No You Can't
Now, as you may know, I like McCain, but I still thought this was pretty good.
I wouldn't post this at all, but it's my little kick in the ass to McCain for his tricky, crappy comments about al Qaeda in Iraq today. Obama's response was pretty good--indeed it was our invasion that generated al Qaeda in Iraq. But it would have been better to go right at the heart of the matter: clearly Obama didn't mean he'd use force in Iraq if there was any al Qaeda presence there, but only if there was significant, threatening presence that the Iraqi government wasn't dealing with.
The disagreement here is fairly complicated, but it seems to me that McCain wouldn't endorse this point if he thought about it a bit more. Surely he doesn't think that the al Qaeda presence in Iraq is a big enough threat to the U.S. to warrant an invasion, or to keep us there now.. That'd be crazy.
Now, as you may know, I like McCain, but I still thought this was pretty good.
I wouldn't post this at all, but it's my little kick in the ass to McCain for his tricky, crappy comments about al Qaeda in Iraq today. Obama's response was pretty good--indeed it was our invasion that generated al Qaeda in Iraq. But it would have been better to go right at the heart of the matter: clearly Obama didn't mean he'd use force in Iraq if there was any al Qaeda presence there, but only if there was significant, threatening presence that the Iraqi government wasn't dealing with.
The disagreement here is fairly complicated, but it seems to me that McCain wouldn't endorse this point if he thought about it a bit more. Surely he doesn't think that the al Qaeda presence in Iraq is a big enough threat to the U.S. to warrant an invasion, or to keep us there now.. That'd be crazy.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:01 PM
2 Comments:
At some point in the next eight-and-a-half months (!), the American people might become aware that there's some fundamental disagreement between the putative nominees.
Obama's argument is that we shouldn't have invaded in the first place, McCain's that a sudden withdrawal might result in an al-Qaeda resurgence in Iraq.
Neither argument to my mind has
anything more than rhetorical power. Shots across the bow, a philosophical staking of ground. Intelligent discussion of the issue will be possible sometime in the next eight-and-a-half months (!), but not just yet.
And, I must add sincerely, because Obama has sent conflicting signals. I reckon his remarks on 60 Minutes hint that he wouldn't do anything precipitous in Iraq, but his remarks to the party faithful about pulling the plug indicate otherwise.
As previously noted, I just want to know what Barack Obama is about, and I honestly don't know. Do you?
WS, I realize I'm being boorish by posting twice in a row---twice in a row now. But the fit I've been oracling about is hitting the shan.
And geez---it'll be hard to believe to LL and others here that I'm just ahead of the curve instead of a VRWC parrot---but every time I click on something today as Obama gets closer and closer to his coronation---it has an echo of my previous reservations.
I believe you yourself have quoted lefty historian Sean Wilentz' opinion that Dubya is one of the worst presidents of all time.
So be it. Now Wilentz' opinion is that Barack Obama, despite his simon-pure image and in order to deflect all criticism, has simply played a new race-based version of The Game, or as our beloved Ronald Reagan put it, mankind's second oldest profession:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304
I myself have been feeling frustrated on Hillary [and Bill's] part, that even an honest attack has been dismissed as untrue because it's "not nice." It's a man'sman'sman'sman's world, let's face it. As a feminist, I'm outraged, but that's another story...
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