FactCheck does a good job dissecting the two new DNC ads that target John McCain. The first one:
FactCheck notes that this whole ad clearly implies that if McCain is elected we will be at war in Iraq for decades to come. Of course they cut off the most relevant part of what McCain said:
Maybe a hundred. … We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world.
“As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.” Peace time. And no mention in the ad of this context. Shocked?
FactCheck notes that Howard Dean said recently that they don’t mean anything by it. Just that they don’t think we should be in Iraq for a 100 years either way. He also stated that no one believes our troops could stay in Iraq for a 100 years without someone attacking them.
Tell that to Japan and Germany.
FactCheck:
Dean is correct in one sense. His ad doesn’t say in so many words that McCain is “going to be at war for a hundred years.” But by juxtaposing McCain’s words with dramatic, violent images of war, it clearly leaves that impression.
It’s one thing to argue, as Dean does, that McCain’s position is a recipe for continued violence and bloodshed, whatever his stated intent. But it is another thing to misrepresent that intent. The ad twists the sense of McCain’s words by showing images of war, when he was really talking about a peaceful troop presence. Imagine how different the ad would seem if it showed images of, say, American troops walking the streets of Tokyo or Seoul and had included what McCain said about “Americans … not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”
The second video below:
While McCain says “a lot of jobs have been created,” the ad shows a graphic that states, “1.8 million jobs lost.” McCain is correct and the ad is wrong. Total nonfarm employment was nearly 5.4 million higher last month than it was when President Bush took office in January 2001, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the standard measure of jobs, and it means 5.4 million have been created.
The DNC defends its claim of “jobs lost” by pointing to the total number of persons who were without jobs in March. That figure is 1.8 million higher than it was when Bush was sworn in. But it doesn’t mean that many jobs were lost, it means that the job gain didn’t keep pace with the number of persons who are seeking work. The ad would have been correct to say that there are “1.8 million more unemployed.” That stark statistic doesn’t contradict McCain’s statement that lots of jobs were created, however. It means not enough were created to satisfy the need.
They also note that gas prices are NOT up 200 percent, rather 139. The DNC accomplishes this math by using a start date of Dec 3, 2001….long after Bush took office. Since the day he took office its 139 percent. A bit of fudging going on there.
The ad also doesn’t put into context the unemployment rate. While it did rise from 4.2% to 5.1% since Bush took office, McCain is completely right that unemployment is low with an average rate of 5.6% since 1948.
Expect to see much more of this kind of fudging, skewing, and omitting in the months to come as the General heats up.
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I find it odd that they would use a quote with a known ending that’s not only presentable for McCain’s own ads, but once somebody knows what McCain actually ment it makes the Democrats look like they will cut and run from a weaker foe. Attacking inflation and gas prices was another horrible move. Those issues became noticeable when the Democrats got the majority in congress. The guy has been in office since the early 80s and they go after something the Democrats might have caused? What, no dirt on this guy yet?
Like many issues it’s kinda hard to pin down exactly where he stands.
However, I’ll cut him some slack:
From both sides…
just can’t wait for all the wonderful adds on every 2 seconds. Andmaybe the adds should have Fact Check emblazened on them so people can actually see the BS that all of them are saying.
All the dems have is this sort of stuf and his temper. Like either Bill or Hillary Clinton were even tempered saints. I don’t know about Obama’s temper. They say he is above all that. People are, you know, who walk on water.
“They say he is above all that. People are, you know, who walk on water”
I thought he did it by standing on the pile of bodies that came out from under the bus?
Seriously though, Karl Rove did say that McCain needs to come out and let people know a bit more about himself. He sure as hell doesn’t want the Dems to define him. I think few know that he has a son that is/was deployed in Iraq. That kind of makes his decisions a little more personal.
