McCain willing to return to the infamous market — unprotected

May 13, 2007

It was a credibility-killing moment for John McCain. Last month, the senator insisted there are parts of Baghdad that are safe for Americans to go for a stroll and that General Petraeus travels around the city “almost every day in a non-armed Humvee.” Obviously, that was wrong. McCain took this to the next step, of course, when he went to a Baghdad market, surrounded himself with 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships, and then told reporters that was able to walk freely in Iraq’s capital.

Tim Russert asked him about this on Meet the Press this morning. McCain responded:

“I’ll be glad to go back to that market — with or without military protection and Humvees, etc.”

It’s hard to believe anyone will be impressed by this misplaced bravado, but it’s worth remembering that the day after McCain took his heavily-protected stroll, 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound, and shot from the same market.

Nevertheless, McCain thinks he can go for an unescorted leisurely walk in Baghdad? It’s as if he’s given up on being taken seriously on the war altogether.

When a once-proud man becomes a joke, it’s a sad thing to watch.

McCain knows he’s in no danger of risking his overpaid neck in Baghdad. Bush (or maybe some general who’s been designated the bad guy) will disallow McCain’s publicity stunt “on national security grounds”.

  • That sort of misplaced machismo bravado would almost surely get him killed, a martyr to his own screwed up credibility. That would be sad, of course, but hardly tragic given his own role in what would amount to a suicide.

    What would be tragic would be to make a man President whose pride and need to prove his manliness so horrifically trumps his judgement. Because as President, it is not his one life that would be sacrificed to make his point, it would be – as with Bush – thousands of young Americans who would be sacrificed just so people dont notice McCain is short.

    Been there, done that, would have counted the body bags if BushCo hadn’t censored the pictures from Dover.

  • He has no future as a politician — the only way forward is as a martyr. The GOP should respect this noble spirit of sacrifice and grant his request.

    Besides, being dead can really help your career — ask James Dean, or Jim Morrison.

  • Can anyone still utter the phrase ‘straight talk express’ without laughing?

    The new McCain strategy seems to be to make happy talk until everyone forgets your stupid talk. My problem is I can’t tell the 2 apart.

  • It sounds as if McCaca is hungering for some sort of bizarro-freakazoid-Valhalla kind of hero worship. He’ll willingly die a violent death for the cause, and everyone will remember him through the ages, thus affording him a form of immortality….

  • “the day after McCain took a heavily-protected stroll that market, 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound, and shot at the same location”

    Very disturbing. Retaliation?

  • This man spent years in a POW camp. In his world, Iraq is not as bad as the hells he’s already experienced. I can accept that. What I resent is his (and Hillary’s) willingness to say anything to get elected. Someone who wants power that badly and openly is not someone I will vote for.

  • I recall a Lara Logan piece with her asserting that media events quickly become targets.

    I sure hope I’m wrong.

  • Whenever I see Sen. McCain these days, I’m reminded of Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Two legit heros done in by greed. In Cunningham”s case greed for money and greed for public office for McCain.
    I take no pleasure in either case, but if it walks like a whore, talks like a whore, and acts like a whore,…….

  • I hope someone in the press questions him further on this. This is either very clever word parsing (Blackwater would not be considered the military) or some shoot from the lip false bravado.

    I would not mourn for McCain if he really did go to another market and strut around sans security personal, armor and air power (no bulletproof vests would be a sincere touch as well) and come to his end. I would mourn for all of the other innocents who stand to lose their lives as McCain and whoever hopes to make a point by taking him out vie for their dueling celebrity moment. It’s not a game to those other people in these markets John, it’s survival.

  • Hey! I’ve read this post someplace else. Nice work at Talking Points Memo today. Thanks.

    I did an update on Curt Weldon and his recent trip to Bangladesh at the TPM Cafe that might interest you. I suspect Weldon is lobbying the WH on behalf of the Bangladesh military.

  • McCain probably could make an anonymous trip to that market safely. Thousands of people do every week. It wouldn’t prove anything though. It’s all in the percentages.

