McCain's Speech

The thoughtful, mainstream foreign policy wonk who delivered this speech..

Are you kidding me? This guy thinks Iran is training Al Qaeda.

What happened here? Did he let you ride shotgun on the Straight Talk Express? Did he invite you out for a weekend in Sedona?

Or are you just trying to weasel your way back into VIP status on the Hugh Hewitt show?

Did you noticed that he recycled much of the speech from a speech he gave in 2001? Link:

Here's today:

"The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die," McCain told the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. "Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us... we cannot wish the war to be a better place."

Here's a 2001 pro-war editorial he wrote in the WSJ:

"War is a miserable business," the Arizona Senator wrote in a Wall Street Journal oped in October 2001. "The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted, economies are damaged. Strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that will be lost when war claims its wages from us. Shed a tear, and then get on with the business of killing our enemies as quickly as we can, and as ruthlessly as we must. There is no avoiding the war we are in today, any more than we could have avoided world war after our fleet was bombed at Pearl Harbor.... War is a miserable business. Let's get on with it."

As I mentioned in another thread, the Foreign Affairs essay his campaign wrote contains much of the same material, but the level-headedness of the last third is in conflict with the unilateral bellicosity in the first third of the essay.

As with everything in the unstable world of John McCain, there is no coherence to his positions. How he can claim to be interested in international comity while continuing an illegal war of neo-colonialism is just one of the many diametrically opposite ideas he can hold in his head at the same time.

We can only hope that this speech marks the beginning of the Republican Party's journey away from pre-emptive unilateralism...and toward a reunion with the world community.

Yes, and we can only hope that winged monkeys will fly out of Joe Klein's butt and persuade McCain to stop running as a war-monger. Just because the spinner dial on McCain's unstable personality landed on "plays well with others" today does not mean that he is to be trusted with the power of life and death over millions of people.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/03/26/mccains-iraq-victory-speech-interrupted-by-reports-of-violence-in-iraq/

Speech interrupted by reports of civil war hotting up.

Joe, did he deliver the text as written, or did he acknowledge, in some way, that there were some new problems in the last 48 hours?

"We need a successor to the Kyoto Treaty, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. We Americans must lead by example and encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India."

In my more naive days, this might have made me think McCain would actually make non-token attempts to deal with global warming. Now I understand that "in an economically responsible manner" means "not at all", and "lead by example and encourage the participation of the rest of the world" means "act like our lack of effort is the fault of poorer nations".

And I don't see how what he said about Iraq is any less misleading than what he said before. He still painted al-Qaeda and "neighboring powers" as the main bad guys. He admits that the main factions have "ancient hatreds," but acts as if they'd "move beyond" their ancient hatreds in a few weeks, if only al-Qaeda and these "neighboring powers" would stop interfering.

So I guess I disagree. This was not a speech that gave me much hope.

I did find it interesting that we have a new reason to stay. We're not there to prevent civil war, now that civil war is definitely happening. We're there to prevent the civil war from descending into genocide.

Senator McCain recently voted against a law that would have made waterboarding illegal and he bulldozed through the Military Commissions Act, which not only specifically allowed non-military U.S. agencies to use torture, but also immunized all the torturers. With that record, his call in this speech to re-negotiate the Geneva Conventions is a clear signal, at variance from what he said, that torture and inhumane treatment remains on the table. Moreover, why isn't GITMO closed now? Senator McCain, for 10 Friedman Units, has sat silent about it. What is he, as a leading Senator gonna DO about it?

A sophisticated reporter would not fluff Senator McCain as this article does. A good journalist would compare and contrast prior statements to this and not "spin" its reception in precisely the way Senator McCain would want. "Thoughtful" pundits do not jerk their knees with every McCain bleat.

We can only hope that this speech marks the beginning of the Republican Party's journey away from pre-emptive unilateralism...and toward a reunion with the world community.

Inasmuch as we can only hope that a lottery ticket has the winning number on it, yes.

What rationale would possibly allow a sane person to contemplate that a single pre-election speech that pushes your multi-lateralist buttons "marks the beginning" of anything, let alone some kind of great post-partisan foreign policy awakening in the hearts and minds of people like Jon Cornyn and Jeff Sessions, or the apocalyptic Hagees and Parsleys (and their rabid flocks), or Hannity, Coulter, Savage, Reagan and Limbaugh, i.e. the Republican Party?

Joe:
What could you possibly be talking about?

Chutzpah Joe does not actually believe anything he writes. These statements have an incantatory quality that is meant to prolong his tenure as a "reliable source" of information on world events. Pay no attention to the semblance of a rational being behind his words.

