Surge Protection (for McCain). Also, McCain needs to apologize to Obama

[ProSense]

Surge Protection - UPDATED

They're calling it yet another McCain 'gaffe', but is it?

Either John McCain knows little about the history of the Iraq war, he just doesn't remember from one minute to the next, or he'll go to any lengths to spin his fiction into 'fact'. I'm not sure which it is, but in an interview with Katie Couric yesterday, McCain got it absolutely wrong and CBS tried to cover it up. The Jed Report has the video here along with Countdown's expose of it. Masterp2323 has a longer comparison of what CBS aired vs. what CBS cut which was still available unedited on cbs.com.

(Video: http://kerryvision.net">CBS covers for McCain)

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The only problem with Sen. McCain's statement is that he got it all wrong. The Anbar Awakening started in September of 2006, and the troop escalation started in the spring of 2007. That's fact. There's no way to spin the spring of '07 to have occurred before the fall of 2006.

As bad as it was, it wasn't the worst thing McCain did while his opponent was out of the country.

This was.

"I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.”

On Anderson Cooper's show last night, Joe Klein called McCain's comment the most scurrilous charge he's ever heard from a candidate. Senator Kerry, in an interview on MSNBC yesterday called it 'ridiculous and insulting'. Personally, I think it questions the patriotism of a United States Senator, is inexcusable and warrants a public apology.

It wasn't the first time the campaign used the line. A McCain adviser said it the other day. It was an ugly statement at the time, but it came from an adviser, and they sometimes say ugly things. Coming from someone who wants to be the President of the United States, it's a disgusting and vile attack, and unbecoming of a candidate.

Meanwhile, the right wing news is still hiding behind the troops as they attempt to conflate the failed Bush strategy with tactical military successes. In a Fox News interview, Sen. Kerry discussed the surge, and explained the difference between tactical successes and strategic failures. I don't think the other guy 'got it'.



Here's my summary of the interview:

Fox: The surge worked!
Kerry: Not exactly.
Fox: But what about the troops?!
Kerry: They're the best troops in the world.
Fox: But the troops ...
Kerry: Our troops have done a brilliant job.
Fox: You're not giving the troops credit.
Kerry: The troops are extraordinary. They've done a brilliant job.
Fox: But you're not giving credit to the trooops ...

At that point, the audio is accidentally cut before the Senator can respond to the interviewer's final attempt to spin defense of the administration's failed policy into support of the military.

When is the right wing going to stop blaming Bush's failures on our troops? And when is the right wing media going to stop covering for McCain?

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[karynnj]

1. Where is Bob Scheiffer et al to ask McCain if was questioning Obama's integrity?

That is a great summary of the interview. The problem is that it is not just the right wing covering for McCain.

[ProSense]

2. Seriously,

where are the journalists and pundits who constantly approach Obama (and Kerry) with stupid questions (or ones designed to make McCain look good, the integrity question)?

The only reports about McCain's pathetic campaign are primarily on blogs.

[cbc5g]

3. Nicely done by Kerry...perfect

[ellacott]

4. The Fox guy sounds pretty dumb

He couldn't think of anything else to say?

[ProSense]

6. They're becoming fairly transparent

They're like comedians, but not funny.

[central scrutinizer]

5. Surge is to McCain as 9/11 is to Guiliani

The answer to any and every question. And try to work POW in somewhere.