{"id":9519,"date":"2007-01-04T15:04:49","date_gmt":"2007-01-04T20:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9519.html"},"modified":"2007-01-04T15:04:49","modified_gmt":"2007-01-04T20:04:49","slug":"is-mccain-moving-the-goalposts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/is-mccain-moving-the-goalposts\/","title":{"rendered":"Is McCain moving the goalposts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that we’ve identified the “McCain doctrine<\/a>,” might the idea’s namesake be moving the goal posts? I think so.<\/p>\n

Let’s review quickly. In late November, McCain insisted<\/a> that “we will not win this war” without additional combat forces in Iraq. Maybe he meant it, maybe it was a calculated strategy whereby McCain could separate himself from Bush’s failed policy by calling for additional troops he didn’t expect the president to send. (Robert Reich suggested<\/a> it’s a way for McCain to “effectively cover his ass. It will allow him to say, ‘If the President did what I urged him to do, none of this would have happened.'”)<\/p>\n

Now the president appears ready to take McCain’s advice, giving the senator what he didn’t want: ownership of a disastrous war. It’s exactly why John Edwards labeled escalation in Iraq the “McCain doctrine,” because the policy Bush is poised to announce early next week is McCain’s idea.<\/p>\n

Except McCain may be trying to back away from that this, too. On the Today show this morning, Matt Lauer asked McCain<\/a> about the war. McCain said, “I think we can still win; I think we can do it by a significant<\/i> increase in troops.”<\/p>\n

Lauer asked, “Is this a number’s game? Will 20,000 do the job in your opinion?” McCain responded, “I’m not sure…. To make it of short duration and small size would be the worst of all options to exercise, in my opinion.”<\/p>\n

Call me overly sensitive, but it certainly sounded<\/i> as if McCain was preemptively distancing himself from the president’s soon-to-be-announced policy.
\n
\nLet’s be clear — asked today if 20,000 troops was the right number, McCain said, “I’m not sure.” Asked the same question in October, McCain was<\/em> sure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Republican Sen. John McCain, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said Friday the United States should send another 20,000 troops to Iraq.<\/p>\n

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain said increasing U.S. forces would require expanding the standing Army and Marine Corps – a step the Bush administration has resisted. He also reiterated his opposition to a hasty U.S. withdrawal.<\/p>\n

“If we leave … the fighting will evolve into chaos there,” McCain told reporters after speaking at an event for local Republican candidates.
\nStory continues below \u2193 advertisement<\/p>\n

Reporters asked him to elaborate on his statement last week in Iowa that more combat troops are needed in Iraq to quell a “classic insurgency.”<\/p>\n

“Another 20,000 troops in Iraq, but that means expanding the Army and the Marine Corps,” he said. “It’s not just a set number.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, this morning, Lauer suggested to McCain that it was “good news” that the president had come around to McCain’s way of thinking. Lauer said it was Bush effectively admitting, “McCain was right; he was ahead of the curve.”<\/p>\n

McCain smiled, but didn’t respond. Lauer was effectively tying the entire escalation strategy around his neck, and the senator didn’t seem altogether comfortable with how it fit.<\/p>\n

McCain may not like it, but it’s too late to distance himself now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that we’ve identified the “McCain doctrine,” might the idea’s namesake be moving the goal posts? I think so. Let’s review quickly. In late November, McCain insisted that “we will not win this war” without additional combat forces in Iraq. Maybe he meant it, maybe it was a calculated strategy whereby McCain could separate himself […]<\/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-9519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519","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=9519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}