If McCain's speech had aggressively recommended a nuclear attack on Iran, Joe would have expressed surprise and puzzlement and speculated on how this bellicose stance might alienate independents. Nothing McCain can do or say lacks will fail to receive a ready and accommodating response from Chutzpah Joe Klein.

Joe,
did you want top mention some of his totally wacko foreign policy advisors, like your good friend William kristol, the Kagans, Max Boot, and the whole nest of neocons that got us into Iraq in the first place?

The ultimate McCain lottery will be which advisor gets to speak to him last before he makes a major decision. You see, McCain is too important and charismatic to actually think about a problem. That is for staffers. McCain's job is to make a gutsy decision and crack jokes about it later.

If elected President, John McCain will be the most dangerous man alive. His presence in the White House during a nuclear standoff with China or some other new-found adversary nation would threaten many Americans with death.

"Has McCain shed the "mindset" that led him to be one of the most enthusiastic advocates of the war in Iraq?"

No.

"Which is the real McCain?"

The one that wants to get elected.

Seriously, pay attention! This has already happened! A month or so ago, McCain said something slightly reasonable about Iraq and you asked if he had decided to acknowledge the complexities of the situation.
Then, he went right back to his "all war, all the time," mantra, and you expressed shock.

This has already happened! This is not new! McCain will revert to his black and white view tomorrow! In the general election he will portray his opponent as a traitor who doesn't want to support the troops!

This has already happened! This is not new! McCain will revert to his black and white view tomorrow!

As the Neal Gabler article pointed out, the American political press have become conaisseurs of lying. McCain is the most stylish liar, so he gets the best coverage. Joe Klein doesn't believe anything McCain says, but he has to write about it as though it is serious utterance. This is why a notorious liar, Joe Klein, was hired to write lies about liars. He is a professional.

"McCain is the most stylish liar, so he gets the best coverage."
I agree wholeheartedly. Scherer just did a post about how awesome it is that McCain lies to us, and Carney just did a post about how awesome it is that McCain is manipulating the media better than Cesar Chavez trains dogs.

Hey Joe, please pass along this message to Scherer:
Get off McCain's nuts!
Ask some hard f---ing questions!
Do your goddamned job!

This is via atrios:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/31662.html

The US, in support of Iraqi Shi-ites in the "government" who are allied with the Iranian Revolutionary Party, are now bombing Iraqi Shiite nationalists from the air, nationalists who have broad support, and are opposed to closer ties to Iran.

It's like watching an eight year old with a bucket of M-80s and a pond full of bullfrogs.

Except that these are people we're talking about, generations of people, being killed, and whose families are turning against the United States, and will justifiably be against the US, if not forever (see Vietnam) for at least a decade.

This is madness. How can this be better than disengagement and withdrawal of all forces?

Cliff,

It's Cesar Millan who does not train his dogs as well as Sen. McCain trains his journalists. But to be fair to Millan, McCain, or rather Charlie Black, has lots of MSM execs on speed dial so the senator ultimately controls his pack with what amounts to shock collars.

I, too, was impressed by McCain's speech. My candidate is Obama. If Hillary does somehow rise from the dead to secure the nomination, I won't vote for her but I was weighing whether to cast my protest vote for Nader or McCain. McCain's speech makes me more inclined to cast a protest vote for him IF Obama is not the nominee on the Democratic side.

''A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil''

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

McCain's is merely presenting the false war story--watch America buy it whole

How can this be better than disengagement and withdrawal of all forces?

Hint: We still control the oil.

McCain's distance from George W. Bush

Joe Klein has a Serious form of amnesia which makes him forget all of the grandiose speeches that George Bush has given over the past 7-8 years about Katrina, democracy building, and other subjects that were great speeches but had no basis in the reality of the administration. (Then again, he did fall for George Bush’s trick every single time, so John McCain might as well play the rube for an easy mark.) He also forgets John McCain's record of speaking against torture but voting to allow it at least twice. He also forgets John McCain's record of being against environmental legislation without heavy subsidies for the nuclear power lobby.

McCain is on his best behavior in the Iraq section.

It’s OK to lie and say that “al Qaeda in Iraq will survive” because, by gum, he’s John F’N McCain!

Of course, civil war in Iraq could easily descend into some very nasty fighting--as we're seeing in Basra--even with a massive U.S. presence in country.

(I’m sorry, but I intend to express my anger without a personal attack, hence the noise level.)

IT IS DESCENDING INTO VERY NASTY FIGHTING RIGHT NOW! NO COULD! IT IS! JOE KLEIN SAID IT EARLIER THIS WEEK, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! HE SHOULDN’T WOBBLE JUST BECAUSE MCDADDY TOLD ANOTHER LIE!

