Re: The "experience" question
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/23/whose-judgment... /
John McCain argued that he?s shown better judgment on Iraq than Barack Obama, which, of course, doesn?t make any sense.
?Senator Obama has consistently offered his judgment on Iraq, and he has been consistently wrong. He said that General Petraeus? new strategy would not reduce sectarian violence, but would worsen it. He was wrong. He said the dynamics in Iraq would not change as a result of the ?surge.? He was wrong. One year ago, he voted to cut off all funds for our forces fighting extremists in Iraq. He was wrong?
?We continue to face challenges in Iraq, and we have a lot of work ahead. Yet the American people must ask whether we are more or less likely to succeed there if Senator Obama has his way.?
Here?s McCain, in his own words, getting Iraq wrong from Day One:
?Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction as quickly as he can,? he informed Fox News in November 2001. By February 2003, McCain had upgraded Hussein?s capabilities and was warning Americans that ?Hussein has the ability to ? Iraq into a weapons assembly line for Al Qaeda?s network.?
Well, no. But never mind that. We won?t hold McCain responsible for the Bush administration?s cooking of the intelligence books.
So how?d McCain do on his other Iraq-related predictions?
On the Cheney/Rumsfeld Delusional Thinking Index, McCain scores a perfect 10 out of 10. ?I believe that the success will be fairly easy,? he assured CNN?s Larry King in September 2002.
Quagmire? Insurgency? Naah.
?We?re not going to get into house-to-house fighting,? he scoffed to Wolf Blitzer in 2002. ?We?re not going to have a bloodletting.? In fact, by March 2003, McCain was positively giddy with Rumsfeldian enthusiasm: ?There?s no doubt in my mind ? we will be welcomed as liberators.?
When it came to predicting the sectarian conflicts that have wracked Iraq since we ?liberated? it, McCain was equally off target.
?There?s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shias,? he explained confidently on MSNBC in April 2003, ?so I think they can probably get along.?
McCain?s had five long years since then to reflect on just how well Sunni and Shiite groups are getting along, but he?s still having a tough time keeping the whole thing straight.
In Jordan this past March, he pronounced it ?common knowledge ? that Al Qaeda? ? a Sunni-dominated group ? ?is going back into Iran? ? a country led by hard-line Shiites ? ?and receiving training ? from Iran.? Oops ? no! Joe Lieberman, McCain?s new Mini-Me, whispered a correction in his ear, presumably explaining that the Iranian Shiites hate Sunni-dominated Al Qaeda and wouldn?t help the group if their lives depended on it.
A slip of the tongue on McCain?s part? That would be easier to buy if McCain hadn?t repeated variants of the claim on multiple occasions, insisting to a Texas audience in February that Iran was aiding Al Qaeda and wondering during Senate hearings if Al Qaeda in Iraq was ?an obscure sect of the Shiites overall? ? Or Sunnis or anybody else.?
Rags to Riches Four Times over and more!, <NOBR>Dec 17 2003</NOBR>