McCain tackles the ‘100 year thing’

February 26, 2008

As has become increasingly clear, John McCain has a habit of just “winging it” on the campaign trail. Confronted with a question, he just says the very first thing that pops into his head. A few weeks ago, when a voter in Florida asked about Bush’s intention to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for another 50 years, McCain didn’t hesitate: “Make it 100.”

He’s been trying to walk it back ever since, insisting that so long as American troops aren’t getting killed, the length of their deployments are irrelevant. (Indeed, to hear McCain tell it, the discussion itself is “insulting.”)

Yesterday, no doubt aware that he’d created a political mess for himself, McCain tried again to downplay the significance of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until 2108.

“And by the way, that reminds me of this hundred year thing. I was asked in a town hall meeting back in Florida, how long would we have a presence in Iraq? My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it will be handled by the Iraqis, not by us, and then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis. … “

I’ve read this a few times, trying to make heads or tails of it, but I’m having trouble (or, in this case, I think McCain is having trouble). The “war” will soon end, while the “insurgency” will continue? How does one separate the “war,” the “occupation,” and the “insurgency”? If insurgents are a tangential issue in McCain’s mind, who does he think the “war” has been with the last several years? AQI? And if so, on what is he basing his opinion about the looming finale of the conflict?

Why does it seem that after nearly six years of combat, John McCain seems terribly confused about the nature of the war itself?

Matt Yglesias’ take also seemed spot on to me.

I find this new John McCain take on his remarks about staying in Iraq for 100 years pretty confusing. Formerly, we weren’t supposed to worry about his commitment to a war of indefinite duration because, you see, the 100 years was tacked on with the proviso that no Americans would be killed. How this kind of open-ended commitment was supposed to get us to that zero-casualty point was unclear. But now we learn that “the war for all intents and purposes, although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years, but it will be handled by the Iraqis, not by us, and then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis.”

This, to me, is baffling. If the insurgency is still going on “for years and years and years” then either the insurgency is taking place but U.S. troops have left Iraq (which McCain opposes) or else the war is continuing. I guess the McCain alternative is that the insurgency keeps fighting, and our troops stay in Iraq, but the insurgents forget we’re there and generously decide not to attack us. Or something.

My hunch is, this is very much in keeping with McCain’s general habit of just saying whatever comes to mind, whether it makes sense or not, and with minimal concern for coherence.

Anyone who’s confident that McCain is some kind of expert on military policy and national security just isn’t paying attention.

Simple constructs persuade simple minds. McCain is projecting “leadership” with his concocted foreign policy reality, and he is simply casting the perception he is jonny on the spot vis a vis the terrorists. McCain is harvesting the fear voter wherever he goes. -Kevo

  • This “war” has always been motivated by emotion, not strategy. The emotion is a form of “patriotism.” (We’re America and we’ll do what we want, and if we ever admit that we can’t or shouldn’t do what we want, then we’re surrendering to terrorists, and if we surrender now, no one will ever be safe, my friends.)

    If you use a rational approach to issue, then you’re part of the “blame America first” crowd who will aid Islamo-facism. What’s not to understand about that?

  • I’m thinking the same as TR @ #2. A full one-minute ad showing McCain saying all these confusing, nonsensical things about Iraq will be devastating to any credibility that he still has left in the fall.

  • I wonder if there are a couple of words missing from the quote? It would make a lot more sense if McCain had said “the war for all intents and purposes is over, although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years….” That may be an overly fine distinction between “the war” and “the insurgency,” but it would at least be intelligible.

  • “Experts on military policy and national security” rarely make jokes about bombing people, much less large nations that could really f**k with us since we’re strapped over a barrel surrounded by their friends right next door.

    I think the Iranian regime really has no better friend than John McCrazy, who is so experienced and knowledgeable that he thinks it’s funny to joke about bombing Iran.

  • Here’s a good line to use on the wingnuts who think we can still “win” in Iraq: Maybe you should ask the Israelis how easy it is to win an occupation. They’ve got all the firepower in the world, and a tiny enemy contained in the world’s largest open-air prison, and after going at it for decades, they still haven’t “won”.

  • CG: “John McCain seems terribly confused.”
    Yglesian: “I find this new John McCain take on his remarks about staying in Iraq for 100 years pretty confusing.”

    Hey! Are these left wing ageist talking points? I’m offended. But don’t worry, I’ll forget about it by tomorrow. 🙂

  • Well, it will be just like a Hollywood action movie — the bad guys shoot round after round at the hero, but all their shots miss. Then the hero picks off each of the bad guys with one shot.

  • I remain troubled by the defeatest wing of the Democratic Party which says we need to fear this fool. They keep thinking of infinite ways that the GOP will beat us, not because they’re being realistic (as they imagine) but because they keep looking for excuses for why they shouldn’t bother trying to help us win. They just sit on the sidelines from their lofty perch of cynicism, and act like all of us who care about this stuff are naive fools for thinking we can win. They predicted we’d lose in 2006 and even now insist that if we win in November, it’ll be by a squeaker. And once they’re proven wrong again, they’ll never admit it and keep their naysaying going indefinitely.

    And sure, maybe things will go badly for us, but I really can’t see how. We’ve got an utterly atrocious opponent who suffers from a bad case of Foot in Mouth Disease, and who is going to be devoured by one of the best political minds we’ve seen in generations. This is a game-chaning election if we want it to be, but we have to admit that we might just trounce this idiot and stop second-guessing ourselves. Even the Republican base doesn’t like this guy, and he’s going to have to spend so much energy wooing them that he’ll turn off everyone else.

    This is our year. Let’s act like it. The only way McCain stands a chance is if we give it to him. We can’t let that happen through cynical self-fulfilling prophecies. McCain is toast. We just need to get the butter ready.

  • There will be people who vote for McCain no matter how silly, stupid, contradictory, or incoherent his statements are about the war, economic, or social policy. After all lots of people voted for Bush, who has neither an honorable war record, a legislative record, or a reputation for straight talk – or even being able to talk at all let alone off the top of his head. Only the media can do in McCain, and like with Bush, he gets pretty much a free pass.

  • Rolling Stone, of all places, has a great article – http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge – that shows how poorly McCain understands his own pet war. The insurgents are insurging against the American occupation. We leave – no insurgency.

    What is at now of even greater risk from our departure is civil war, now that our “surge” has up-armed all sides of this conflict. The solution to this mess is not going to come from an American 20-year old troop with an assault rifle, it will have to some from diplomats who can restructure the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government so that it’s not screwing the Sunnis. It’s also going to come from diplomats who will have to convince Iraq’s neighbors and the rest of the Arab world that it is in their best interests to exert proper force to keep peace in Iraq and de-escalate this conflict. And having some idiot who sings “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” will surely not get those guys to cooperate with their end of the deal.

  • Rich @14 – That’s simply incorrect. Sure, there will always be people who vote for McCain just because he’s the Republican. Similarly, any of us could secure at least 30% of the vote if we were the Democratic nominee. The point isn’t whether some will vote for McCain, but how many. I’d definitely bet against him getting less than 40% in November, but after that, it’s anyone’s guess. And remember, 40% of the popular vote is a complete washout in the Electoral College. Mondale got 40.6% and only won one state; getting 13 electoral votes against Reagan’s 525.

    And remember, for as much as we knew that Bush was an idiot, he had a political machine that not only scripted everything he said, they even wrote his auto-biography for him. Bush as a candidate wasn’t allowed to shoot from the hip the way McCain does. And Bush was able to run as a moderate only because the Republican Establishment, neo-cons, Christian Conservatives, and every other Republican was convinced he was one of them. And the biggest reason for that was because he was George Bush’s son. Moreover, having a political record is a detriment in a presidential election. That allowed him to say anything he wanted with impunity, because he had no record to compare it to. That’s also a huge advantage Obama has. And Bush’s idiocy was excused as him being a “regular guy,” which they used as an asset.

    But McCain doesn’t have any of these advantages. He has a long record that he now has to deny. The Christian Conservatives don’t like him. The wingnuts don’t like him. And he’ll be facing a Democrat who can woo independents. Remember, there are more Democrats in this country than Republicans, and Republicans need independents to go their way. I have no doubts that a majority of the Republicans who voted for Bush will vote for McCain, but McCain doesn’t just need a majority. He needs ALL of them; plus all the independents. And even still, if Obama can convince more Dems to show up than Kerry did (a distinct possibility) even THAT won’t help McCain. People will turn out for Obama like they’d turn up for no one.

    The numbers are totally in our favor and McCain doesn’t have the advantages Bush had and has many disadvantages Bush didn’t have. Unless something major happens before election day, McCain is toast.

  • Something I’d like to add to my last post: Kerry had a slight edge with independents in 2004, getting 49% compared with 48% for Bush. And while it’s possible that independents will pull for McCain, the more he’s forced to talk like a wingnut, the more they’ll like Obama, who already has a strong independent pull. After all, many independents just like him due to the fiction that he’s a “maverick”, but if they liked the stuff that McCain’s going to be forced to say this year, they’d be Republicans. To get the base out in November, McCain’s going to need to go further right than Bush did in either election. Independents just aren’t going to like that.

    Independents were already willing to vote for Kerry, and Obama gives them an even better reason to vote Democratic. McCain is toast.

  • McCain, like LIEberman, knows when the war can end. Democrats don’t.

    Thus, if the Democrats take us out of Iraq, it means we’ve lost.

    If McCain takes us out of Iraq, it means we won.

    It’s not what we do. It’s who does it for us.

  • The crazy thing about all of this is that he keeps shooting off the cuff remarks, when he should have definite talking points by now. Is that how he would run his presidency? If so, he is a dangerous man.

    • Comments are closed.