McCain’s confusion on Iraq goes from embarrassing to scandalous

July 23, 2008

It doesn’t much matter what the root cause of John McCain’s confusion is. Maybe he’s confused because he’s old. Perhaps he’s pretending to be confused to impress the Republican base. It’s possible he’s confused because he just isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box. I don’t know, and frankly, don’t much care.

Whatever the source, the bottom line remains the same: when it comes to Iraq, John McCain is hopelessly incoherent about the basics. To be sure, geo-political crises can be complicated, but McCain isn’t flubbing policy minutiae at an advanced seminar on foreign policy. As of yesterday, he doesn’t seem to even know what the surge is.

Kate Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.

Remember, according to McCain, he’s an expert on foreign policy. The basis of his entire presidential campaign is his ability to handle matters like the war in Iraq, and the notion that his unparalleled expertise makes him uniquely qualified.

Except the man is shockingly confused, and embarrasses himself more and more with each passing day.

These comments to Couric may be the single most striking mistake any presidential candidate has made in years. In 1976, Gerald Ford said, during a nationally televised debate, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” It was a bizarre error that contributed greatly to his defeat.

And McCain not understanding what the basics of the surge is at least as dramatic.

The surge has, after all, become the raison d’etre of McCain’s entire presidential campaign. Why would he announce his belief that the surge prompted the Anbar Awakening? McCain wasn’t on the campaign trail in late 2006 and early 2007. He was in the Senate, presumably paying attention to current events, and helping push the Bush administration’s policy.

As has become far too common lately, McCain has the entire story backwards.

In 2006, Gen. Sean MacFarland, the commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, explained in September 2006 — months before Bush even decided to launch the surge — that the Awakening was already underway.

Spencer Ackerman, noting MacFarland’s remarks, added, “For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge is either a lie or professional malpractice for a presidential candidate who is staking his election on his allegedly superior Iraq judgment.”

Ilan Goldenberg also explained:

This is not controversial history. It is history that anyone trying out for Commander and Chief must understand when there are 150,000 American troops stationed in Iraq. It is an absolutely essential element to the story of the past two years. YOU CANNOT GET THIS WRONG. Moreover, what is most disturbing is that according to McCain’s inaccurate version of history, military force came first and solved all of our problems. If that is the lesson he takes from the Anbar Awakening, I am afraid it is the lesson he will apply to every other crisis he faces including, for example, Iran.

This is just incredibly disturbing. I have no choice but to conclude that John McCain has simply no idea what is actually happened and happening in Iraq.

Indeed, how do we know for sure that McCain is completely wrong? Because McCain himself used to acknowledge reality and got this right before.

It’s simply breathtaking. When it comes to his signature issue, McCain is little more than a fool. He’s spouting obvious and demonstrable nonsense with the kind of confidence that only comes with abject stupidity.

McCain is certainly entitled to his own opinions, but he’s not entitled to his own reality. We’re well beyond “gaffes” here; we’ve reached the point at which it’s reasonable to wonder if McCain genuinely understands what’s going on around him. This is, by any reasonable measure, the kind of mistake that should ruin his chances of winning the White House.

In the next post, we’ll talk about the bizarre decision by CBS News not to broadcast McCain’s humiliating mistake.

“He’s spouting obvious and demonstrable nonsense with the kind of confidence that only comes with abject stupidity.”

Uh, no, it’s more like the confidence of knowing the media won’t stress the inaccuracy and make clear that it’s nonsense.

  • Of course, none of the major networks are carrying this story that I could find. I heard about this on Countdown yesterday, and the fact that it had ended up edited out of the Katy Couric interview (although the full transcript was available on the website). Tell me, what is the reason for not reporting on this? Don’t tell me – an informed populace is a dangerous group, if you have a political agenda??

  • For months, I’ve thought McCain was just plain stupid, a twit, with a lethal dose of one-upsmanship thrown into the mix. Whatever smarts he may once have had seem to have evaporated. Honest to god, he reminds me of the stereotype of a hostile ditzy blonde. Or maybe Ernest T. Bass.

    I’m content with my conclusion since it saves me the trouble of trying to seriously explain his politics and issues to rational people.

