McCain’s ‘secret plan’ to get bin Laden

January 28, 2008

I realize that Republicans and campaign reporters continue to perceive John McCain as a credible person when it comes to matters of national security and military affairs — but that doesn’t make it sensible.

John McCain says in almost every stump speech that he knows how to capture Osama bin Laden and that he’d follow the al Qaeda leader to the “Gates of Hell.”

So Washington Wire was wondering, what does McCain know that President Bush and the Pentagon don’t about how to sweep up America’s most elusive enemy.

“One thing I will not do is telegraph my punches. Osama bin Laden will be the last to know,” he said today while riding on the back of his bus between Florida events. In other words: he’s not telling. Why not share his strategy with the current occupant of the White House? “Because I have my own ideas and it would require implementation of certain policies and procedures that only as the president of the United States can be taken.”

So, McCain has a secret plan to capture Osama bin Laden. He could share his secret plan with the White House, so it could be implemented now and the al Qaeda leader could be taken into custody before he can launch additional attacks, but McCain doesn’t want to. He has his “own ideas,” which presumably he won’t share — even in private, with the Commander in Chief — unless he’s elected.

I’m curious, does John McCain think we’re children?

I mean, really. If there are “certain policies and procedures” that could lead to OBL’s detention, and a president could implement those policies and procedures now, why wouldn’t McCain stop by the Oval Office for a chat with Bush about how best to proceed?

By McCain’s own reasoning, it sounds like he’d rather let bin Laden remain free for another year, until McCain and his “own ideas” can get to work.

For that matter, can we put a moratorium on Republicans and their “secret plans”? Richard Nixon got the ball rolling in 1968, assuring voters he had a plan to stop the war in Vietnam, but he couldn’t share it. Nixon won the election, but there was no secret plan, and the conflict continued for five additional years.

More recently, Republicans have been toying with the notion of new “secret plans.”

* Last May, White House officials suggested to lawmakers that they had a secret plan for Iraq, in the event that the “surge” had no effect.

* In February 2007, Henry Kissinger told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bush had a “secret plan to move toward a bipartisan consensus” to stabilize Iraq through diplomacy.

* In 2006, then-Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) said Bush had a secret plan to succeed in Iraq.

Enough already. Anyone who wants to be taken seriously on policy matters needs to be able to explain their positions on issues without silly, childish games.

“I’m curious, does John McCain think we’re children?”

The American people? Probably not. This administration, however, is not known for their maturity.

Still, the man is full of it.

  • And let’s not forget when Rumsfeld said we know where they (WMD) are, but apparently didn’t want to share this with the UN weapons inspectors, or David Kay’s group after the invasion.

  • John McCain says in almost every stump speech that he knows how to capture Osama bin Laden and that he’d follow the al Qaeda leader to the “Gates of Hell.”

    Sounds like he’s planning a murder suicide.

  • Well, it worked for Nixon in 1968. Nixon had a “secret plan” for ending the war in Vietnam. Of course, once he was elected, the secret plan turned out to be to send in more American troops and to widen the war tremendously. We all know how well that turned out.

  • “I’m curious, does John McCain think we’re children?”

    Hasn’t it been proven repeatedly that a lot of Republican voters have the intellectual maturity of children? We have often discussed their belief in the Tax Fairy on this site – you know, the Tax Fairy who makes tax receipts go up when we cut taxes.

    To a lot of voters, John McCain is the latest incarnation of John Wayne – a war hero who can bring the bad guy to justice, just like in the movies. He’s the tough-talking westerner. In that mindset, how could there be any doubt that McCain is the hombre who could hunt bin Laden down and bring him in?

    With apologies to H. L. Mencken, nobody ever lost an election by underestimating the intellectual maturity of Republican primary voters.

  • We all know that a fugitive OBL is infinitely more valuable as a campaign prop for the GOP, McCain is just adding a new spin…

    “I know how to catch him. Make me President and I’ll show you. Otherwise? I’m keeping my ball and you can’t have it.”

    Who’s the child?

  • “John McCain says in almost every stump speech that he knows how to capture Osama bin Laden and that he’d follow the al Qaeda leader to the ‘Gates of Hell.’

    Sounds like he’s planning a murder suicide.”

    Actually, it’s much worse than that. McCain’s chronic reliance upon this weirdly misused construction of this adage is puzzling, ironic, and overtly stupid. The phrase as it is actually intended to be used offers utmost respect to a leader, often in a military context. If a soldier believes his commanding officer to be a sublime leader, he would say that he’d follow HIM to the “gates of Hell.” Using it to suggest that he would be somehow tenacious about kickin’ ass and takin’ names, well, it misuses the phrase so extremely and seems to have one of our presidential candidates paying a huge compliment to the most reviled man in the world. Please, Lord. Let us not replace the current ignoramus with this one.

