I'm writing this diary to vent about one of the memes that John McCain pushed recently, and that the Republican establishment media as a whole have been pushing as conventional wisdom for quite a while now:
But in his 27-minute address, McCain said those who advocate ending America's involvement in Iraq are in reality calling for a new policy of withdrawal and "re-invade."
That statement is such a hideous denial of truth that I don't know where to start refuting it. But that's not important. We know that St. John McCain is a liar, and we know that the media will lap up and "explain" his lies as something he has to do or something that the Mean Old Democrats should stop distorting. What matters is that John McCain is basing this entire argument on the same premise that got us into this war in the first place - that whenever anything is wrong, it's a job for Team America's rich chickenhawks to hurl it's military in every direction possible and save the day.
digby had a great post up a couple days ago about John McCain's biography tour. See, the past few days, John McCain has been emphasizing his military biography in credentials in order to capture the hearts and minds of the conservative base. His presentation went all the way back to his grandfather, who had impressive navy credentials, and he talked about his time serving as a POW in Vietnam. While there are many reasons for McCain's strategy here, including possibly a Southern strategy that portrays McCain as a traditional white guy or just a general showcase of his military credentials, digby has an alternate, very thought provoking theory.
Script: It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House and this time the crisis is economic. Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama just said they’d solve the problem by raising your taxes. More money out of your pocket. John McCain has a better plan. Grow jobs, grow our economy ... not grow Washington. It’s 3 a.m., time for a president who is ready."
Summary: DEMOKRATZ WILL HAS UR TAXEZ KTHNX. McCain is an agent of change.
When it comes to the environment, John McCain's record doesn't match his rhetoric.
You might not agree with me on every issue, but I hope you know I'm not trying to trick you or misrepresent my intentions should I be so privileged to be elected to the office I seek.
-John McCain
You'll even hear some presidential candidates claiming to understand the finer nuances of markets and management. In fact, success has nothing to do with fancy theory.
Repeat after me: John McCain will crash the economy, leave millions of people in poverty, grant large sums of money to corporations, cut taxes for the rich and drown the government in a bathtub.
Further: John McCain is not a maverick. John McCain is not a reformer. He is a partisan conservative with Bush Republican economic philosophy.
A little hyperbolic title, perhaps, but there is a point I think many of my fellow Obama supporters and not Obama supporters would do well to understand. Think about what you've stood for and the policy positions of Senator Clinton, Senator Edwards, and Senator Obama. In matters of health care especially, all three are basically 'moderate' - it means they don't deny health care is a problem, don't advocate in a silly scheme of tax cuts to fix it, but don't have the vision to fundamentally overhaul for-profit health care in our country.
So instead of the discourse being about what health care should look like in this country - who should be benefiting, who should be distributing and who should pick up the costs - the discourse has settled on a largely annoying debate on mandates. So instead of the progressive debate we should be having, we have now 'given up' on single payer health care. Among progressive circles, we are advocating for candidates based on which of their plans will have the best shot of being a transition to single payer.
There comes a time in every Democratic candidate's life where he or she must make verbal mincemeat of our so-called citizens across the aisle, affirming to the public what the rest of us know already - that the GOP, for all it's claims of patriotism and AmericaLoveTM, is just a mind-numbingly hypocritical, transcatological* collection of poopheaded pricks.
About not wearing an American flag lapel pin, Obama said Republicans have no lock on patriotism.
"A party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor they needed, or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans' benefits that these troops need when they come home, or are undermining our Constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary?
"That is a debate I am very happy to have. We'll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism."
The VRWC wingnutia brigade has been all up in arms over the anecdote Obama told about an Army Captain with a poorly equipped and undermanned platoon. For those who are interested, here is the video.
Transcript:You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon -- supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.
And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.
On Wednesday, September 26th, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) made a public declaration to Time Magazine:
Graham told TIME Wednesday that the Iraqi leaders have 90 days to start resolving their political differences with real legislative agreements or face a change in strategy by the U.S. "If they can't do it in 90 days," he said, "it means the major players don't want to."
...
But Graham, who is up for re-election in 2008, said he will not wait forever. "If they can't pull it together in the next 90 days," he said, "I don't think they are ever gonna do it." He followed that prediction with a promise: "If they don't deliver in 90 days, I will openly say the chances for political reconciliation are remote."
...
Though he would not elaborate on what kind of plan he would push if the Iraqis fail to meet the deadline, Graham did say a change in strategy would be warranted. "If they can't do it by the end of the year," he said, "how do you justify a continued presence?"
About a week ago, this diary brought to our attention an article on TheHill.com documenting Hoyer's opinion on his AUMF vote. Here's a recap, dated November 8th, 2007 (sic):
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the number two Democrat in the House, says he stands by his vote in favor of the 2002 "use of force" authorization that led to the war in Iraq.
"Removal of Saddam Hussein was an appropriate policy," Hoyer said at a breakfast meeting with reporters Thursday sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. "I still believe that."
But he added that he would not have voted for it if he had known "how incompetently it would be executed."
It's a pain not being able to cry. I wish I could. Tears definitely achieve a dramatic effect. Somehow, though, I've lost the capacity to cry.
But really, is there any other recourse than for all of us to shed tears? I'm writing this diary right now because this special day called the "Iraq War Moratorium" is tomorrow. And guess what?
Not a single one of my friends knew about it. I spent the last hour IMing people, posting it on my status profile on facebook, finding the Iraq War Moratorium facebook group with all of 29 people. Googling it and not finding http://iraqmoratorium.org/ as the first site.
I finished my school day today and looked on DK's recommended, and saw the "You idiots." post, and my jaw dropped. The Republicans did it again. They won in 2004 by putting gay marriage and abortion on every ballot, they set the terms of debate then... and they did it again just today.
I want to grieve because we have no organized opposition, no banner to rally around, no specific common cause to confront them with.
I thought about writing a serious policy analysis for my first diary, so as to make a good impression. Then I thought: Nah. I can get to that in due course, and for now, I just want to sit here and soak everything in, now that I'm starting to write here.
Instead of that policy analysis that I was considering writing, I'm just going to write about why I'm here. I'm sure all of the veterans here might appreciate seeing a newbie come here for the first time, and to reflect about why they're here themselves.
