Who’s intellectually dishonest?

February 5, 2007

It looks like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is buckling under pressure. The poor guy is projecting his own faults onto his critics.

Sen. John McCain yesterday said his colleagues who support a nonbinding resolution opposing a troop surge in Iraq are “intellectually dishonest,” an apparent bid to rally Republican opposition to the resolution, which could have its first test vote today.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don’t want to fund it and you don’t want it to go, but yet you don’t take the action necessary to prevent it,” the Arizona Republican said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “In other words, this is a vote of no confidence in both the mission and the troops who are going over there.”

First, notice the painfully ridiculous assertion that opposing Bush’s escalation tactics is to oppose the troops. It’s the kind of rhetoric responsible presidential candidates, who usually at least pretend to care about dignity, usually avoid. McCain no longer cares.

But more to the point, let’s talk about “intellectual dishonesty.” In the exact same interview yesterday, McCain said he would take the lead on a resolution setting out “benchmarks” for the Iraqi government. What are the consequences in the event that Iraqis fall short? McCain said, “Well, the consequences are obvious.” Pressed on the point, McCain added, “I can’t tell you what the other options are, because there are no good options to this.”

In other words, McCain’s intellectually honest approach to the debate is to set hollow benchmarks that do even less than a non-binding resolution. For that matter, McCain said it was unrealistic to expect the escalation strategy to change the situation in Iraq in “a few months,” and then added, just 47 seconds later, that we’ll know whether the escalation strategy is working “in a few months.”

Please, Sen. McCain, lecture us some more about “intellectual dishonesty.”

To his credit, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) took McCain to task for his irresponsible and misguided arguments.

[Hagel] blasted the Iraq war resolution introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), which calls for benchmarks, but says nothing about what will occur if the benchmarks aren’t met.

“I think if you want to go to a disingenuous resolution, this idea about putting benchmarks on the Iraqi government…and then having no consequences, now that’s intellectually dishonest,” he said. “So what are the consequences? Are we then going to pull out? If the benchmarks are not met by the Maliki government, are we then going to walk out? Are we then going to bring our troops home? Are we going to cut funding? Now, that falls more in the intellectually dishonest category.”

I’m glad someone said it.

i’d still like to know why, with the democrats in control of both houses of congress, the sunday morning news shows still have republicans as their guests. you know what msm? we don’t give a damn what the republicans are saying any more. we want to hear what the democrats are saying.

  • Someone close to McCain needs to get him to a shrink. The longer his campaign goes on the more unhinged he becomes, and either he’s going to crack or the media is finally going to realize he’s no longer stable.

  • Talk about intellectual dishonesty, what’s this about a filabuster by the “we deserve an up or down vote” Republicans of old? Watch as Republicans of new use a multitude of intellectually dishonest moves as they clutch onto national attention even after their irrelevancy has arrived. -Kevo

  • Nice to see ABC put on a knock’em-sock’em debate between McCain and Hagel. That sure covers the wide range of options in American politics, doesn’t it?

  • Normally I would rather see a Dem going up against McCain, But Hagel is doing a good job of pointing out the stupidity of the pro-quagmire arguments, and he makes it plain to even the stupidest observer that the anti-quagmire camp is large and bipartisan, unlike the pro-quagmire camp. (I don’t count LIEberman as a “Democrat”, independent or otherwise.)

    I noticed McCain saying this interesting item: I looked General Petraeus in the eye and I said, ‘Do you have enough troops?’ He said, ‘If I think I need more, I’ll ask for them.’

    Maybe McCan’tStopLying should have asked if there were any more troops even if they were wanted.

  • It’s finally happened—the McCain express not only left the tracks; it’s left the freaking building…and gone into complete uberschweinen-bunker-mentality. Think of it as “Bubble redux.” It will be entertaining—although rather embarrasing for Johnboy—if ’08 rolls into town, and he can’t even carry his home state, whether it’s “Arizona” or ‘denial….”

  • “I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don’t want to fund it and you don’t want it to go, but yet you don’t take the action necessary to prevent it,” – McCain

    John, that’s not intellectual dishonesty, it’s politics. He wants other politicos to put themselves in the awkward spots he loves to get himself into.

    Saying 20,000 troop surge would get the job done, then jacking the number up to 35,000 to sound tougher, then vacillating on whether that number is between 20,000 and 30,000 is intellectually dishonest because it shows John has no clue and is just pulling numbers out of thin air.

    McCain proves time and again that he has no talent for the political game, no intellect to understand when he is being gamed by others and no temperament to hold high political office.

  • Poor John McCain. When the playbooks for coming into power were handed out, he missed class.

  • McCain’s preening is obnoxious. Someone needs to tell the little dope that the vote of no confidence applies to his buddy, Bush, and not to the troops who are only doing what they are told.

  • Let us hope that “Ping-Pong” McCain continues to vacillate but it may not make that much difference. Unfortunately, he will carry his state (Steve #6). Here in Arizona we’re awash in blue-state boobs who think that we must “win” in Iraq to show that America is strong. They idolize McCain and equate him with that ideal. He may not be too bright, and it’s okay if he’s a dumb as they are.

  • [Hagel] blasted the Iraq war resolution introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), which calls for benchmarks, but says nothing about what will occur if the benchmarks aren’t met.

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