCain recently insisted that “we will not win this war” without additional combat forces in Iraq. It appeared to be part of a calculated strategy whereby McCain could separate himself from Bush’s failed policy by calling for additional troops he didn’t expect the president to send. As Robert Reich explained last month, this is a way for McCain to “effectively cover his ass. It will allow him to say, ‘If the President did what I urged him to do, none of this would have happened.'”

Except now Bush appears poised to do what McCain has urged him to do. If it doesn’t work, McCain will be left in an untenable position going into the 2008 race — he’ll have a strong degree of “ownership” of an incredibly disastrous and unpopular war as voters are making up their minds about who to elect as their next president.

Except, as far as David Brooks is concerned, McCain will excel either way.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is advocating sending up to 30,000 additional troops to Iraq. His plan is opposed by the military’s top generals and supported by just 12 percent of Americans.

Yesterday on the Chris Matthews Show, New York Times columnist David Brooks said that if President Bush takes McCain’s advice and sends more troops, it will help McCain politically — even if the troop surge fails. In that event, Brooks says, McCain will “say with a lot of justice, it’s too late.” Brooks said people will not focus on the results of McCain’s plan but “his conviction.”

Remember that coin-toss trick people try on kids, “heads I win, tails you lose”? It’s a bit like Brooks’ analysis. If McCain’s plan for tens of thousands of additional troops come to fruition, he “wins” if conditions in Iraq improve (he was right), and he “wins” if conditions worsen (he was consistent).

How, exactly, did McCain get to such an exalted position from the commentariat? Did McCain dig up embarrassing information on these guys or something?

Here’s the transcript, via ThinkProgress, which has the video clip. It sounds like Matthews, who, to his credit, has been a war critic from the outset, was actually on the right track.

MATTHEWS: Escalation. New signs suggest that President Bush might actually increase the troops in Iraq, a step John McCain has long called for…. So let’s say it happens. We get more troops into Iraq early next year, but the violence and the killing continue over there. If the troop surge doesn’t turn things around, what would that do to McCain’s political chances?

I was thinking, by the way, of those old Road Runner cartoons where one guy chases the other guy, and then realizes he’s off the cliff. We put it to the Matthews Meter: Would a troop surge actually hurt or help John McCain? By seven to five the Meter says it helps, and sets McCain up to lead the country.

David, you think if Bush moves for more troops, following the Army’s advice, McCain’s on board, in fact, his biggest booster, that’s a doubling down for the bet for both those guys. What does it do to McCain’s future?

BROOKS: Well, I think people look at his conviction. I mean, if you look at every analysis of the war, every book that’s been written about it, it all comes back to three words: not enough troops. And John McCain has been saying that for three years, and the White House did not listen to him for three years, and people are going to remember that, I think.

MATTHEWS: But if it turns out that more troops don’t do the job, he is disproven.

Mr. BROOKS: Right. Well, not at this late date. I mean, then they’ll just say — and I think he’ll say with a lot of justice, it’s too late. And he said that even this week. One more surge, and then we have to look at a new reality.

Well, any media that can pick me as Person of the Year obviously has its head so far up its ass it’s mistaking what it smells for Chanel No. 5, which certainly explains how they can think John McCain has a brain.

  • I simply do not understand how David Brooks in particular is constantly provided the air time to dribble out this type of drool. He is rarely, if ever, correct on anything he writes about, yet he is allowed to maintain prime real estate at the NY Times. In addition to that he then is constantly on NPR, PBS, and all the lame political talk shows. Absolutely incredible.

  • Isn’t there something a little disgusting about Matthews’ breezy analysis of what the the war, THE WAR, will do to some lame-ass poltician’s poll numbers?

    There should be some disclaimer required when TV guys talk about the war and politics. Some very graphic description of what the war is should preface every one of their giggling confabs.

  • Has anyone done a benefit analysis on the basis of human-bodies-per-vote of a McCain win based on the “surge”?

    PS. I hope this doesn’t post twice. Odd things happening this am in the comments section!

  • Brooks’ ability to spin and deny reality creates something akin to stupefying shock one witnesses in the reaction to a David Blaine performance. Or as to quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”

  • If (a very big if) more troops would have helped, then Brooks may has a point that McCain was right (before).

    But we’re getting sucked back into the moronic debate about whether Bush just screwed up the implementation of a winnable war, or whether it was unwinnable no matter what tactics they tried. Given the actual number of troops available, and the nature of Iraq’s civil society, and the mendacity of the Bush regime, the war was never winnable, and that should be the LOUD answer to almost anything Brooks the Idiot spews.

    But I would ask Mr Bobo this: Where would McCain’s additional troops have come from, three years ago or whenever? Did the army have additional troops hiding in the desert somewhere? Where are they now? If they don’t exist, then why the hell are you on TV? Why aren’t you being laughed off the set and put in the asylum where you belong?

    But let’s say Brooks/McCain’s mystery divisions were real and were sent into the meatgrinder. Would that have helped? Would we not have a civil war? Who the HELL believes that, except a bunch of people who have already proved they’re morons?

    Bush Sr’s words should be rolled out at every opportunity, these assclowns knew Iraq would implode if they removed Saddam, and his stupid son still sold us the war with bullshit and then sent our kids to die for their lies.

    To the Hague with them. David Brooks can then tell us how they’ll win that one no matter the outcome. Maybe the people will look at their convictions.

