July 28, 2008

7/28: Talkin' 'Bout Timetables

The netroots were buzzing this weekend after John McCain appeared to offer a qualified endorsement of a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. During his Friday interview on CNN's "The Situation Room," McCain said that the 16-month timetable endorsed by Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki was "a pretty good timetable" as long as it was "based on conditions on the ground." Liberal bloggers immediately accused McCain of flip-flopping, since McCain has repeatedly blasted Barack Obama and others for supporting a timetable for withdrawal (or for merely using the word "timetable"). Liberal bloggers are portraying McCain's statement as a turning point in the race that eliminates one of the key differences between McCain and Obama. Josh Marshall declares: "We need to recognize that McCain has now abandoned virtually everything he's been campaigning on for the last year."

McCain isn't the only candidate being accused of altering his position on timetables, however. Conservative bloggers are accusing Obama of backing away from his 16-month withdrawal proposal after he told Newsweek that his criteria for keeping residual troops in Iraq would be "entirely conditions-based." Allahpundit writes: "He and Maverick are almost mirror images on Iraq now: McCain thinks troop levels should depend on conditions but concedes that 16 months is a 'pretty good timetable' whereas Obama thinks 16 months is a pretty good timetable but concedes that, er, troop levels should depend on conditions."

MCCAIN: Now He Supports A Timetable?

Liberal bloggers were buzzing after McCain appeared to give a qualified endorsement to a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. On Friday, McCain told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that a 16-month timetable was "a pretty good timetable" as long as it was "based on conditions on the ground":

Blitzer: "So why do you think [Maliki] said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?"
McCain: "He said it's a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it's a pretty good timetable, as we should -- or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground."

Liberal bloggers don't understand how McCain can praise Maliki's 16-month timetable after having repeatedly blasted Obama's 16-month timetable:

• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "You're probably thinking, after all McCain has done to castigate Obama for pushing a timetable, he couldn't possibly have gone on CNN and supported a timetable himself. But, yes, he did."
• Atrios: "(1.) Maliki likes Obama's timeline. (2.) McCain likes Maliki's timeline. (3.) McCain thinks Obama's timeline will cause the destruction of America as we know it."
• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "There has been a lot of attention paid to John McCain's apparent flip-flop yesterday on timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, and given his frequent attacks on Barack Obama's call for a 16 month timetable (or if you prefer, horizon), McCain's words were rather stunning."

Liberal bloggers think McCain's apparent shift on timelines is a big deal:

• TPM's Marshall: "...Over the span of a few weeks Sen. McCain has gone from predicting a decades long presence of American troops in Iraq and attacking any discussion of timetables for withdrawal to endorsing Maliki's push for a 16 month timetable and tying himself in knots trying to explain why what Maliki's endorsing is any different from Obama's. When confronted with Maliki's own words saying that he supports what Obama supports, McCain now falls back on that last redoubt of philanderers, asking the American people, 'Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?' For all the seismic shifts that have taken place over the last two weeks, we need to recognize that McCain has now abandoned virtually everything he's been campaigning on for the last year. There's really no more eloquent confirmation of that reality than the fact that McCain now appears determined to base his campaign on charges that Obama is unpatriotic and despises American soldiers."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "Remember the first two weeks of July, when the 'big story' of the presidential campaign was that Barack Obama moved (or was about to move) towards John McCain's position on Iraq policy? The story was a fantasy, based on literally nothing, but it dominated the political discourse for weeks. [...] And the irony is, the entire story was backwards. Obama didn't move towards McCain; McCain has moved towards Obama."
• Firedoglake's Ian Welsh: "Let me make sure I understand. The reason to vote for McCain is because he has more foreign policy know-how than Obama, right? I mean, he's admitted that he doesn't know anything about the economy so foreign affairs is obviously where he's making his case. And on the key foreign policy issue of the day he's just changed to supporting Obama's plan, therefore admitting it's better. So, what, exactly, is the case for voting for McCain? Seriously, not snarkily, what is the case?"
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "Obama's overseas trip changed McCain's position on Iraq, thus entirely demolishing the 'move to the center' or 'flip flop' meme on Obama. Now, Obama looks like a leader, and McCain is a pandering, flip-flopping follower. [...] With the contradictory attacks and McCain flip-flops add[ing] up, this overseas trip really is checkmate for Obama. His trip will have a similar impact on the campaign as the swift boat attacks four years ago. This trip has removed the central pillar of McCain's argument to be President."

MCCAIN II: Stop Quoting Me Accurately!

When ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked McCain about his qualified endorsement of Maliki's 16-month timetable, McCain initially (and incorrectly) denied having used the word "timetable." Then he argued that "anything is a good timetable that is dictated by conditions on the ground":

Stephanopoulos: "You shouldn't have used the word timetable."
McCain: "I didn't use the word timetable. That I did -- if I did..."
Stephanopoulos: "Well, it's a pretty good timetable."
McCain: "Oh, well, look. Anything is a good timetable that is dictated by conditions on the ground. Anything is good."

• Think Progress' Matt Corley: "Thrown off by the converging political consensus around a timetable for withdrawal, McCain can't seem to figure out what his position on Iraq is. First, he denied that the Iraqis wanted the U.S. to leave on a timetable, then he said that Maliki had floated 'a pretty good timetable.' Defending his shifts today, he claimed, 'Anything sounds good to me.'"
• Sudbay: "Wow. One day after McCain said he thought sixteen months was a 'pretty good timetable' for withdrawing from Iraq, McCain claimed he never said the word 'timetable.' Seriously, McCain said to Stephanopoulos 'I didn't use the word timetable.' One day later. Is he for real?"
• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "Once again, John McCain has an unfortunate run-in with a straightforward effort to quote his words, and protests to George Stephanoupolous 'I didn't use the word "timetable"' when, in fact, he called Nuri al-Maliki's plans for Iraq 'a pretty good timetable' just days ago. Perhaps he meant to say 'general time horizon.'"

MCCAIN III: Playing In The Mud?

Liberal bloggers are blasting McCain for his campaign's latest attack ad against Obama, which accuses the presumptive Dem nominee of cancelling a scheduled visit with U.S. troops in Germany because "the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras":

• TPM's Eric Kleefeld: "The McCain campaign has this brutal new attack ad against Barack Obama, making the blatantly false charge that he doesn't care about the troops unless there are cameras around. [...] As we reported yesterday, the Pentagon told Obama that the issue here was not that he couldn't bring cameras, but that he only had campaign staff with him and not Senate staffers. And since the Pentagon didn't tell him this until he had already embarked on his trip, it was too late for him to do anything."
• Bowers: "Considering that the Pentagon told Obama he couldn't visit the troops in question, expect this to continue to be part of a wider Republican Noise Machine attack on Obama. This hissy fit will be the next Wesley Clark incident. That it is completely bullshit and coordinated with Republican controlled branches of government won't matter to most of the national press corps. Republican attacks are, somehow, news in and of themselves."
• BarbinMD: "McCain knows that Obama visited wounded troops while he was in Iraq, he knows that Obama has visited them at Walter Reed. He knows that the Obama cancelled the trip, honoring Pentagon regulations, to avoid making a visit that might seem political, saying that, 'the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not, or getting caught in the crossfire of the campaigns.' Yet knowing all this, and despite having said in April that McCain 'intentionally did not campaign on military property' because of the same Pentagon rules that Obama cited, McCain chose to put those people in the political crossfire and released a blatantly dishonest ad. Because McCain is willing to do or say anything to win."

Curiously, the ad uses footage of Obama playing basketball with U.S. troops in Kuwait at the same time that it accuses him of having "made time to go to the gym" but not to visit U.S. troops. This fact drew scorn from Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas, who writes: "Really, this Jake Tapper headline says it all: New McCain Ad Bashes Obama for Not Visiting Troops Using Footage of Obama Visiting Troops. What a pathetic campaign."

MCCAIN IV: How Low Will He Go?

Liberal bloggers believe that McCain's recent behavior -- such as his latest attack ad and his allegation that Obama would rather "lose the war" than the presidential campaign -- indicate that McCain will do whatever it takes to win, even if it means playing dirty:

• Marshall: "McCain's new ad, which you can see here, is really beyond disgusting. At this point I think it's clear that honor really doesn't mean much to McCain. When things get tough, as it is in this election campaign, there's no limit to what he'll do."
• Benen: "It's nothing short of breathtaking to watch a once honorable man want the presidency so desperately, he's willing to flush his credibility and reputation down the toilet. John McCain's new TV ad marks a turning point, not only in this presidential campaign, but as a measurement of McCain's increasingly absent character."
• Yglesias: "[McCain] really wants to win the election, and he's willing to adopt pretty much any policy position and launch pretty much any dishonest attack on his opponent that he thinks will help him get there. If that means totally fictitious ads about Obama refusing to meet with soldiers, then fine."
• Sudbay: "McCain has a new, nasty attack ad running against Obama. It's based on pure falsehoods and a fake GOP created controversy -- and the sick thing is that McCain is now using wounded U.S. soldiers as political fodder. No surprise really -- except for McCain's media toadies who still think he's a stand-up guy. McCain has the [George W.] Bush/[Karl] Rove crew on board and this is standard procedure for them. McCain has got nothing to offer the American people so McCain is setting out to destroy Obama's reputation. He can't win -- he can only make Obama lose. "
• The Nation's Ari Melber: "McCain has often talked about his commitment to running a campaign based on issues. Yet now he is seizing on a meaningless non-event, exploiting American troops by casting them as victims in this petty squabble, and impugning an opponent who just addressed soldiers, international leaders and foreign citizens to outline a new course for America in the world. Obama's trip clearly made Obama look big. It took McCain's reaction to make McCain look so small."

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "I've never been a big John McCain fan. Even in the 2001-2004 era, when he was flirting with the left and opposing the most neanderthal elements in his own party, I didn't really warm to him. To me, he mostly seemed like a standard issue conservative who had discovered a good schtick during the 2000 campaign and was milking it for all it was worth, pandering to a press and pundit corps that, he had learned, routinely goes gaga over politicians who supposedly reject the shibboleths of both parties and simply speak their mind. [...] But now I'm watching him in 2008, his desperation for the presidency driving him to conduct a campaign that's carefully but relentlessly testing ever more contemptible depths of squalor in its attacks on Barack Obama ('he made time to go to the gym but cancelled a visit with wounded troops' is just the latest), and I wonder how he's going to feel when it's all over. Not only will he lose the election, but he's going to wake up one morning and realize that he abandoned his dignity in the process. That's obviously something that's important to him, and even for someone who was never much of a fan, it's kind of sad to watch him give it up so readily."

MCCAIN V: The View From The Right

Several conservative bloggers think McCain's attack ad against Obama is an effective one:

• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "In recent days, John McCain has stepped up the pace of his attacks on Barack Obama. Now he's lost no time in going after Obama for canceling his visit to wounded soldiers in Germany, even though he had time to go to the gym and sightsee in Berlin. [...The ad is] brutal. In the end, this character-revealing blunder may be the only thing voters remember about Obama's international excursion."
• AmSpec Blog's Robert Stacy McCain: "This seems almost deliberately provocative, as if Team McCain were daring Obama to complain that it's unfair -- at which point they'll turn around and accuse Obama of 'whining.' This is the 95 mph fastball I was trying to warn the rookie about."

Townhall's Matt Lewis isn't sure that McCain should be the person to deliver such a harsh attack on Obama: "Clearly, this is an issue that puts Obama on the defensive. There is no excuse for his decision to skip this visit. My only question is: Should McCain be the one making this attack, either in person -- or in campaign ads? In short, wouldn't this message be better delivered by a surrogate -- while McCain stays above the fray? ...And if you agree with that statement, does the lack of 527 groups (such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) this cycle ironically pose a serious problem for a candidate who already has a lot of obstacles to overcome?"

Hot Air's Allahpundit dislikes the ad: "[This ad is] a sequel of sorts to the 'Pump' ad from a few days ago suggesting that Obama uniquely was somehow to blame for soaring gas prices; anyone who believes that will, I guess, also believe that he'd torpedo a visit to see wounded troops because there'd be no flashbulbs popping in his face. Not only does that not fit the facts -- he left his pool reporters outside when he visited Walter Reed a few weeks ago, and as I noted last night, his spokesman says the plan at Landstuhl was to keep the press on the plane -- but even under the worst assumptions, it makes no sense. If you think (and I do not) that Obama's a sociopath who sees wounded soldiers as nothing but political chips to be played in an election card game, surely we can agree that he's nevertheless savvy enough to grasp how horribly bad it would look to have photographers with him on a hospital visit in the middle of a campaign. If there were pictures on the wires of him shaking hands with bedridden vets while media vultures crowded around for close-ups, conservatives would have ripped him for it properly and mercilessly and he knows it. Why not stick with the 'he went to the gym but not the hospital' point, which is at least factually correct? Why go here?"

OBAMA: What D'ya Mean, "Conditions-Based"?