That first ad in particular is a steaming pile of BS! For all the Democrats out there who claimed that remarks that have landed BHO in hot water were out of context (none of whom were willing to take on Wordsmith when he called them out to show how they were out of context); to then pull this ad out of their back pockets is the height of hypocrisy! McCain was talking about keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for a 100 years in the event that Iraq is pacified (which under General Petraeus’ leadership has been moving in that direction); under the sort of basing arrangements we have in places like Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Italy. Granted, these bases aren’t so popular with the locals in Japan and South Korea, but they aren’t a magnet for terrorist attacks in those countries. To suggest that McCain’s vision is of a 100 year war in Iraq (particularly, as Chaos points out, with his own son in the battle zone) is deception of the highest order, and the American people should be alerted to that.
As to the second ad: Yes, certainly, my economic circumstances may have taken a slide since last summer; but up until then things have been pretty swell during the Bush Administration. As for the last 9 months or so; I have enough knowledge of the workings of international economics to understand that there are plenty of factors affecting our national economy that are out of the hands of the U.S. administration. Not to mention, in spite of all their learning, and having the historical background on previous economic downturns we’ve experienced, neither party’s economic specialists have managed to eliminate recessions out of the economic cycle. Yes, recessions suck, but unfortunately they happen. The way the MSM playing up the loss of consumer confidence is turning into something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, of course the DNC are playing up the fact, trying to attach it to the current administration (never mind that the Democrats control Congress), and extending that blame to McCain is tenuous at best.
Sad. I haven’t found a video of it yet. McCain was ambushed at a town hall meeting. Should give us an idea of what the ads will be like. I hope the Secret Service took him for a little questioning. Maybe a little stay at a mental health hospital for a while.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/01/mccain-ambushed-with-obscene-word-question-at-town-hall-event/
If you want to think of this as a practical exercise in presidential decision-making, given all the brew ha ha over McCain’s “100 years in Iraq” remark, perhaps someone simply needs to ask him this:
If your comment was taken out of context, then just how long would you be willing to keep U.S. forces in an active combat role given a state of affairs of an active and persistent insurgency?
Maybe someone will ask him.
Doug: You willing to toss away any credibility you might have by supporting the Obama-fed lie about McCain’s 100 years in Iraq statement?
I’ve gone head to head with McCain, IN PERSON. Have you done the same with Obama?
Obama on McCain’s 100 years
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WHnVZpA69j0
“We can look it up on YouTube” Yes We Can!
Ahh, CHANGE
You should reread my comment. I didn’t posit any interpretation of his 100 year statement.
I gave McCain the benefit of the doubt; I wondered how long he’d be willing to have troops stay if the given circumstances were persistently hostile to our troops.
We all know he can’t give a clear answer to that; it’s obvious. He’d probably say he’d be hopeful that all would go well …yadda yadda yadda, then he’d bring them home in some responsible fashion as events dictate. But here’s what’s not so obvious: the weightful burden of 100 years in ANY contextual interpretation. The election’s half a year off and the public has lost patience with the war, Iraq persists in killing our troops and billions of dollars goes there with newsstory after newsstory of fraud, corruption, theft and questionable progress on a multitude of levels.
Therefore, even accepting his S. Korea, Germany analogy, does the public have the stomach for 50 or 100 more years, even in peaceful circumstances?
Additionally, does the public really believe there can even be “peace circumstances” in a time-period of 3 years, 5 years, or 10 years coming, given we are seen as occupiers by 80% of the Iraqi public (according to polls)?
The answer is ‘no’– Enough of a ‘no’ to lose an election.
Hence, the ‘100 years’ remark looks terrible in ANY context: ‘63% of the public believe the war is not worth fighting for’ and 70% don’t like the economy. Both groups now see them related: we’re losing billions on a war we could use here; they see that given the violence, corruption and questionable progress, we’re losing money and crippling lives wastefully as well. Therefore, given the amount of time –a hyperbolic 100 years– McCain still wants to invest in Iraq, in ANY given context– peaceful or not –it grates with clear public majorities like an arthritic joint, it’s ill wedded to an irrationality that that doesn’t fit rational circumstances.
McCain’s error was he favors hyperbole over clarity; he didn’t foresee the economy, nor Sadr’s resistance, clearly enough before he made the fateful remarks. Now no matter how they are interpreted he can’t shed them.
