Obama Hits McCain on Foreign Polichy Gaffes

[Dr Ron]

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3337

McCain’s Foreign Policy Gaffes Continue

May 31st, 2008 by Ron Chusid

While the main attention has been devoted to the meeting of the rules committee and the ramifications of what remains of the Democratic primary race, there has also been some action in the more meaningful campaign between the presumptive nominees of the two major parties. Barack Obama has taken major steps to counter the perceived, and erroneous, belief that McCain has stronger foreign policy credentials. Greg Sargent wrote yesterday:

The Obama and McCain campaigns are battling it out today over whether a McCain comment about Iraq troop levels was a gaffe that betrayed his lack of knowledge of the facts on the ground — and the early media coverage suggests that the Obama team is winning this spin war.

The comment in question was made by McCain yesterday to reporters. He said: “I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet.”

Pre-surge troop levels? Not so much, countered the Obama campaign, which pointed out that troop levels are at 155,000 right now, well above the 130,000 pre-surge mark.

Obama has kept the pressure up on McCain with this statement today:

We all misspeak sometimes. I’ve done it myself. So on such a basic, factual error, you’d think that Senator McCain would just admit that he made a mistake and move on. But he couldn’t do that. Instead, he dug in. And the disturbing thing is that we’ve seen this movie before — a leader who pursues the wrong course, who is unwilling to change course, who ignores the evidence. Now, just like George Bush, John McCain refused to admit that he made a mistake. And that’s exactly the kind of leadership that we’ve had through more than five years of fighting a war that should’ve never been authorized, and should’ve never been waged.

We don’t need more leaders who can’t admit they’ve made a mistake, even when it’s about something as fundamental as how many young Americans are serving in harm’s way.

McCain has tried to claim that a substantive disagreement over the facts is a matter of verb tense. In doing so he sounds as ridiculous as Bill Clinton arguing over what the meaning of is is. If this was the only error on foreign policy made by McCain it might be overlooked, but this has been part of a trend. Steve Benen has summarized McCain’s many foreign policy gaffe’s:

This is his signature issue. If McCain doesn’t know what he’s talking about on this subject, he doesn’t have anything in reserve. It’s not “nitpicking” to note that McCain seems incapable of speaking intelligently on the issue he cares about most.

What’s more, it’d be easier to overlook isolated mistakes if McCain didn’t screw up the basics of what’s going on in Iraq so frequently. McCain has been confused about whether the U.S. can maintain a long-term presence in Iraq; confused about the source of violence in Iraq; confused about Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda; confused about the difference between Sunni and Shi’ia; confused about Gen. Petraeus’ responsibilities in Iraq; and confused about what transpired during the Maliki government’s offensive in Basra.

Worse, this isn’t a new phenomenon. Back in November 2006, McCain couldn’t answer a reporter’s question about his own opinions on the war without reading prepared notes on national television. As recently as March 2007, McCain was embarrassing himself by insisting that Gen. Petraeus travels around Baghdad “in a non-armed Humvee” (a comment that military leaders literally laughed at.)

I think any intellectually honest person would agree that if all of this happened to Barack Obama, he’d be laughed off the presidential stage, and the media would relentlessly insist that he was clueless and unqualified to be commander in chief during a war. And yet, it’s not Obama, it’s the Republican who claims Iraq as his strongest issue.

The point is, with each passing week, it appears John McCain simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about.