Slippery Flyboy
by digby
I understand that some alleged liberals are getting all tingly at the notion of John McCain as the next president. As Yglesias said, "And why shouldn't he? A handful of additional wars and steep cuts in vital retirement security programs would be a small price to pay for minor alterations to the campaign finance system." Not to mention that JJ, the manly fighter pilot, is just soooo dreamy.
The truth is that McCain is actually more hawkish and deceitful than Bush. The only difference in their rhetoric on national security is that McCain pretends he didn't cheer every single move Bush made until it started to go wrong. Senator Straight Talk is very, very slick, I'll give him that. Take this exchange on Press The Meat from 2005:
R. RUSSERT: Let me show you something that John McCain said describing a war situation: "And we have a horrific strain on the men and women in the military. We can't keep our pilots. We're lowering our recruiting standards. It's a very serious situation. And to have another one of these extended, unending burdens placed on the men and women in the military has some consequences. All I'm saying is: Let's develop a strategy overall and let's also then develop an exit strategy for this particular situation."
That was February 14, 1999, Kosovo. That's exactly what the Democrats are saying about Iraq.
SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.
MR. RUSSERT: Aren't they saying things that should be said and should be listened to?
SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm. Well, I guess this is true confessions. I was wrong about Kosovo. I was right about Bosnia. We did the right thing in Kosovo by going in there and stopping ethnic cleansing. And we haven't done what we should be doing in Darfur and some other parts of the world, by the way. But I--if there's a strategy for withdrawal, it is success. It is the formula that the president described last week and the one I just described to you. I'm not for keeping troops there forever. I hope--I wish we could take them out tomorrow. It's not a question of whether we want to withdraw or not. We all want that. The question is: Will conditions on the ground dictate whether we withdraw or not and when we withdraw, or will it be some arbitrary date? I say conditions on the ground.
He successfully deflects the logical charge that he's an opportunistic partisan flip-flopper by just saying -- "oh yeah, my bad" and then just blathers incoherently. Because Russert yearns to service him, he lets it pass. The fact is that McCain was screeching for more troops in Kosovo too, which may explain why nobody listens to him. No matter what, we never seem to be committing enough troops to fight the big land war that he thinks we should be fighting:
Tuesday, Apr 20, 1999
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today was joined by Senators Joe Biden (D-DE), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) in offering a Senate resolution on Kosovo. The text of McCain’s floor speech follows:
“As my colleagues know I am concerned that the force the United States and our NATO allies has employed against Serbia– gradually escalating air strikes – is insufficient to achieve our political objectives there – the removal of Serb military and security forces from Kosovo; the return of the refugees to their homes; and the establishment of a NATO led peacekeeping force. I hope this resolution, should it be adopted, will encourage the Administration and our allies to find the courage and resolve to prosecute this war in the manner most likely to result in its early and successful conclusion. In other words, I hope this resolution will make clear Congress’ support for adapting our means to secure our ends, rather than the reverse.
In exactly the same way, McCain began agitating for more troops in Iraq in August of 2003. And because the war actually was a dud this time, his arguments for more troops were taken up by just about everybody and have successfully framed the argument for many Iraq war supporters by implying that the war would have been a "day at the beach" if only they had sent in more troops when McCain wanted to.
But McCain knew that this was nonsense. The fact is that we have never had enough troops to do what he belatedly thought should be done and unless the administration was willing to institute the draft or pull troops from other vital missions (besides Afghanistan, where we'd already pulled them), we never did. The key to the mission that McCain and Bush sold was always to have large a multi-national force, which Codpiece and Unka Dick did everything but spit in the world's face to avoid. McCain knows this very well but continued to argue publicly that we could just easily conjure up a larger military to "fix" Iraq and just slides on through like the oily political conman he really is.
It has certainly set him up nicely for a presidential run, though. He gives speeches more stirring than anything Michael Gerson ever dreamed of about liberty and freedom. He made the argument before Bush did that "some say" arabs can't govern themselves, but he begs to differ! Remember, he's Mr "National Greatness" which is all about the Glory That Is Imperial America. And somehow he manages to convince people that he would have magically won this stupid war and we'd all feel better about ourselves today if he'd been in charge --- even though he backed Bush's cock-up every step of the way and only came along later to carp about troop levels once it was already too late.
Here's a good example of his weaselly ways, from this past July
KING: We have an e-mail for you, Senator McCain, from Heather in Epsom, New Hampshire and it says, "Larry, I would like to ask Senator McCain if there is any hope that, if he were president, he would take a new approach to securing peace in the Middle East?" What would you do differently?
MCCAIN: I'm not sure, Larry, and for me to articulate something different obviously might be a criticism and I'm not sure right now that I'd like to criticize this administration because I think they're doing the very best they can.
I would have done things differently in Iraq, as you know, even though I continue to support our effort there. I think this is a very difficult situation.
Heather, as you know in the past, Henry Kissinger or Jim Baker or whoever was secretary of state could shuttle from one capital to another that basically controlled the fighting and that's much more difficult when you've got terrorist organizations that are doing the fighting and so it's much more complicated.
Slicker than owlshit, as my father always says.
John McCain is no better than George W. Bush on national security and foreign policy. This is best exemplified by their similar views of how to deal with the complicated issues in the mid-east. You'll recall that Dubya was caught on tape recently saying, "What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit." But that's downright Churchillian compared to McCain's view. From Steve Benen we have this report:
Jason Horowitz reports in the New York Observer that John McCain met with an exclusive audience of very wealthy Republicans in New York late last week, shortly after getting booed relentlessly at the New School's commencement ceremony. The students weren't terribly impressed, but apparently McCain "saved some of his best material" for the elite crowd that gathered behind closed doors in the back of the Regency Hotel.
In a small, mirror-paneled room guarded by a Secret Service agent and packed with some of the city's wealthiest and most influential political donors, Mr. McCain got right to the point.
"One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit,'" said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.
Oh, so that's what we need from the Oval Office. I'm sure the Iraqis will find this immediately persuasive and lay down arms thanks to the power of McCain's personality and his desire to see the two sides get along. Somewhere, Bush is slapping his hand against his forehead, saying, "Why didn't I think of that?"
Or, as Brendan Nyhan put it, "So honest! So bold! What an innovative diplomatic concept! If only John McCain were president, we'd have peace in Iraq!"
Well, yes. That's what the McCain would have you believe and there are plenty of people who want to believe it. As Benen pointed out:
It's worth noting, however, all sarcasm aside, McCain's audience ate this up. DioGuardi, the wife of former Republican congressman Joseph DioGuardi, said McCain was "fantastic" and has "a vision for what should happen to this country.
And if anybody thinks that McCain is more sane on some of the other foreign policy challenges, think again:
"The greatest single threat that we are facing right now to our national security is Iran," he said. "If they get that weapon, and they have the capability to deliver it, put yourself in the position of the government of the state of Israel. This could be one of the most unsettling and difficult challenges that we have ever faced."
Brilliant.
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