In the aggressive new McCain campaign ad, the Republican nominee hits Barack Obama on his votes against the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.
“[Obama] voted against funding our troops,” the narrator says, with the words, “Against Troop Funding” appearing on screen, in all caps. “Positions that helped him win his nomination. Now Obama is changing to help himself become president. John McCain has always supported our troops and the surge that’s working.”
Now, we know Obama isn’t “changing” on Iraq at all. In fact, McCain has criticized him for not changing enough, so the campaign and the ad are running contradictory messages.
But the notion that Obama “voted against funding our troops” is likely to become an important conservative talking point, so it’s probably worth taking a moment to consider in more detail.
The Obama campaign responded, “While Barack Obama wants to change American foreign policy to wind down the war in Iraq and address the grave threat posed by a resurgent al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan, John McCain offers this patently misleading negative ad.”
That’s about right, but let’s not lose sight of why it’s misleading.
Last year, the Senate took up a measure to fund the troops in the middle of a war. McCain voted against it, and cheered Bush on when the president vetoed funding for the troops.
[O]n March 29, 2007, McCain himself voted against H.R. 1591, an emergency spending bill that would have funded the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and would have provided more than $1 billion in additional funds to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Senate passed H.R. 1591 by a margin of 51-47. Once the bill’s conference report was agreed to by the House, the Senate again passed the measure on April 26, 2007, by a vote of 51-46. McCain did not vote on that version of the bill. By contrast, Obama voted for it on both occasions. President Bush vetoed the bill, citing its provision for a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Now, Republicans will argue that McCain had to vote against funding for the troops in the middle of a war because he opposed the conditions attached to the bill. That’s true. But Obama, by the same measure, also had to vote against funding for the troops for the same reason — he opposed the lack of conditions attached to the bill, and didn’t want to give Bush a blank check for an indefinite war.
It’s really just a matter of perspective. McCain voted against funding for the troops to support Bush’s policy, and Obama voted against funding for the troops to oppose Bush’s policy. In this sense, McCain’s ad is premised on the notion that voters won’t know or care about the facts.
When Obama cast his vote (along with most Senate Dems), it was the only option available to war opponents to change the administration’s policy. Obama’s position was endorsed by most Americans — polls showed strong support in favor of cutting off funding. McCain, obviously, disagreed.
But before McCain gets too self-righteous about supporting the troops in harm’s way, we might want to consider how McCain felt when Bill Clinton was president and McCain didn’t care for his military policies.
For example, when Republicans didn’t like the conflict in Somalia in 1993, the congressional GOP decided Congress had all kinds of authority to intervene and shape U.S. military policy, whether the president liked it or not. On Oct. 19, 1993, John McCain argued that Congress had the power to force Clinton to begin an “immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia.” He added, “[I]f we do not do that and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured because we stay too long — longer than necessary — then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States.”
What’s more, McCain introduced a measure to cut off funding for the troops while they were in harm’s way. He later changed his mind, but McCain nevertheless argues now that anyone who even considers such a move is untrustworthy.
So, what do we have here? The McCain campaign can’t defend its own position on troop benefits, and is blasting Obama for pursuing a military policy option that McCain himself embraced a decade earlier.
Once again, McCain is counting on public ignorance to get him through the campaign.