McCain To Tie Himself More Tightly To Iraq War
In the wake of his politically disastrous stroll through a Baghdad marketplace, John McCain is relaunching his struggling campaign with a series of speeches arguing that victory is attainable in Iraq:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will launch a high-profile effort next week to convince Americans that the Iraq war is winnable, embracing the unpopular conflict with renewed vigor as he attempts to reignite his stalling bid for the presidency...Together, aides hope, the speeches and remarks will serve as a reintroduction of McCain to voters, helping to ignite some of the same kind of passion his candidacy evoked in 2000....
[McCain supporter Rep. Rick] Renzi said McCain was frustrated with the media coverage of their visit to the marketplace and what he described as an unwillingness to cover positive news from Iraq.
McCain and his advisers keep talking about the magic of the prewar halcyon days of 2000 as if it's something that can be conjured up with the murmuring of a few incantations. They keep talking about the unpopularity of the Iraq War as if it can be made to disappear with a few photo-ops and speeches telling people that what they are seeing in Iraq isn't real -- hence the effort to stroll through Baghdad while pretending the massive military escort and the pervasive danger weren't there, and hence the frustration with the media for reporting on it.
But come on -- McCain is arguing for more and more war, while solid majorities think the war is hopeless and just want it to end. Reality isn't just going to go away to make life more convenient for John McCain, is it?
The Iraq War was over years ago. The U.S. is now an occupying force in Iraq. You can not WIN an occupation. You can remain an occupying force, annex the country or leave and quite occupying the country. What you cannot do is WIN an occupation.
April 7, 2007 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't count this strategy out. McCain is giving his supporters exactly what they want. A reality the comforts them and confirms all their beliefs and prejudices. If the GOP can maintain their message control over the MSM, then they have a shot at pulling it off.
Fortunately, I don't think they can do it anymore. The gap between the fantasy of their desires and the hard facts on the ground are too large. And a sizable portion of the American voting public are seeing how compromised the media have been and are demanding more by looking for alternate information sources, such as the Web.
April 7, 2007 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
"a sizable portion of the American voting public are seeing how compromised the media have been and are demanding more by looking for alternate information sources, such as the Web."
Unfortunately those are mostly the folks who were already thinking. 70% of the public still gets most of their information from the TeeVee. The widest circulation weekly publications in the US are still "The National Enquirer," "People" magazine, and "TV Guide." It ain't purdy.
April 7, 2007 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
As wingnuts have explained it to me the war now is about giving the Iraqi government breathing room to get their feet underneath them and meet the benchmarks it'll take to mollify the Sunnis.
Their government has had almost a year and a half to make those concessions and is no closer to doing it than they were then. Al Sistani the other day announced he was against reincorporating Baathists into the government which is the most important benchmark so the political solution Petraeus is looking for is still stalemated.
Wingnuts of course cheer everytime they hear what I consider media rumors of Sunni Iraqis fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq. Never mind that these "sunny" stories may be more about gang turf wars than Sunnis trying to join the political process.
As far as McCain is concerned, as I've written here before, I think he's looking to recapture the honor he thinks he lost when the Vietnamese beat a "confession" out of him. He like Cheney, thinks he can right his single biggest personal failure, what they and others like them project as America's single biggest failure, "the loss of will" in Vietnam by staying in Iraq, no matter what the cost, until it somehow turns into a capitalist democracy allied with the USA. The frigging apha domino that will magically make Mubarak, the Iranian mullahs and the Saudi princes embrace secular representative democracy and all their unemployed kids turn into College Republicans clamoring for a flat tax instead of jihad.
By now Cheney probably knows better, no matter how long we stay Iraq isn't going to be an ally of ours for more than 6 months or until the aid
money runs out after we leave. If they ever do get competent security forces their single export, oil will be nationalized for the benefit of the people or at least those in government. I'm not so sure McCain has faced up to these facts, at least emotionally. If he truly hasn't, his "we can win this thing" PR offensive will be meant sincerely and sound like it.
It won't win him the nomination because standing on the tilting deck of the Titanic exclaiming "folks if you believe the ship isn't sinking it won't sink" won't keep it afloat.
April 7, 2007 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mainly, I think McCain basically has no choice but to go all in on the war. He knows that nobody likes the war; he knows that it's a colossal failure; but he's spent too much time already cheerleading it to back out now.
This war is tied around his neck already; coming out against it now would just be one pander too far for him (especially because it would be a pander that isn't directed at the hard-line GOP base), and would permanently destroy any "straight talk" credibility he had left with the public at large.
The other GOP frontrunners can simply ignore Iraq and hope it all goes away — Mitt and Rudy haven't had any say at all in its planning and execution to date — but McCain has absolutely no option but to embrace his albatross and hope that somehow, miraculously, circumstances there are improving, however slightly, this time next year.
April 7, 2007 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
PTSD is not a pretty sight
April 7, 2007 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ironic.
McCain's political career has come full circle.
He's now back where he started -- a prisoner of war.
April 8, 2007 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink