McCain thinks Obama/Maliki policy sounds like ‘a pretty good timetable’

July 26, 2008

Remember the first two weeks of July, when the “big story” of the presidential campaign was that Barack Obama moved (or was about to move) towards John McCain’s position on Iraq policy? The story was a fantasy, based on literally nothing, but it dominated the political discourse for weeks. The McCain campaign went so far as to put out a statement arguing that Obama “has now adopted John McCain’s position” on troop withdrawal.

And the irony is, the entire story was backwards. Obama didn’t move towards McCain; McCain has moved towards Obama.

The first substantive hint came this week, when a McCain surrogate appeared on a campaign conference call to argue that Obama has a 16-month withdrawal timetable, but McCain might withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq even sooner.

Yesterday on CNN, McCain took this to the next level, suggesting the policy proposed by Obama, and endorsed by Iraqi officials, sounds like “a pretty good timetable.”

For those who can’t watch clips online, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked McCain what he’d do if Maliki persisted and wanted U.S. troops to withdraw. McCain, ignoring Maliki’s repeated public pronouncements, said he knows Maliki so well, McCain is certain that he can ignore Maliki’s public statements.

Asked why Maliki would describe the 16-month policy as “a pretty good timetable,” McCain said, “He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.”

This is what those in the biz call “going off message.”

McCain has spent most of his waking moments of late insisting that Obama’s policy isn’t a “pretty good timetable.” Indeed, McCain has repeatedly said the exact opposite.

What actually sounds “pretty good” to McCain is the policy he’s been advocating for quite a while now — an indefinite war, which ends in some undefined state of “victory,” followed by an indefinite presence that could last 100 years or more.

If you’re starting to get the impression McCain will simply say anything to win, we’re on the same page.

TP also raised a very important point I hadn’t thought of. During the Republican primaries, McCain hammered Mitt Romney for hinting at support for a conditions-based timetable for withdrawal. In a debate, McCain was indignant: “Timetables was the buzzword for those that wanted to get out.” In other words, when Romney dared to suggest a timetable was a good idea, McCain thought it was a dreadful mistake, because the word “timetable,” in and of itself, was loaded with policy implications.

And who’s using the word now, senator?

So far, the NYT is playing up this story, but most other outlets aren’t. We’ll see if it gains any traction.

Bob Hebert of the NYTimes wrote a good piece today saying that the candidate voters really need to get to know better is not Obama but McCain. And he says that the more you get to know McCain, the less you’ll accept the common narrative of his character and the more you’ll want to vote against him.

  • I’m suffering from brokenrecorditis, but the GOP strategy, apparently, is not exactly to say and do whatever it takes to win the election, it’s to say and do whatever it takes to win the media narrative each and every day. In fact, this is probably the one way with which McCain most differs from Bush. What was it Colbert said about Bush at the Correspondents’ Dinner? He’s a man who believes the same thing Wednesday that he did on Monday no matter what happened on Tuesday, or words to that effect? Well, McCain is not that type of guy. Essentially, everything is a knee-jerk opposite reaction to what Obama says and does. If Obama says it’s day, McCain MUST say it’s night.

    Problem is, sometimes it IS day. When that happens, McCain’s camp says that it WAS night, and Obama was jumping the gun in declaring it day.

    And the point of of the attack-everything-Obama strategy isn’t to convince people Obama would make a bad president…merely to plant seeds of doubt. If a few people are afraid to vote for Obama because he MIGHT be a secret Muslim, and a few different people are afraid to vote for Obama because he MIGHT belong to a racist church, and a few other people are afraid to vote for Obama because he MIGHT “cut and run” in Iraq…siphon off the undecideds a few at a time, with attacks that also happen to be red meat for the GOP loyalists. It doesn’t even matter if the undecideds don’t vote for McCain, just as long as they definitely don’t vote for Obama. An uncast ballot is as good as a win for the GOP, especially this year.

    But the problem with this strategy is it’s based on keeping low-info voters in the dark. Lord knows, there are plenty of people who WANT to have as little info as possible. I swear it’s a tragic flaw among so many people, make decisions based on little information, and they DON’T feel so bad if the decision turns out to be a bad one, because they didn’t know any better. The idea that they should’ve educated themselves more before making that decision is lost on them. I digress. This year, with Obama’s and Dean’s 50-state strategies, it’s hard for low-info voters to remain completely in the dark, because their friends and other members of the community are the ones wanting to inform them, sometimes in small meetings, sometimes one-on-one. Unless you’re a complete misanthropic hermit, it’s hard to not continue a political conversation someone starts during an election year. McCain is potentially setting himself up for a major fall if people continue to become educated about Obama in drips and drops. It counteracts the drips and drops of people they siphon off with fear and rumors and innuendo and plain old bigotry. He better start developing an actual message of his own before the first debates beyond “Obama baaaad.” The MSM’s doing it’s best to help the poor old fart out, but community roots often run stronger than what Chris Matthews has to say, and they’re not going to be able to combat it soon enough.

  • Lewis Carrol would be splitting his sides if he could watch this now. Talk about a Mad Hatter’s tea party.