    You’d think that we would notice in the US that 50,000 people are dying in auto accidents every year. But you can go weeks in Southern California even without seeing an accident and especially a fatal one.

  • That smug stupid egomaniac bastard got 17 people killed by his little political antics. Spouting off about how safe and normal the marketplace was, bringing a lot of attention and publicity to it until the insurgents took action to prove to him how wrong he was. If he hadn’t pulled that stupid political stunt those innocent merchants would still be alive. I hope somebody slaps that stupid smirk off his face. That man is insane and I am surprised how everyone keeps treating him like he is someone else. He’s living proof that because he used to be a Senator and a rational human being, people will continue to respond to his position rather than to what he has become. He is a public embarrassment whose game playing has gotten people killed. He can take that “bomb,bomb,bomb,…bomb,bomb Iran crap and shove up his ass. I for one, see him for what he is now…insane.

  • I can’t watch McCain anymore – he talks like he can barely muster the emergy to string a sentence together, and when he does, it turns out to be something too embarrassing to take seriously. Put that together with the problems he seems to be having keeping campaign personnel, and I think we would be looking at free-fall if it weren’t for the Russert-types keeping it alive.

  • Yeah, but would he go before an audience of influential pro-life and pro-choice advocates(50/50 split)? Would any of these weasels?

  • Chicken hawks usually know better than to put themselves in danger.
    McCain doesn’t yet understand that neo-cons aren’t supposed to actually believe their own bullshit.

    Which raises an interesting question…. is a stupid wingnut more dangerous than a crafty one?

  • How about someone challenge him on the fact of how many soldiers he is willing to put in danger when they have to go searching for him? (As, when he is kidnapped, there would certainly be thousands ordered out to search- and how many does he think would be ‘acceptable losses’ from the group for his friggin’ bravado?!)

  • McBush is just another example of a deluded, money hungry, elitist military contractor rePUKElican PUPPET who has lost ALL contact with reality.

    He like his idiot leader Shrub ( aka “W” ) have no personal risks in promoting and pushing their oil war in Iraq. They don’t care that hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi children, women & men are dead, maimed and disabled as a result of his immoral war, which is only helping & enriching their campaign contributors like Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies.

    Why aren’t more Americans OUTRAGED at this huge CRIME the rePUKElican party has committed ?

    They would rather waste their time with inconsequential and trivial debates about gay marriage, abortion, prayer in schools and Evolution vs. Creation in schools.

    There’s an old expression, “You reap what you sow…..”

  • Asinine. You know what, the MERE IDEA that that somehow proves “Iraq is safe” shows it for the lie it is just by virtue of the context.

    Think of it. Focusing on one little market. in a city of that size to “prove” it is “safe” in Iraq now?

    If it were safe, he could walk ANYWHERE in the country without undue fear or being killed.

  • McRampstrike, doesn’t need to go on a walk, he needs to take a hike.

    Nevertheless, McCain thinks he can go for an unescorted leisurely walk in Baghdad?

    Nope. He thinks people will believe him when he beats his chest and says he can go for an unescorted stroll. I’m sure he already has a list of excuses as to why he can’t really do it though, I’m not sure what they could be. Hasn’t he been absent from most of the votes in Congress?

    Here’s my early Monday tin-foil hat theory: McCainiac is a cunning ReThuglicon trap. He will exhibit increasingly bizarre, stupid and just plain obnoxious behaviour until some reporter gets fed up and questions him within an inch of his life. Then McCane will reveal that he has some tragic, irreversible illness (besides age) and the treatment causes him to act all screwy, boo hoo hoo. The ReThugs will howl about the evil, nasty, ageist librul media and the Republicans who have come to loathe their party will rally round the elephant again. If/when that doesn’t work, increasingly important members of the BushCo (TM) mAdmin. will step forward and say they too have a tragic, etc, etc. I think Gonezo is up next.

  • The question is, can McCain get a Baghdad trip scheduled in between 2 episodes of his weekly Sunday talk show “Press the Meat – The McCain, Russert and Condi happy fun hour”

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