  • He’s spouting obvious and demonstrable nonsense with the kind of confidence that only comes with abject stupidity Karl Rove’s campaign tactics.

    Fixed.

    Also, what Georgette Orwell said.

  • I think that the republicans are all drinking the same water. Either that, or Bush has found a way to possess McCain so he can sneak in a third term. The guy’s just as clueless and arrogant as Bush.

  • we’ve reached the point at which it’s reasonable to wonder if McCain genuinely understands what’s going on around him. This is, by any reasonable measure, the kind of mistake that should ruin his chances of winning the White House.

    I thought we reached that point when he said (repeatedly) that the radical Shiite nation of Iran was actively supporting the radical Sunni terrorists in Iran. That should have been enough to get the press corpse to wonder if McCain even knew his ass from a hole in the wall, but it went largely unnoticed by the corporate media, who (I predict) will also let McCain’s backward history of the surge go completely unchallenged.

    After Tianamen, the Chinese regime put together a “history” of the massacre, where they showed the protesters attacking the troops before the troops started killing them. Of course the rest of the world knew the actual sequence. Today we have a corporate media which will actively rewrite history if that’s what it takes to elect the guy who will allow them to make more money.

  • “In the next post, we’ll talk about the bizarre decision by CBS News not to broadcast McCain’s humiliating mistake.”

    Go for it Steve. The MSM will not place Mr. Barbecue up for ridicule. Hy, they rhyme. Just like Mccain and distain. It gonna happen. Never. Too much rib munching to lose by merely calling an idiot on facts…

  • I wonder how many more of his gaffes have been edited out by a media that he has called ‘In love with Obama’ McCain is desperate,petty, vindictive and completely out of it. To call a senator – who is travelling abroad ‘a traitor’ is despicable. What in the world do the foreign press think of it? They do not like him anyway.

  • Gaffes Happen has become the official teeshirt of the McCain campaign and they may come to regret ‘whining’ for more news coverage.

    Politicians put their foot in their mouth on a regular basis. Sometimes it may be the result of long hours on the campaign trail, sometimes because they simply can’t keep their facts straight and sometimes because they can’t keep their lies straight. Sometimes it’s simply because they do not understand the facts.

    Couric/McCain Interview:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=4284432n%22%20rel=%22nofollow%22%3E

    The Couric interview gets even more interesting as McCain tries to distance himself from the numerous failed Iraq policies under the Bush administration:

    “McCain: The fact is we had four years of failed policy. We were losing. We were losing the war in Iraq. The consequences of failure and defeat of the United States of America in the first major conflict since 9/11 would have had devastating impacts throughout the region and the world.”

    Why would McCain support a president responsible for four years of failure?

    “no one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have.” [John McCain, 03/28/08)

    “The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush.” [John McCain, 06/19/05]

    “I am proud of this president’s strategy in Iraq.” [John McCain, upon receiving endorsement from President Bush, 02/13/08]

    Gaffes and old quotes are a living history of our thought processes, how well we think, what we think and when we think it. Even Carly can’t change that fact:

    “To say that John McCain was aligned with President Bush on the prosecution of the war in Iraq is to change history.” [Carly Fiorina, McCain Campaign Advisor, 07/13/08]

    The McCain campaign should be thankful the media has let them slide on many major issues, such as his voting record on veteran health issues and successful effort to shut down all investigation into remaining POW/MIA over the protests of their families and veteran groups in order to open up trade with Vietnam (his father-in-law immediately opened up a multi-billion dollar beer industry there).

    http://www.aiipowmia.com/sea/schanberg_mccain.html

    McCain has been given no media coverage on the very real probability he suffers from PTSD.

    “Among U.S. servicemen taken captive during the Korean War, as many as nine out of 10 survivors may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental disorders more than 35 years after their release, psychologist Patricia B. Sutker of the New Orleans Veterans Administration Medical Center and her colleagues report in the January AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY.”

    Perhaps McCain should quit whining about media coverage and not look a gift horse in the mouth.

