{"id":10346,"date":"2007-03-28T16:25:08","date_gmt":"2007-03-28T20:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10346.html"},"modified":"2007-03-28T16:25:08","modified_gmt":"2007-03-28T20:25:08","slug":"well-im-not-saying-they-could-go-without-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/well-im-not-saying-they-could-go-without-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Well, I’m not saying they could go without protection’"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I’m fascinated by John McCain’s hackery, which reached new depths this morning.<\/p>\n

To quickly recap, during an appearance on CNN yesterday, McCain confirmed his belief that there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad” that Americans can walk through, today. He added, “General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in a non-armed Humvee.” The comments drew a stinging rebuke from CNN’s David Ware, who’s been in Baghdad for four years, and said McCain’s credibility on Iraq “has now been left out hanging to dry.”<\/p>\n

This morning, fortunately, CNN followed up, confronting McCain with his own remarks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This morning, during an interview with McCain, CNN’s John Roberts rebutted McCain’s assertions, stating, “I checked with General Petraeus’s people overnight and they said he never goes out in anything less than an up-armored humvee.” He added that a new report by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey “said no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat reporter could walk the streets of Baghdad without heavily armed protection.”<\/p>\n

Faced with overwhelming evidence that he was wrong, McCain denied he’d ever said it: “Well, I’m not saying they could go without protection. The President goes around America with protection. So, certainly I didn’t say that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, he did<\/i> say that. McCain may not recall, but it was yesterday<\/i>.<\/p>\n

When candidates start denying on Wednesday unambiguous comments they make on Tuesday, you know the candidate is either embarrassingly confused or hopelessly dishonest. On this, there is no nuance; it’s one or the other.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Aravosis has a good idea<\/a> about how the media could (should) follow up on all of this.
\n<\/p>\n

John McCain was quite emphatic about it. There are “some neighborhoods” in Baghdad that you can travel around by yourself with no security and be perfectly safe. The only reason you don’t know this, McCain told CNN yesterday, is because the media is lying to you.<\/p>\n

Wow. Hell of a charge. McCain must know something that we don’t. If McCain is right, if the media is lying to me, I want to know what the media is hiding. Won’t you join me in asking Senator McCain to reveal to us the names of these non-Green-Zone Baghdad neighborhoods that are so darn safe that an American can travel alone with no security whatsoever? […]<\/p>\n

Note To Media: When presidential candidate John Kerry made a similar unsubstantiated claim – that several world leaders opposed Bush’s re-election – you dogged Kerry relentlessly to name those leaders. Well, fair is fair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite right; fair is fair. It’s a simple and straightforward point — McCain said there are Baghdad neighborhoods safe for Americans. All he has to do is name a couple and he can prove us wrong.<\/p>\n

How about it, senator? You made the claim; how about backing it up?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I’m fascinated by John McCain’s hackery, which reached new depths this morning. To quickly recap, during an appearance on CNN yesterday, McCain confirmed his belief that there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad” that Americans can walk through, today. He added, “General Petraeus goes out there almost every day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}