Obama and "100 years"
My theory is that Republicans have researched him quite well but are keeping their powder dry until the general election. Time will tell on that.
But I remember hearing John McCain make a comment about troops in Iraq back in January:
Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…And when I heard Obama and Hillary Clinton misrepresent the comment by implying that McCain wasn't planning on withdrawing troops from Iraq for 100 years I thought it wouldn't take much time for the media to call them on the issue.McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.
Crickets chirping.
Throughout February and March, Obama repeated the claim and no one in the mainstream media called him on the misrepresentation. . .until now.
Finally, on April 1, the Columbia Journalism Review published a fairly comprehensive analysis of not only McCain's comment and Obama's misrepresentation, but also of the media's "horserace" treatment of the whole issue:
"Still, some outlets continue to portray the issue as a he-said, she-said spat. A long takeout on the controversy by ABC News, opining that McCain’s comment “handed his Democratic opponents and war critics a weapon with which to bludgeon him,” is headlined: “McCain’s 100 Year Remark Hands Ammo to War Critics: McCain Haunted by January Remarks Suggesting 100 More Years in Iraq.” And today’s L.A. Times story, headlined “Obama, McCain Bicker Over Iraq,” is similarly neutral."
On April 3, The Washington Post finally picked up the story.
As CJR correctly notes:
"This matters. Obama has given every indication that his general election strategy on Iraq and foreign policy will be to portray McCain as dangerously bellicose. If he’s going to do so by distorting McCain’s words, the press should forcefully call him out on it each time."
Amen.
I think from reading several posts with a political lean, you quite obviously sit on the "right" side of the aisle. And offering up the Fitna video last week - which is a horrific manipulative piece of propaganda - you also don't suffer any act of conscience when it comes to hatred, or in to a lesser extent, partisanship, in the name of continuing current policies.
As for this particular post, McCain made the statement. And unless I'm wrong, he's offered no explanation or background. He said 100 years on foreign soil - nothwithstanding their permission or the permission of the electorate in this country - is ok by him. Historically, the fact that he compares homogeneous societies like Japan, Germany, Korea, to a tribal society that exists in current day Iraq, shows a complete lack of understanding about the region. It's this ignorance that got us there and keeps us there.
And plain and simply our troops are being used - as well as our dollars - to support a government that embraces Iran. Hello? Anybody paying attention?
Maybe McCain is - he after all is also the one who sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran". Was he misrepresented on that one as well?
The current administration has destroyed us both domestically and internationally. McCain, by his words, proposes to continue the policies that brought us here.
The title of your blog though is appropriate - McCain and his ilk do represent a segment of our culture in this country. A rapidly dying segment I hope - for our sake.
And by the way, it's Barack...not Barrack.
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Thanks for the spelling catch, Jeff. I gotta quit drinking so much while I write.
Cheers.
CO
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