  • “It’s possible he’s confused because he just isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box”

    He’s never struck me as being very bright. That’s one of this nation’s biggest problems. Our government is populated by too many people who shouldn’t be there. McCain has spent years and years in the Senate based on his personal POW story. That’s not reason to send a person to serve in the Senate. I hear members on congress interviewed and its clear they don’t even know what the function of the congress is! Over the years we’ve always been told that John McCain is an expert on foreign affairs. I never got it. I’ve never heard anything terribly insightfull or inspiring from him. It seems like his personal backstory is most often referenced than anything else.

    Obama will have to walk a tightrope on this one. His overseas trip has certainly been a huge success thus far. When he directly confronts John McCain (especially in the debates) he will have to strongly point out McCain’s factual errors and confusions, but he can’t look like he’s beating up on an old man. Remember George Bush scored sympathy points in the 2000 and 2004 debates because he came across as less than bright compared to Gore and Kerry.

  • I hope CBS will be made to direct an apology to Obama for editing John McCain’s remarks, or at least fess up that they are working for the election of McCain.

  • The fact that CBS edited this out is truly the most disturbing element of this story. I think that many of us in the blogosphere can go a little overboard in our criticisms of the MSM. They are certainly deserving of opprobrium as a class but I think the reasons for their failures are often more complicated than we acknowledge. There is nothing complicated about this. It is not a matter of opinion and there is no alternate or nuanced explanation. CBS was covering for McCain. They made a deliberate choice to hide a pretty salient detail demonstrating the candidate’s abject incompetence.

  • Maybe I’m naive, but I’m more shocked and concerned about CBS’s complicity in buffing up McCain’s campaign through creating an apposite lie and broadcasting that as his response to the question.

    In a Time of Universal Deceit, TELLING the TRUTH Is a Revolutionary Act. — George Orwell

  • SaintZak nails it.

    America’s low information voters base their votes on how the candidates make them feel, not based on whether the candidates actually know what they’re talking about. If you don’t know, then you can’t tell if they know.

    The media used to be there to tell us when the candidates were lying, but the mega-media corporations decided that wasn’t the best way to make money. Nowadays they go to court and argue that they have the right to tell bald-faced lies.

  • Yes, NPR ran an entire segment yesterday(?) on how people feel about the candidates and I thought about throwing up in the car. The thought that McSame has a significant chance of winning the election in November is beyond all reason considering how the NeoCON dream has visibly put America in last place for world standing. I’ve gotta up my meds or stop taking them and either way, go postal.

  • In the next post, we’ll talk about the bizarre decision by CBS News not to broadcast McCain’s humiliating mistake.

    I can’t wait. Even as gaffe-prone as McSame has been over the last few weeks, this boner on his signature issue — one that reveals a mind-boggling disconnect from reality, whether motivated by confusion, mendacity or both — in news, offered up on a silver platter to CBS. Ford knows that if Obama had made a similar blunder it’d be repeated 24/7.

    CBS News’ decision to edit McSame’s blunder from the broadcast interview is mystifying, and the most likely explanation is that the so-called “liberal media” is actively covering for the toad.

  • McCain is certainly entitled to his own opinions, but he’s not entitled to his own reality.

    So say you.

    We’ve been led for 8 years by a group of people who believe that they are entitled to their own reality. And they’ve been serviced by lapdogs in the corporate press who seem to think their purpose in life is to manufacture that reality.

    This is one of those things that would be scandalous if the press were to make a big deal out of it. Because the majority of the people who are leaning towards McCain don’t know what’s going on in Iraq anyway. They get their news from the talking heads and corporate curs that have been propping up the current administration for the last 8 years. And since the press is complicit in what’s going on in Iraq, and have built the narrative that “the Surge” is the solution to all of Iraq’s problems, they aren’t going to be calling him on it. Or if they do it will be in the namby-pamby “some say… while others dispute…” sort of way that they use when they’re trying to take the focus off the fact that they’ve been complicit in this mess too.

    If McCain loses in the fall it won’t be because he continues to make factual errors that no one in the mainstream press calls him on. It will be because the folks turning out to vote see through the illusion despite the continued attempts by the press to keep it propped up. Frankly, I think it’s only that McCain is so awful and the Republicans have been so terrible for the country for the last 8 years that there’s even a shot at it this time around.

  • “Jess” over at Yglesias’ place made the very good point that this might have been as much to protect Couric for not calling McCain on his obvious mistake as it was to protect McCain. Something to consider I think.