    Finally, it’s the electorate that’s on trial here. Will they pass, will they fail, are they even up to it? Is American going to make a fool of itself again?

  • It will be fun (read that disgusting) to watch the “liberal media” NOT NOTICE as McCain flip-flops on every subject and on every position.

    I give it about one month for McCain to claim that he has always been for withdrawal from Iraq and discourse with Iran, and that Obama has flipped to HIS position. And the “liberal media” led by Fox News will back up every word.

  • slappy magoo @ 2:

    Essentially, everything is a knee-jerk opposite reaction to what Obama says and does. If Obama says it’s day, McCain MUST say it’s night.

    Does this mean another moniker for Senator McCain might be Senator McKate (of The Taming of the Shrew)? Or is invoking Shakespeare too elitist?

  • “I give it about one month for McCain to claim that he has always been for withdrawal from Iraq and discourse with Iran, and that Obama has flipped to HIS position. And the “liberal media” led by Fox News will back up every word.”

    and oceana has always been at war with eurasia.

  • Barack Obama has to go into the debates with a take no prisoners attitude.

    I really think McCain is losing it.

  • The leading international issue is the war against the crack head muslims who want to kill everyone who isn’t one of them. O’blame-us has no clue about how to stop those dogs. What’s his answer to the loonie Arab Muslims? Lets just sit down and chat. Then they’ll cut his head off. The problem with the whiners on this loser site is only 8 -10% of America support the black Irishman’s (o’bama) positions on anything. What’s his answer to high oil? Perhaps increase the supply? Nooooo, lets TAX the suppliers into oblivion. Yep that’ll make them really want to pump more oil. Sure thing genuis. He’s as flimsy as a screen door and has the same amount of guts as a fruit fly. But then again if he gets elected Congress will just ignore him, they’ll run the country down the tubes and the blacklash will give us conservatives in Congress and the Whitehouse for the next 25 years! Just think about good old Jimmy “cracker” Carter! Yeah, go ahead.

  • Hey, Joe-
    If you hadn’t noticed, “they’ll run the country down the tubes” is precisely what has occured under 8 years of Republican rule. Time to wake up, sugar.

  • McCain said, “He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal

    Holy Cow. Now McCain is a cheese eating surrender monkey who is waiving the white flag of surrender.

    I wonder if the old McCain will call out the new McCain on this and demand an apology to the troops.

  • Keep an eye on two important distinctions with McCain and Obama:

    1. McCain’s 16 months makes no mention of when this clock starts. His conditions on the ground conditon means conditions to start withdrawal.

    2. When he says “most troops” he means 50%+1.

  • It is too bad that the presumptive GOP nom is such a waffler.
    He was before 72 different things then he chaged his positions on every one. Now he agrees that the time table is reasonble..after railing against any kind of a timeline.

    Johnnny one note he only has one note and that onenote is ( Surge working!)

  • It seems to me that Obama already IS running the country.

    *************** Hey, Steve Benen ***************

    Would you consider doing a second list (like the Official Flip Flop list) of all the policies which Obama has stated and then Bush either implemented or McCain embraced?

  • McCain has attacked Obama as well as Romney, equating a timescale with surrender. I have a couple quotes and links here:

    http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3639

    When defending his 100 years statement McCain said:

    “And both Sen. Obama and Clinton want to set a date for withdrawal — that means chaos, that means genocide, that means undoing all the success we’ve achieved and al Qaeda tells the world they defeated the United States of America.

    “I won’t let that happen.”

  • It seems that McCain is a one issue candidate, the Iraq war and he is losing this one handily. He doesn’t even get his facts straight when he talks about it. It is almost pathetic watching him speak.

  • Old McCain must call for an apology to the troops from the new McCain just like he demanded from Willard Romney.

  • I THINK ITS RATHER DISGRACEFULL FOR CNN TO TRY AND HIDE THIS STATMENT BY MCCAIN. THIS IS A COMPLETE CONTRADICTION FROM WHAT MCCAIN HAS PREVIOUS SAID. MCCCAIN WAS SET AGAINST ANY TIMETABLES TO WITHDRAW TROOPS AND DURING AN INTERVIEW HE SAID IT WAS A PRETTY GOOD IDEA. WHY ISN’T THIS ON THE FRONT COVER OF THE WEBSITE? THERES OTHER STORIES OF MCCAIN BUT THIS ONE IS HIDDEN AND YOU WOULDN’T FIND IT UNLESS YOU REALLY SEARCHED FOR IT. TODAY JOHN KING HOSTED THE ELECTION CENTER AND HIS GUEST WAS MCCAIN’S CO-CHAIR TUCKER BOUNDS AND HE DIDN’T ASK HIM ABOUT MCCAINS STATEMENT WHEN HE WAS THE SAME ONE WHO HOSTED ANDERSON’S COOPER SHOW YESTERDAY AND SPOKE ABOUT THE STATEMENT. I THINK CNN. IS BEING BIAS TOWARDS MCCAIN. YES OBAMA MAY GET MORE NEWS COVERAGE BUT THE MEDIA EITHER DON’T REPORT OR MAKE A BIG DEAL OF THE TOO MANY FLIP FLOPS AND MISTAKES OF MCCAIN.

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