  • Maybe we could use some enhanced interrogation techniques to get him to tell us what he would do. I was watching 24 and it worked there!

  • * In 2006, then-Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) said Bush had a secret plan to succeed in Iraq.

    Actually Conrad helped out quite a bit……………by getting trounced by Tester on election day.

  • I’m sure Osama is quaking in his boots knowing that McCain has him on double-secret probation. Besides, isn’t telling a gaggle of reporters on a campaign bus that you’ve got a secret plan to capture someone telegraphing a punch? And why would voters vote for a person who is letting Public Enemy no. 1 roam free while you’re holding the key to his capture hostage for political gain? And why should this nation ever trust a Republican swearing up and down that he’d get Osama when Bush did so and could now give a damn what Osama’s up to?

    McCain is getting to be more and more of a delusional blowhard over time. I hate to see how psychotic he’ll be in another four years. People may accuse Barack of being a veneer of inspirational rhetoric, well it’s a world better than being a fountain constantly spouting BS like John McCain.

  • Geez, I guess McCrazy is saying that he’s smarter than everyone currently working in the entire military?

    Better get a wheelbarrow.

    Maybe his plan involves personally touring western Pakistan in an unarmed humvee. He’s planning on stumbling across binLaden at a rug mart, and taking him down single handedly.

    Shhh. It’s a secret!

  • McCain’s references to “the Gates of Hell” possess an ominous undertone, possibly referencing a nuclear strike on the Afghan mountains where ObL and his Taliban cronies are holed up. It’s also a tunnel-vision concept that could only be authorized by the president, given that even the combined, unanimous consent of the Congess does not hold the power to order such an act.

    It’s the one C-in-C action that even Bu$h hasn’t been insane enough to undertake—and if this is, indeed, what McCain is hinting at, then the man is clearly too far gone to be given the keys to the WH….

  • Why anyone listens to a moron who only got promoted past Lieutenant Commander by the fact he was a POW and the Navy had a policy of promoting every POW when their time came, is beyond me. This son and grandson of famous wartime-leader Admirals was such a worthless screwup that the Navy was going to cut him loose at the end of the cruise he was on when he was shot down. He was shot down for the moron stupidity of getting low and slow over the target – thus making himself an easy target. When he was released as a Captain, the Navy had to put him in a position of responsibility – commander of the Fleet Attack Squadron replacement air group where pilots go to hone their skills – which he screwed up so royally that at the end of 18 months he was told it was time to retire, that the Navy wasn’t interested in a third Admiral McCain if he was the one.

    Note that no Naval Aviators of his generation who served with him have come forward to publicly endorse and support him. Ever in his career. That is telling. Those guys are classy enough you won’t see a “swiftboat” campaign from them, but “refusal to rally ’round” is a Big Deal.

    The only people who think this guy is a military genius are the ones too stupid to know that the pointed end of a bullet goes in front.

  • After reading this, I’m getting a memory of a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer Fudd is “huntin’ wabbit” and shooshs Bugs, who trailing behind him. Put the hat on McCain and it works just as well.

  • The current occupant of the White House does not want to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. After all their families are old friends.

    McCain is just dishing out some campaign rhetoric. I has no plan to pursue bin Laden, but is hopeful that talk can stir up additional votes.

    Tom Cleaver — thanks for the reminder in history. I’ve heard most of it before, but I am sure others have not. To say the least it was uncommon for an aviator of the jet variety to be shotdown.

  • Last night I decided that McCain is starting to remind me of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies…if he starts with the pinkie manuever, that will seal it for me.

    Seriously, is he kidding? He has a secret plan and only John McCain-as-president can implement this plan successfully? Oh, okay – we’d better just cut to the chase, forget the whole primary process, forget the conventions, move up Election Day, and get the show on the road!!

    Jeez, I’m surprised a guy who is as old as he is would want to wait a whole year, or more, to capture someone he’s willing to go to the Gates of Hell for. I guess he’ll just toddle along…

    Why isn’t this man being laughed out of contention?

  • I’ll play Devil’s Advocate for a fraction of a second, try to potentially read between the lined and assume that McCain is really playing to a base that loves the war in iraq more than they love the current Fauxmander-In-Chief.

    In other words, McCain is saying “I know exactly what needs to be done to bring bin Laden in, but the plan is not something Bush is willing to implement. Now, I can’t come out and sh!t all over the president after kissing his ass for lo these many years, but between you and me, the kid don’t have the stones to run this war right. Don’t get me wrong, he had the stones to start the war, so kudos on that, but now it’s gonna take a real man to finish it, and I am that man.”

