{"id":16362,"date":"2008-07-26T08:35:46","date_gmt":"2008-07-26T12:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16328.html"},"modified":"2008-07-26T08:35:46","modified_gmt":"2008-07-26T12:35:46","slug":"mccain-thinks-obamamaliki-policy-sounds-like-a-pretty-good-timetable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-thinks-obamamaliki-policy-sounds-like-a-pretty-good-timetable\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain thinks Obama\/Maliki policy sounds like ‘a pretty good timetable’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember the first two weeks of July, when the “big story” of the presidential campaign was that Barack Obama moved (or was about to move) towards John McCain’s position on Iraq policy? The story was a fantasy, based on literally nothing, but it dominated the political discourse for weeks. The McCain campaign went so far as to put out a statement<\/a> arguing that Obama “has now adopted John McCain’s position” on troop withdrawal.<\/p>\n

And the irony is, the entire story was backwards. Obama didn’t move towards McCain; McCain has moved towards Obama.<\/p>\n

The first substantive hint came this week, when a McCain surrogate appeared on a campaign conference call to argue that Obama has a 16-month withdrawal timetable, but McCain might withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq even sooner<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday on CNN, McCain took this to the next level, suggesting the policy proposed by Obama, and endorsed by Iraqi officials, sounds like “a pretty good timetable.”<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

For those who can’t watch clips online, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked McCain what he’d do if Maliki persisted and wanted U.S. troops to withdraw. McCain, ignoring Maliki’s repeated public pronouncements, said he knows Maliki so well, McCain is certain that he can ignore Maliki’s public statements.<\/p>\n

Asked why Maliki would describe the 16-month policy as “a pretty good timetable,” McCain said, “He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.”<\/p>\n

This is what those in the biz call “going off message.”
\n
\nMcCain has spent most of his waking moments of late insisting that Obama’s policy isn’t<\/i> a “pretty good timetable.” Indeed, McCain has repeatedly said the exact opposite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What actually sounds “pretty good” to McCain is the policy he’s been advocating for quite a while now — an indefinite war, which ends in some undefined state of “victory,” followed by an indefinite presence that could last 100 years or more.<\/p>\n

If you’re starting to get the impression McCain will simply say anything to win, we’re on the same page.<\/p>\n

TP also raised a very important point<\/a> I hadn’t thought of. During the Republican primaries, McCain hammered Mitt Romney for hinting at support for a conditions-based timetable for withdrawal. In a debate, McCain was indignant: “Timetables was the buzzword for those that wanted to get out<\/a>.” In other words, when Romney dared to suggest a timetable was a good idea, McCain thought it was a dreadful mistake, because the word “timetable,” in and of itself, was loaded with policy implications.<\/p>\n

And who’s using the word now, senator?<\/p>\n

So far, the NYT is playing up this story<\/a>, but most other outlets aren’t. We’ll see if it gains any traction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the first two weeks of July, when the “big story” of the presidential campaign was that Barack Obama moved (or was about to move) towards John McCain’s position on Iraq policy? The story was a fantasy, based on literally nothing, but it dominated the political discourse for weeks. The McCain campaign went so far […]<\/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-16362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16362","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=16362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}