  • I think McCain, with his war heroism and tough talk, just makes a certain kind of pundit with, perhaps, “maleness issues”–Brooks and Marshall Wittman in particular–somewhat gooey.

    I’m not saying it’s a latent gay thing; I’m also not not saying that…

  • This is painful. It is like listening to people talk about what they’ll do when they find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And who knows? There might be, at the end of some particular rainbow a small pot of gold. It might be guarded by fierce flying pigs. That emerged from McCain’s arse.

    However, it is a fact that there are no more soldiers. Instead of discussing the McCainiac’s political brilliance they should be discussing his dishonesty or delusions.

    They could even look at how saying something that does not exist will fix a problem might play out if he were president. McCain thinks 20K non-existent soldiers with imaginary equipment will fix Iraq. Now imagine if he were president after Katrina struck, parts of the city are roof deep in water, McCain flies over and says: “Gee, better levees will fix this place up in no time.”

    No one would say that was anything less than batshit krazee.

  • BoBo Brooks, like Tom Friedman, is a guy who makes comments not on what he thinks is going on nor does he provide any information from an insider’s perspective that better infroms the public of why things are happening — he makes “commentary” that he hopes will force the issue. Brooks hopes to shape future action with his words. This is the reprehensible part of many modern pundits: they hope to mold the world around their ideas rather than being dispassionate and wise observers.

    Brooks wanted the war and he shaped his columns to pave the way. Now he wants McCain to be the Repub nominee so he is shaping his remarks so it will happen. I agree with bubba — why is this guy given access to public forums so he can do his best to force public opinion?

  • How, exactly, did McCain get to such an exalted position from the commentariat? Did McCain dig up embarrassing information on these guys or something?
    Bob Somerby has addressed this question over at the Daily Howler. Here he is in February of 2000.

    Richard Cohen finally took the ride that all of CelebCorps was talking about. Later, still excited from all the straight talk, the pundit described his experience:

    COHEN: Oddly enough, in all the analysis I’ve read of McCain’s unanticipated success, the word “fun” is never mentioned. But the man is having fun. A trip on his bus is, well, a trip. You laugh and laugh—at least I do—and when, once, I asked him why in the world he would talk to the press hour after hour, totally on-the-record, he said it was “fun.” He was having fun.

    Welcome to the Fantasy Camp of Election 2000 press coverage. Middle-aged pundits clamber on McCain’s bus, and he rides them around, with free doughnuts. He even says how much fun it is to be able to talk with all of the scribes. Sometimes, he takes the flattery further. We reported this back in December (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 12/15/99):

    WILLIAM GREIDER: [C]andidate McCain’s greatest asset is the friendly press…McCain returns the affection. He likes to be around reporters as much as other conservatives loathe them. “Most reporters are smart people,” he explains. “I enjoy the exchanges.”

    Most reporters are smart people? When we first read that, we knew right away—this guy will say anything to win!

  • MCCain is so corrupt, he crawls to the microphone to speak his mind before changing it again. He is (if possible) more delusional than Bush. His POW story is very strange. He claims he made an American flag out of strings from socks in captivity. When the guards found it, took it away and beat him up, he claims he started weaving a new one.
    I have know POWs, and none of them believe such a story. Survival is a much stronger urge than weaving a flag… It is crap created by the same people who would make him the next GOP puppet.
    If he becomes president, I am leaving the country. He is more dangerous than Bush because he is somewhat brighter and believes his own BS. Bush should be enough for everyone to see the importance of forming a new political party and throwing the demos and repubs out of office.

  • Mr. BROOKS: Right. Well, not at this late date. I mean, then they’ll just say — and I think he’ll say with a lot of justice, it’s too late.

    Um… nope.

    The only way that would work is if McCain started saying, NOW, that it’s too late already. That would cover his butt nicely and keep him in the “always right” position — had the additional numbers been fed into the maw of the grinder 3 yrs ago or even a year ago, we would have won (and nobody can disprove that, because it hadn’t been done); now it’s too late.

    As things are, I’m not sure he can even profit much from calling for a surge a week ago — not unless he’d called for one 10 times the size he was talking about. The numbers of troops *had* been boosted sometime in the spring/early summer without any positive results. So, it might have been too late already. Yet he’s still banging the same drum, which seems to me to be stupid.

    As for Brooks… One of the greatest frustrations of my domestic life is the one politics-related point on which my husband and I disagree. I think Brooks is a smug prick, who forms his opinions on the basis of the shape of the lint he digs from his navel. My husband thinks Brooks is a moderate and balanced thinker… Sigh…

  • I agree w/ Racerx at #6
    Brooks is still pushing the theme / meme that going to war was the correct policy; Bush – Rumsfeld – just bungled the troop count. Media folk like Brooks – and they are legion – will go to their graves doing whatever they can to avoid the awful truth that the “concept” of the invasion was wrong – not merely its travesty of an implementation. They criticize the war, they admit that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, and they even will admit that there are “no good options” for Iraq. But, they will NEVER admit to the the utter wrong headedness of a policy for which they served as cheerleaders. David Brooks isn’t supporting John McCain and McCain’s political viability; he is attempting to save his own place in the punditry constellation. John McCain is merely his tool for doing so. These people deserve each other, but I’ll be damned if I will ever accept that I deserve them.

  • The big-surge double-down will end McCain’s chances. Sorry about all the dead people, but at least there’s a silver lining.

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