*cough*

Also whitewashed over was the section where, as the kids would say, he "called out" China AND Russia, in turn. Any student of foreign affairs could tell you that section was a diplomatic way of saying, "You're either with us or against us." I do appreciate Joe Klein not trying to tell us otherwise; John McCain has always has what I shall diplomatically call “aggressive” policy towards those two powers.

"Which is the real McCain?"

He's said one thing for five years minus two days and another for two days. Only identity politics explains how this could possibly be a question.

Which is the real McCain?

The real McCain will be whisked away to a military airfield when the incoming missiles aimed at Washington D.C. are detected. The 20 minutes of warning will give him just enough time to board the E-4B Advanced Airborne National Command Post. From a safe distance and altitude, he will probably see some of the detonations as the entire D.C. Metro area is incinerated by Chinese ICBMs.

McCain will feel some regret for the loss of life, but he will know that he has fulfilled his destiny to lead America at a time of great crisis. Never surrender were the words he lived by, and he wasn't about to yield to a Chinese ultimatum. The Chinese would learn that they were facing a real American war hero.

You have to be impressed at how McCain can say two things that directly contradict each other and the two people listening will both assume the part they agreed with was what he really meant and the part they disagreed with was the wink wink nudge nudge part Scherer is such a fan of.

McCain is on his best behavior in the Iraq section. He refrains from his foolish, inaccurate "Al-Qaeda-is-Gonna-Take-Over" rhetoric

Soft bigotry of low expectations, Joe.

As for McCain's comments...

If we withdraw prematurely from Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq will survive,

Probably not, not in any significant number.

proclaim victory

Who gives a sh-t?

and continue to provoke sectarian tensions that, while they have been subdued by the success of the surge,

Whoops, those talking points are getting old.

still exist, as various factions of Sunni and Shi'a have yet to move beyond their ancient hatreds, and are ripe for provocation by al Qaeda.

Were it not for al Qaeda's nefarious influence, Northern Ireland would have been a land of peace and harmony over the past three decades.

Not everything bad in the world is al Qaeda. And attacking stuff and labeling it al Qaeda doesn't make our actions smart.

provocation by al Qaeda.

Shia militias are shooting it out in the streets of Basra right now, fighting for oil money and power. Ask them about Al Qaeda.

Is there no limit of absurdity here? Is there no gong or clown mallet that can be invoked to stop this childish nonsense? Can we please stop this imbecilic invocation of the Al Qaeda bogeyman at every opportunity?

It's time to chant the Joe Klein mantra:

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID

We can only hope that this speech marks the beginning of the Republican Party's journey away from pre-emptive unilateralism...and toward a reunion with the world community.

Clap louder. Only YOU can save tinkerbell!

In other news, Sadr's men have blown up a major oil pipeline in Basra. This is his way of getting attention. World crude prices went up to $107 per barrel on the news.

The price of crude oil surged this morning after saboteurs bombed one of Iraq's main oil pipelines in what was feared to be a backlash attack by powerful Shia Muslim militias.

The attack is being seen as an act of retaliation for the Government's campaign to crack down on the Shia private armies, many of them Iranian-backed, which have exerted a powerful and violent influence over the south and centre of Iraq.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3631718.ece

Is the surge working yet?

Joe, your McCain mancrush is showing.

John McCain caved in to George Bush on torture. Yet, here you are acting as an extension of his press office and helping them to bury that uncomfortable fact like a cat burying it's waste.

Since you haven't yet linked your embarrassing article on Gore as top of the ticket solution to the Obama/Clinton fight, I must comment here. Joe, what are you smoking? Can I get me some of that? With all your disclaimers, one would think you'd have ultimately thought better of submitting such a ridiculous scenario. Didn't have any thing else in the can??? I know there are idiots in the party who have suggested this this week, but they are solidly in the lunatic fringe on this one.

The only thinking that would explain such a move: "Okay, so the white woman can't stop the black man, let's push in the effeminate, fat blowhard white guy down the peoples' throats." Do you think the party is that racist? Really?

Obama is the democratic party's choice, along with the majority of voters and delegates decided. Waking up to that is the only thing that will end this silly season you reference. And then we can get about the business of moving the best candidate most of us have seen in our lifetimes into the general and into the white house.

Wow, that was some freaking BB-cue.

For once, Joe Klein, like a stopped clock, is right. Joe is a master liar, so he knows that Americans will vote for Obama in polls then show their racism in the voting booth.

The reason 20% of HRC supporters say they will switch to McCain is that they are racists who will never vote for a dark-skinned leader - even Jesus with a heavy suntan.