So Doug… who did you vote for? Obama or Hillary?
I read it. Sorry, that wasn’t directed at you.. I’m just throwing out the whole Obama lying in his own words for certain trolls that seem to show up in conversations like this and it would make a great anti-anti-McCain ad and it isn’t taken out of context.
I will leave the debate between you and Mike.
I would ask though, If we pull out of Iraq, are we going to pull our troops from Kuwait as well? Another interesting question to ask the Democratic candidates would be, Are you willing to pull troops from South Korea? Their government
should be able to stand on their own now. I’d love to hear that answer. Japan?
My personal opinion is that this is really something for the military leaders and soldiers to decide on, not the likes of Cindy Sheehan, Code Pink and any other nut group. We need to support their decision in every way we can. Just today the dems what to tie time tables and domestic spending to the war funding bill. That’s just wrong. We can argue amongst ourselves after they get home.
We have several military people and others here that can give us much better insight than those of us that haven’t served.
Let me ask another question. In the last 5 years we have lost over 4,000 of our soldiers in Iraq. Do you know how many American citizens are killed every year in this country by illegal invaders?
Mike: “I’ve gone head to head with McCain, IN PERSON.”
Didn’t happen to have any head to heads with Charlie Wilson did you?
Udder: I never met Charlie Wilson. But if I do corner him one day what do you want me to ask him?
Ok, let’s look at this 100 years presence kunumdrum a little closer.
McCain has stated that he is willing to leave troops in Iraq for up to a century after the war ends. “Why not”, he asks?
But, as I stated above, just how long would he be willing to keep our troops in Iraq during the war, during hostilities?
Perhaps we can extrapolate from this question some interesting nuggets by applying a little logic, then see where that might lead us on his willingness to endure a whole hyperbolic century long Iraq troop presence.
First, if McCain doesn’t envision a 100-year American front-line combat presence in Iraq, how long is he willing to keep U.S. forces in Iraq outside of that role? So far, all he’s said is that should we withdraw, it would only be under the conclusion that the Iraq mission is unachievable, or it’s achieved success, which he defines as the establishment of “a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state.” —which realistically could take 20-50 years. Why hasn’t McCain given us how long he thinks our non-combat troop presence may be?
Second, McCain has stated that Iraqi units will eventually assume the majority of the combat responsibility; prompting the question, what would then become the mission(s) for our troops he wants to maintain in Iraq?
In all likely hood he would probably argue their mission would be to deter “external aggression”; perhaps the same way American troops are in South Korea to prevent North Korea from getting any ideas.
However, does that make sense?
If the “external aggression” is Iran, it appears the only group that sees it that way is Sadr, certainly not the majority of Iraqis. While the U.S. and South Korea agreed that North Korea posed a threat, as well as Germany and Japan and America reaching a similar agreement about ‘external aggression’ of the USSR, this isn’t the case with Iraq regarding Iran as an aggressor. As a matter of fact they are historical and spiritual brothers and presently appear to be engaging as contemporary partners even moderating a recent “cease-fire” and yesterday Iran entertained an Iraqi delegation (with Hakimian ties) to discuss ” evidence” that Iran was “smuggling” weapons into Iraq. (We can be sure they discussed the matter with great gravity over their 2nd bottle of the grape.)
So if it’s not Iran, is AQ the threat?
McCain does seem to enjoy using their name a lot.
Yet they actually amount to no more that 3-6% (probably a lot less after the Sunni’s divorce and attack on AQ) of the Iraqi combatants. Certainly small enough for Iraqi’s to handle, as they have already done so to some degree. Not to forget if we were not there, they wouldn’t be either. It’s generally stated the weapon of choice for AQ is suicide bombers. But it is difficult to understand why a US troop presence would be able to impact suicide bombers.
Finally a third question is who is the aggressor McCain is looking at, who are the external aggressors that necessitate his willful generational US troop presence, and, of course, how long and how many would be necessary for this (unspecified) mission?
So, what are we left with? Not much.
