Let’s define ‘critic’

August 18, 2007

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was on CNN yesterday, positioning himself as a critic of the president’s Iraq policy.

KIRAN CHETRY: It seems you’ve been painted as being a huge supporter of the president’s Iraq strategy. Is that an inaccurate portrayal?

MCCAIN: It’s entertaining, in that I was the greatest critic of the initial four years, three and a half years. I came back from my first trip to Iraq and said, “This is going to fail.” We’ve got to change the strategy to the one we’re using now. But life isn’t fair.

Poor John McCain. All he did was support the current Iraq policy every step of the way for five years and, for some reason, foolish Americans have come to believe he supports the president’s strategy. How terribly unfair.

Look, this notion of who qualifies as a “critic” of the White House’s war policy came to a head recently when far too many news outlets falsely characterized Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack as opponents of the war. Their support for Bush’s strategy was given greater weight because the media and the GOP establishment told the public they have been war “skeptics.” They’re not — O’Hanlon and Pollack supported the invasion, endorsed the so-called surge, and have consistently opposed withdrawal. (Ironically, Jon Stewart, the fake newsman, was one of the few to get this right.)

Similarly, we now see McCain characterizing himself as “the greatest critic of the initial four years.” Really? The greatest? There were a whole lot of Democrats condemning Bush’s policy over those four years — McCain might recall accusing them of “cutting and running” — but none was as great a critic as the senator from Arizona?

Perhaps it’s best if we establish some kind of criteria for who counts as a “critic” and who counts as a “supporter.”

Did you:

* endorse the invasion?

* buy into the Cheney vision of a quick, easy-to-resolve conflict?

* support the administration’s position on every piece of Iraq legislation since 2002?

* consistently support the status quo? (“I’m confident we’re on the right course” — McCain, March 7, 2004)

* endorse the escalation policy?

* oppose any and all measures to include timelines, scheduled withdrawals, or enforced benchmarks?

If you’re McCain, the answer to all six questions is “yes.” With that in mind, you don’t get to call yourself “the greatest critic” of the president’s policy.

Faiz noted, “With people like John McCain, Michael O’Hanlon, and Ken Pollack now claiming to be war ‘critics,’ that term is fast becoming a description for people who support the war but aren’t George Bush.” Worse, as Atrios added, “It’s always been this way.”

soon rumsfeld and powell will be deemed war critics….

  • Amazing isn’t it, suddenly being a Bush basher is just all the rage. And we can all tune in tomorrow morning to hear another round of various Republicans’ opinions about how much they all criticized Bush. The critic Republicans will argue with stubborn old Kristol, he’ll accuse them all of being cut and runners, he’ll bring Cheney out to drop a scare bomb, some carefully declassified soundbite, they’ll all line up and bow at the end, with a mushroom cloud on the backdrop. Wolf will smile benignly, and Stephanopolis will grin like a goofy puppet. There might be a token Democrat on the panel, or maybe Juan Williams guesting in to twist uncomfortably and muster a few minor interruptions. Who needs Democrats? We’re playin’ both parts now!

    That’s ten minutes, ok! News over and on with the election coverage. How’s poor old McCain gettng along? How’s Romney’s dog? We have Mrs. Fred Thompson on the line with up to the minute coverage of just how high his political tent is jumping right now! Do you suppose Cheney might jump in the race? Oh darn, time’s up, we had Rahm Emanuel on remote…sorry, technical trouble! And that’s it folks, just another Sunday, see you next week for an in depth look at the career of Kay Bailey Hutchison.

    When the combatants all lie dead on the field, we’ll just get some bigger pompoms, and more cheerleaders and build a huge pyramid, bring out the brass band, never mind the sirens…

  • “Ironically, Jon Stewart, the fake newsman, was one of the few to get this right.”

    To paraphrase Thoreau, ‘These days the only place for a serious journalist is on a comedy show.’

  • You forgot condemning any war critics as emboldening the enemy, helping the terrorists, or downright treason.

    All I can say about O’Hanlon and Pollack is…Give the money back.

  • McCain’s Jeckle and Hyde show is disturbing. I guess he’s recasting his image as being a maverick against himself. Sad.

    I agree wih Faiz’s definition of a war critic and add that a war critic is an ardent supporter of invading Iraq who acknowledges that “mistakes were made.” Everything is obviously great about the war except for the outcome, thanks to those “mistakes” that just showed up out of nowhere and were perpetrated by nobody in particular, but were emboldened by Democrats questioning the war’s prosecution.

    If McCain is a war “critic” then what are the Democrats?

  • ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Remember:

    Johnny McVain only got 101 votes in the Iowa straw pole.

    101!
    lol!

    I believe it is to safe to say:

    He is desperate.
    He’ll say anything and do anything to try to get back into the race.

    Crickey.

    He’d profess to clearing brush and driving a red pickup truck if it would lift him an inch.
    He’s send his own son to Iraq (despite being a war critic) if he thought it would help his chances.

    He is republican.
    He is desperate.

    Don’t you love the smell of burning desperate republicans in the morning?
    I do.
    Burn baby burn…

  • McCain *was* a “war critic” in some ways. I remember distinctly, sometime last November or December, he started saying “if we’d put more troops in Iraq years ago, like I’ve been saying, we wouldn’t be in this mess now”. Of course, at the time, it seemed a fairly safe thing to say. Then, Bush did go for the suurge and pulled that rug from under McCain.

    McCain hasn’t been a critic of the war per se; he’s been a critic of how the war had been run. These are two different things, even though he’s now trying to conflate them.

  • It’s really just that everyone’s more or less of a critic relative to someone else, and a question of when does that become misleading to call yourself a critic or a supporter in the absolute, without either narrowing the question down to make it about particular policies about the war, or comparing yourself another particular person with an opinion on the war.

    (Ironically, Jon Stewart, the fake newsman, was one of the few to get this right.)

    I’ve come to think of the Daily Show as more funny news than fake news. If I couldn’t read blogs at all for some reason, the Daily Show would probably, amazingly, be the second-best source for my news, supplemented by checking things they mention out on Wikipedia, or talking to a blog-reading friend while watching the show, to fill myself in on the important details of the stories. Caveat: one has to have a sense of humor, to know when Jon Stewart’s kidding, or not.

  • To quote the illustrious ROTFLMLiberalAO:
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    ***Don’t you love the smell of burning desperate republicans in the morning?***

    I most certainly do. Throw another chimp on the barbie….

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