McCain isn't the only candidate being accused of altering his position on timetables. Conservative bloggers see the following exchange from Obama's interview with Newsweek's Richard Wolffe as evidence that Obama is backing away from his 16-month timetable:

Obama: "Maliki recognizes that they're going to need our help for some time to come, as our commanders insist, but that the help is of the sort that is consistent with the kind of phased withdrawal that I have promoted. We're going to have to provide them with logistical support, intelligence support. We're going to have to have a very capable counterterrorism strike force. We're going to have to continue to train their Army and police to make them more effective."
Wolffe: "You've been talking about those limited missions for a long time. Having gone there and talked to both diplomatic and military folks, do you have a clearer idea of how big a force you'd need to leave behind to fulfill all those functions?"
Obama: "I do think that's entirely conditions-based. It's hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now, or a year from now, or a year and a half from now."

• NRO's Byron York: "So if the size of the final U.S. force needed in Iraq is conditions-based, and the timing of their stay in Iraq is conditions-based, and it is 'hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now,' why is Obama's current withdrawal timetable seemingly set in stone? What about it is not conditions-based? And if it's hard to see six months into the future, is it easier to see sixteen months ahead?"
• Lewis: "It's entirely conditions based??? Now maybe I'm wrong, but hasn't Obama been mocking this position for the last couple of years? [...] If Obama is attempting to co-opt McCain's message, or 'triangulate', he should realize that -- though he is a great speaker -- he is not as talented at stealing his opponents ideas as Bill Clinton once was. This sort of maneuver requires more than just audacity, it also requires finesse -- a quality Obama clearly does not possess."
• Allahpundit: "If Obama's top priority really is withdrawal, his Iraq policy should begin by setting the number of troops he's comfortable leaving in the field and then asking for recommendations on which missions are feasible given that number. The fact that he's going about it the other way, starting with the missions and then building any drawdown around them, is a decidedly McCain-esque (i.e. conditions-based, i.e. responsible) approach. He tweaked McCain this morning for having lately come around to so many of his own positions, but in light of this, he and Maverick are almost mirror images on Iraq now: McCain thinks troop levels should depend on conditions but concedes that 16 months is a 'pretty good timetable' whereas Obama thinks 16 months is a pretty good timetable but concedes that, er, troop levels should depend on conditions."
• NRO's Mark Levin: "The Obama 16-month withdrawal position continues to bounce between an ideological (anti-war) and conditional (national security) one. He wants to have it both ways, which we find confounding but he finds expedient. In my opinioon, McCain has not come closer to Obama's position. McCain's position, like Bush's, has always been a conditional one, based on circumstances/conditions not ideology. If leaving Iraq, in whole or part, in 16 months can be done without harming our national security (broadly defined), then neither McCain nor Bush would hold out for more time. Why would they?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Surge Helps...Democrats?

Ezra Klein:

"I think this is a pretty astute political analysis by (yes) Jonah Goldberg. Contrary to the media's assumptions, the better things are going in Iraq, the more it helps Democrats, because it relieves Americans of the belief that they have to stay in order to prevent massive bloodshed. As Goldberg writes, 'If [the war] were going worse, McCain's Churchillian rhetoric would match reality better. But with sectarian violence nearly gone, al Qaeda in Iraq almost totally routed and even Sadrist militias seemingly neutralized, the stakes of withdrawal seem low enough for Americans to feel comfortable voting for Obama.'

That's basically right. The McCain strategy requires an odd 'sweet spot' to succeed: Iraq must be neither stable enough to make American withdrawal a conceivable possibility, nor bloody enough to make American retreat a public priority. In early-2005, the situation was bad enough that most Americans wanted to get the hell out whatever the cost. So Democrats won big in 2006 on a platform of withdrawal. In late-2008, it's good enough that most Americans want to...get the hell out. And I think it's entirely possible that, again, Democrats will win big on a platform of withdrawal. The difference is, now voters can endorse it with a clear conscience. Hell, the government of Iraq is even asking us to leave. McCain is trying to reshape the issue into a question of honor, but that doesn't make a lot of sense: There's nothing dishonorable about leaving when your job is done."

LEST WE FORGET: Can't Go Wrong With A Cheeseburger, Area Man Reports

From The Onion:

"SCOTTSVILLE, NY -- Unfamiliar with the menu at local restaurant Scully's and faced with the decision of what to order for lunch, diner Michael Cort, 25, made clear his belief Monday that one cannot go wrong with a cheeseburger. 'Pretty hard to screw up one of those guys,' said Cort, adding that he would be hard-pressed to remember an occasion on which he had consumed a less-than-satisfactory cheeseburger. 'It's a classic. Medium-rare cheeseburger, lettuce, tomato, some fries. Can't beat it.' Cort went on to advise those with him to 'steer clear' of the fish fry."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at July 28, 2008 01:49 PM