{"id":15709,"date":"2008-05-30T14:25:24","date_gmt":"2008-05-30T18:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15709.html"},"modified":"2008-05-30T14:25:24","modified_gmt":"2008-05-30T18:25:24","slug":"mccain-wants-to-debate-the-meaning-of-the-phrase-pre-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-wants-to-debate-the-meaning-of-the-phrase-pre-surge\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain wants to debate the meaning of the phrase ‘pre-surge’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on an item<\/a> from this morning, John McCain told<\/a> a Wisconsin audience yesterday, “I can look you in the eye and tell you [the president’s policy in Iraq is] succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul, and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.”<\/p>\n

It was jarring to hear McCain call Mosul “quiet” the same day as a couple of suicide bombers killed at least 19 people, including 14 police recruits. But it’s McCain’s belief that we have “drawn down to pre-surge levels” that seems especially odd.<\/p>\n

McCain, who claims some kind of expertise in military affairs and foreign policy, should know that the U.S. presence in Iraq won’t go down to 140,000 until the end of July<\/a>. For him to tell an audience of voters that we’re already at “pre-surge levels” is not only plainly false, it’s embarrassing, especially given McCain’s recent bouts of confusion and incoherence<\/a> on Iraq policy.<\/p>\n

On a conference call this morning, John Kerry raised<\/a> asalient point:<\/p>\n

“If you don’t know the numbers of troops, it’s very difficult to make a judgment about whether or not they’re over-extended. It’s also very hard to have an understanding, as a citizen, about what levels of troops he’s going to keep there. If he thinks 150,000 is ‘pre-surge,’ and that’s where he’s going to stay, that’s a deeply over-extended military, and it raises serious questions about his comprehension of this challenge.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exactly. If McCain is just a little slow on the uptake, it would only be mildly humiliating for the guy who’s been wrong about every facet of the war for six years. But the fact that he’s still confused about basics — like how many U.S. troops are in Iraq right now — raises doubts about whether he can shape a realistic policy for a war he doesn’t understand.
\n
\nThe McCain campaign has responded with a statement<\/a> from spokesman Tucker Bounds:<\/p>\n

“Clearly John Kerry and Barack Obama have very little understanding of troop levels, but considering Barack Obama hasn’t been to Iraq in 873 days and has never had a one on one meeting with Gen. Petraeus, it isn’t a surprise to anyone that he demonstrates weak leadership. <\/p>\n

“What informed people understand, John McCain included, is that American troops are not even close to surge levels.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, you’ll notice reading over McCain campaign press releases that they throw around “weak leadership” whether it makes sense or not. Like Giuliani using “9\/11,” the McCain gang have a kind of Tourette’s that leads them to throw around “weak leadership” at random moments, seemingly for no reason.<\/p>\n

Second, it’s hard not to admire this ridiculous effort at spinning a demonstrable mistake. McCain said, “We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.” Tucker Bounds wants us to believe that we’re not “informed” if we listen to what McCain said and believe he meant it.<\/p>\n

Taking this one step further, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), asked on a campaign conference call about McCain’s confusion, responded, “So what?<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan concluded<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“The McCain campaign still can’t explain why John McCain could be so clearly and factually wrong in stating that our troops are at ‘pre-surge’ levels. They are not, and anyone who wants to be Commander-in-Chief should know better before launching divisive political attacks. Once again, Senator McCain has shown that he is far more interested in stubbornly making the case for continuing a failed policy in Iraq than in getting the facts right.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McCain could prevent incidents like these if he’d take a moment to learn about what’s going on in the war he’s championed for six years. I know it’s complicated, but if he wants to be the Commander in Chief, he should probably be able to understand the basics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on an item from this morning, John McCain told a Wisconsin audience yesterday, “I can look you in the eye and tell you [the president’s policy in Iraq is] succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul, and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15709","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=15709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}