I can’t find a coherent Iraq policy from McCain. There simply are too many unanswered questions and mystifications in his language. Much of McCain’s thoughts sound similarly like Bush’s empty optimisms. McCains’ hopeful the Iraqis will reconcile, hopeful they will become stable, hopeful they pardon our mistakes, and hopeful they won’t mind if we stay a few generations.
It’s perhaps these unbuttressed wishments that may explain his unsupported speculation regarding his willingness for a generational US presence in Iraq.
Obama has been asking more and more of these kinds of questions about McCain’s foreign policy. Perhaps in the next few months he’ll be able to ask McCain more directly.
Doug: You want to play games with this go ahead. But we all know that McCain’s words have been twisted and abused and it appears to me that is your goal as well.
When you ask:
I answer YES!
It’s clear that America’s forward positioning of troops in Europe and Asia have been remarkably effective deterrents.
I cannot imagine any serious individual who does not understand this.
Again, who did you vote for? Hillary or Obama?
Mike, this blog spends a significantly disproportional amount of time focusing on the “unasked questions” regarding Obama when comparatively contrasted to McCain; it’s hardly a fair balance on the matter– that is if you gentlemen consider ‘fair’ a term of value. All one needs to do is count up last month’s tally on the both of them ( i didn’t).
So I’m simply doing my best to be a counter-weight here in providing some unasked questions for McCain.
I voted for Richards.
Later addition: “It’s clear that America’s forward positioning of troops in Europe and Asia have been remarkably effective deterrents.”
…: Different times and circumstances.
“I cannot imagine any serious individual who does not understand this.”
Perhaps you’re hampered by Kant’s conception of imagination?
Mike: It was more of a leading question on my part. My next question to you would have been, “What did you ask him?”. From the looks of things, you have a very interesting background suited to all of this and I figured that you might have had the chance to talk with him.
He seemed to see the threats back then. He supported Somoza against the Sandanistas (there’s that liberation theology again). In hindsight, does he wish he did more to fight against turning over the Panama Canal? He was aware of the vacuum that would be created in Afghanistan. Who were the strongest opponents in Congress opposed to supporting Afghanistan after the Russians were kicked out and why?
I guess my questions to him right now would be: What do you think of the Democratic party now? Who are you voting for and why?
“Mike, this blog spends a significantly disproportional amount of time focusing on the “unasked questions” regarding Obama when comparatively contrasted to McCain”
McCain is already the presumptive nominee for the Republican party. There are still 2 democrats that are fighting it out for their parties nomination. Although I support McCain, there is a possibility that one of the Democratic contendors is going to represent me as President of the United States. As an American citizen I want to consider the best candidate for the position. There are questions that he (Obama) has not answered and some that seem particularly evasive. He is a relative newcomer on the scene so of course more questions are going to be asked. I would hope that when the Republicans were going through their campaign that you were paying attention to them and asking the same questions and not just paying attention to the home team so to speak. There are plenty of questions that are going to be asked in the GE of McCain and on this site as well. The big ones have already been discussed with his 2000 run and his years of service in Congress. The more specifics will need to be addressed. We’re still just trying to find out who the hell Obama is.
“Different times and circumstances.”
That is really a hollow statement. That is always going to be true, but can we look back to different times and similar circumstances? Do you see a potential threat from the Iranians in Iraq and what the consequences would be to not just the Middle East but to the entire world if they were to disrupt the region even further? Do you think that the Iranians are pursuing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes? If Iran and Iraq were so friendly with each other, why did they fight a war between themselves? Do you think that there are any leftover animosities? Can a comparison be drawn between “the spread of communism” & the spread of radical islamic ideology? What effect would an entire Middle East based on a fundamentalist Islam be on the rest of the world? Do most Muslims want that rule of law or are they fighting it as well? What solution do you offer to prevent an even further escalation in the region in this different time with different circumstances or do you think that there is no threat?
One other addition, although I dislike Carter and most anything he has ever attempted to screw up, are we also to abandon the Carter Doctrine and Reagan’s extension of it?