  • The guy graduated in the bottom 3/4 of one-percent of his class at the Naval Academy. Not exactly an intellectually curious or disciplined fellow. Combine that with advanced age and the rigors of campaigning and this is what you get.

    At his best, he was never great presidential material; now he’s not even close. But thanks to decades of conservative framing, even an incompetent of this magnitude appears viable to a major share of the public. This guy could still win.

  • Unfortunately, if a scandal takes a paragraph or more to explain, most Americans tune this stuff out. I’m with SaintZak and Racer X, the low information voter is not going to get outraged. The Obama campaign is better off staying “presidential” and providing pretty pictures with world leaders and the troops.

    There isn’t much upside to overtly attacking McCain or CBS on this. Obama is better off spending his political capital helping Americans see him as the next commander in chief, chief diplomat and national leader. If Americans feel comfortable with him in these rolls, he’ll win in a landslide.

  • “[McCain]’s spouting obvious and demonstrable nonsense with the kind of confidence that only comes with abject stupidity.”

    Just one more example of why a vote for McClone is a vote for Bush’s third term.

  • McCain: “I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane [phonetic] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.”

    I’m just going to suggest that JSMcC*nt can’t speak English any better than BGII. The anticedent of the work IT in the second to last sentence is not the Surge, it is the Sheik contacting Col MacFarlane.

    He meant: “Colonel MacFarlane was contacted by one of the major Sunni Sheiks and that began the Anbar awakening. Because of the Surge we were able to go out and protect that Sheik and others. That’s just a matter of history.”

    Of course, since “That Sheik” was actually killed by al Qaeda, he’s wrong about that too.

    And really, I think he got it wrong in the first place.

  • Lance’s point should be hammered home: the sheik in question was NOT protected y the Surge. He was assassinated. September, 2007. How could McCain get that wrong???

  • Keeping in mind that the Republicans have put a succession of Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest Presidents into office starting with Reagan, and not forgetting the presumptive successor to Bush I – Dan Quayle –

    Does it not seem obvious that these morans are part of a plan and have been very effective diversions from what groups like Chaney/Halliburton – Big 8 – Stock Market, Fed Bank and the other true US and world economic and military deciders have been doing? And doing successfully for almost 2 generations?

    That is, to increasingly consolidate wealth and power, particularly military power, into the hands of a relative few, and mostly hidden groups of like minded people.

    Never forget that “Shock and Awe” was just as effective a weapon against the American and British citizens as it has been been against the mid east as a tool to consolidate power.

    Bush, or McCain if he’s elected, will attack Iran – keeping the world in economic turmoil and flooding money, food, fuel and resources into the channels that the Chaneyites want. In other words, away from the majority of the population of the world.

    McCain, the Chimp, and other airhead Repocons and their spokesmen frequently repeat phrases that are probably common in their private meetings with the Chaneyites, forgetting that they are not intended for public consumption. Don’t ignore them. They are probably the most accurate statements that come out of their mouths.

    If Obama is elected and goes after Afghanistan and invades Pakistan, as he says, and as the press and Repugs want, the cycle will worsen and the “Awe” that is the largest part of the Chaneyites plan for world economic and military dominance will just keep rolling along sucking more wealth, food, fuel, and local control away from common citizens and into the hands of men like Chaney and Bush.

    Yes. McCain’s stupidity is as important as the Chimp’s, but don’t let it totally blind you from a much larger picture.

  • He is not stupid and these might not be gaffes. He is using the media and they are his patsies. They are letting him shove it in and they are thanking him for the privilege of servicing him. They are complicit in his lies…acomplices if you will. If Keith Olbermann is talking about it, we can have hope that the rest of the so called Main Stream Media will be forced to talk about it.

  • “Jess” over at Yglesias’ place made the very good point that this might have been as much to protect Couric for not calling McCain on his obvious mistake as it was to protect McCain. Something to consider I think.

    I think that’s almost certainly the case.

    Meanwhile, she whines about not being taken seriously as a journalist. Revolting.

  • And the difference between Armstrong Williams and Katie Couric, Charles Gibson, Brian Williams, and the entire CORPORATE/ REPIGLICAN/MEDIA = MAFIA IS ?