    All of this, of course, doesn’t mean he actually has a plan, or if he does have a plan, that it’s one that could legally be implemented, or that it would even be successful. I’m just saying this could all eb a subtle dig at the current president who wouldn’t be able to effectivly implement this brilliant stretegy of McCain’s, and that’s why it’ll take big John’s ass in the Oval Office to make this strategy work.

    Because the media luuuuuuvs them their big John McCain, I know nothing will come of this, but what I’d like to see is not people asking what Steve’s asking, which is “why aren’t you sharing this plan with Bush?” Rather, I want the media to pose the hypothetical “what other candidates are you willing to share your strategy with? If Mitt gets the nod, will you give him the plan? Huckabee? How about on the other side of the aisle? Clearly those leftist pu$$ies running on the Democratic ticket could benefit from your wisdom. Will you share your secret strategy with the next President should you not win? Or is your plan a “package deal” that only comes with your ascension to the title of President? And if that’s the case…doesn’t that make you a tremendous asshat? Putting your pride and ego above the well-being of a nation you claim to love? Really? Doesn’t it?”

    Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.

  • You see, his plan involves waiting until nightfall, then McCain and his knights leap out of the rabbit, catching bin Laden by suprise. And totally unarmed!

    And if that doesn’t work, he has a plan to build a large wooden badger….

  • And Nixon had a ‘secret plan’ to end the war in Viet Nam…

    And I am sure that McCain’s plan to eliminate Bin Ladin is just as real…

    But not to worry. Be sure that Tweety Matthews & his brothers in the Corporate News Media won’t be worried about whether this is real or fantasy. They will just continue their ‘man love’ of anything male & republican…

  • Well, if bin Laden launches another attack before the election, doesn’t McCain bear responsibility for not preventing it? In fact, the next time UBL even sends out a video, people should be asking McCain why UBL is still alive to make these videos and why he has not shared his plan with the white house.

    Boy, I am definitely going to be keeping an eye on Larry King’s schedule so I can call in and ask McCain the next time he’s on.

  • let’s not forget that mccain’s rhetoric is aimed squarely at the redstate redneck republicans who revel in that kind of tough, “mission impossible” talk.

    “bring ’em on”, says John McWayne

  • Does McCain have a secret plan to dig up the body of Bin Laden out of his grave, where he has been buried for the last six years in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan? Sounds like a plan to me… Visit http://www.whatreallyhappened.com and read all about the faked OBL tapes, mostly likely Made in USA. At least something is still Made in USA…

    Americans are a naive lot: living in dreamland: where they trust Republican-controlled corporations like Diebold and ES&S to”count the votes” honestly electronically in private with special secret software. The NH Dem vote was rigged for Hillary… The GOP thug-operatives can hack, rig, fix and steal most any election electronically: whenever they want and dare to…

  • I seem to remember reading a statement McCain made recently about building up our defenses not only for Afghanistan and Iraq, but for the ‘wars to come.’ Combine this with his willingness to stay in Iraq indefinitely, the “bomb Iran” thing, his secret plan that slappymagoo suggests Bush won’t implement — what the hell is this guy really thinking?

  • He wouldnt know a secret plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on a piano singing “Secret Plans Are Here Again” (apologies to Sir Edmund)

  • OK, so what happens when McCain loses the election? Does he just take his ball and go home, leaving Osama running the bully game on the playground? Or does he finally share his secret plan with the Dem president? Inquiring minds want to know…

  • McCain’s secret plan is to restore the rule of Constitutional law and ban inhumane practices like rendering/torture.

    The restoration of America as a bulwark of human rights will cause jihadist fervor to wither and die. That done, foreign intelligence may be able to flush him out of the Pakistani district he’s holed up in (or buried in).

    It makes perfect sense.
    He can’t share it because he’d lose the election and King George wouldn’t accept the advice.
    Furthermore, McCain can’t implement it without the power of the presidency.

    If I could be assured I was right, I’d campaign for the big lug. (At least up until the GOP convention, eh?)

  • Hey, did you guys know that McCain has just seen the new Rambo movie? That’s the one where Rambo and his nuclear powered wheelchair, along with his terminally ill dialog coach, take off for Vietnam to find Sylvester Stallone’s lost youth. So, now McCain thinks that he, John the Hero, can get Osama himself.

  • we pretend to surrender, then when he comes to Washington to take over, we got him!

    hey, remember when Bush was gonna “smoke ‘im out”? ah, good times.

  • He was the sixth man of the Keating Five. He was never indicted. He is criminally connected to this administration. Beware.

  • This “plan” really isn’t a plan at all, but I can see how it could be the basis for a strategy that could work. It’s an interesting read.

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