  • McCain is clueless on Iraq, imo, because he’s computer illiterate and clearly isn’t keeping himself informed. And just like Bush, McCain will contort / invent the “facts” to fit his policy.

    BTW how many jobs in the US workforce could a computer illiterate 71 year old man get? I’m thinking Private in the Salvation Army, or assistant door greeter at Home Depot.

  • I am about to admit to my own deficiencies. Please be kind.

    I think many of you know me. I have been a long time commenter at TCBR and I contribute to a couple of blogs. I read news and blogs daily. I like to think of myself as fairly well informed. I know of many of the events which have taken place (whether I could write an essay on some is a different story) – but could I put a timeline to them? No. I most certainly could not.

    Thankfully, I am not paid to know this stuff (for if I were, you better believe that I would know the most intimate of details). But McCain *is* paid to know this stuff. He has to know it so he can vote accordingly. He earns more than $160,000 dollars annually to know this stuff. He should be able to quote chapter and verse. And, he cannot.

    But that is not the purpose of this post.

    As said, I like to think I am somewhat informed. I watched Olbermann’s Breaking News last night and didn’t get why it was breaking news. I had to process just what the problem was and why this was a major gaffe.

    Which brings me to why I am posting this.

    If *I* didn’t understand what the big deal was (initially) does anyone expect the general populace to know?

    Someone said it earlier and this is so true: If it can’t fit into a simple paragraph, people will not understand. In that, the corporate media (along with the dumbing down of the education system overall) has achieved its goal.

    And are we now any different than any communist country that routinely changes its history?

    No. We are not.

  • The Nutroots are scandalous.

    Fred Kagan piece at NRO in september 2007.

    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGM2YWI4ODI0MDA1ZjczOTFjNDNkMGQzMzM0MGQ4Mjg=

    In the piece he talks about how almost no sunnis were taking part in the sunni awakening before the surge.

    By the summer of 2007 after the surge had started and there was better security in anbar province and especially ramadi 14,000 sunni’s were taking place.

    The sunni awakening was in name only until the surge. No sunnis were taking part without the security. During the surge the numbers jumped to 14,000 troops.

    McCain stated this by saying that they went to protect the sunnis there. Meaning it happened after. But the substance of the awakening didn’t begin until the surge started. General petreaus stated this in a hearing.

  • Too easy, i think. McCain is obviously the fall guy, expected to lose, bending over like he did in 2000. The Republicans are using this campaign to inject as much hate and vitriol into the next presidential cycle they can. They know full well they will lose, and are trying to dump as much garbage and bitterness into America full-stop. Isn’t it a bit uncanny how easy it is to slap McCain?

  • To Steve Benen, bet you didn’t know this.

    This is from Fred Kagen’s piece in september 2007

    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGM2YWI4ODI0MDA1ZjczOTFjNDNkMGQzMzM0MGQ4Mjg=

    At the start of 2007 there were only a handful of Anbaris in the local security forces. By the summer there were over 14,000. Before the surge, Ramadi was one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq; now it is possible for Americans to walk through its market with limited security details and without body armor.

    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGM2YWI4ODI0MDA1ZjczOTFjNDNkMGQzMzM0MGQ4Mjg=

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  • Looks like McCain’s brain has been losing a lot marbles, that he is, in fact, losing more and more every day! The man is really a disgrace to his party and the country. Is that the best the repubs could come up with? A man who is out of touch with Americans, a man who is out of touch with what is going on in Iraq, yet claims he WINS wars? What wars has McCain WON?? We know it wasn’t VietNam! Do we have to put up with this egotistical man who tells us we are all worng and ONLY he is right, het proves daily how WRONG HE IS??? McCain is a pathetic old and stubbor mule!!

  • John McCain is an expert on war just like my uncle is an expert on football. Just because he watches from the sidelines and attends a few games, does not make him Tom Brady.

  • “Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others.” is another howler. That sheik was killed during the surge so we didn’t manage to protect him.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/23/anbar-shiek-cited-by-mcca_n_114581.html

    McCain specifically cited the tragically deceased sheik’s personal safety as the way in which the surge made the Anbar awakening possible. Clearly he is totally wrong (although it is not a howler like his pre hoc ergo propter hoc logic).

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