If further research confirms that Obama is a loser because of American racism facts of life, Gore, Wesley Clark, or some other dark horse may be the only sensible option.

Oh come on. You could have a poll on whether the earth is round and 20% would say its flat. Let's stop blaming the unwashed rabble for our own elite/privileged racism and paranoid projections. Plenty, PLENTY of white folks have already marched into to the secret sanctity of the voting booth and have pushed the button for a black man. For once, the great unwashed mass of the American people has shown itself more enlightened than the racist elites of the media.

Here's the rule: the more likeable/charming guy or gal wins. Period. The more Obama gets time to demonstrate his personality and charm, the higher his poll numbers go. The more time a Hillary or a Gore get the same time, the more they tank. Obama has soundly won lilly white areas in this country and even managed to win southern Illinois, most racist place I know). And yes, it was against Alan Keyes, but still, everyone knew he was a sellout to the white republicans and was their guy.

Where is the effect from the Wright flap, the one that HC is now so cynically trying to revive??? If your theories (and the media's) of racism as determining factor held, his poll numbers would have sunk. Instead, right about where they were nationally before or better.

These theories are simply cover for the theorists' racist projections. But believe me, I do believe elite liberal racism is the only threat now, not the so called Joe American. Its Joe Media. Our buddy Mr. Primary Colors.

Elite liberal racism is the only threat because it can stop this race from being played out in the general. It can game the system and rig the thing so its stopped before it has a chance to be decided by the American people of the 2000s and not the 1960s. To blame Obama's defeat at the hands of the party machinery on the threat of what the paranoid/fantasy/projection of what the unwashed rabble might do is the ultimate hypocrisy and betrayal and enactment of privileged and oblivous white liberal racism. I have more faith in the majority of the party, even, than that, not to mention the rest of the country. I still believe most will get this right and sweep out the Clintons and their sometime media allies, all cynical and/or unconcious manipulators of race and unexamined racism.

Racism has made the difference for the Republicans for decades. They are now the preferred party of the racist Sunbelt. Reagan's clever references to "welfare queens" and "young bucks" were precisely aimed and helped win him the Presidency. Willie Horton did the same for daddy Bush.

I wish we didn't live in a racist country, but we do.

And one final comment now that I've got the p&v out: Joe, I actually really like your columns 75% of the time. I know that might come as a shock. But the other 25% really deserve to be figurativly beat out of you. I know you have some better angels of your nature, its just that your demons too often win you over. You've written some of the most well articulated, humane and compassionate and even hopeful lines I've read in political discourse. They and your journalistic integrity don't deserve to be sullied by the lies you told after writing PC and the perhaps unconsious racist garbage you often produce in the pages of TIME, perhaps after a bender. Be a better man, writer, journalist and thinker. We all know you're capable of it.

If you're not, the rest of us here will make sure you know it.

Now forget the nice things any of us flame-throwing commenters have accidentally said about you and get to work on a better column. Or remember it if that gets you going. Whatever, just get back to work.

HH, check out places like Virginia. The tide is turning in some significant places my friend, and it would be a shame to have the Democratic party be the anchor that obstructs it until it is itself destroyed.

This guy really is just Bush all over again. He just blathers whatever he thinks is going to sound good at the moment, without any intention of doing anything other than what he's been doing all along.

This guy really is just Bush all over again.

Yes and no. I do think McCain is his own man, not likely to be played as a pawn by a monster like Cheney. But what kind of a man is he? The accumulated record suggests that he is irritable, narcissistic, opportunistic, vengeful, and unpredictable. This is not a man you want in the White House in a nuclear confrontation with China.

What makes McCain especially dangerous is his unlikely survival of numerous brushes with death. Such individuals often develop a mystical sense of "mission" that can have dangerous consequences for those around them. I do not wish to die in a nuclear war resulting from the mental instability of John McCain.

Does Joke spit or swallow?

I can't figure out if this is satire or serious.

"Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war."

The jackass just described himself and his morally corrupt party. I like how its self plagiarized from 5 years ago. St. McCain - return with us to the 20th century.

The Clintons has a fraud case process: use link

Below is the case number of the actual case against Bill and Hillary Clinton for campaign finance fraud.
'
www.lasuperiorcourt.org

Choose Civil - then Case Summary - type in the Case Number BC304174

Case Summary

Case Number: BC304174
PETER F PAUL VS WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON
Filing Date: 10/14/2003
Case Type: Fraud (General Jurisdiction)
Documents Filed | Proceeding Information
Parties

CLINTON HILLARY RODHAM - Defendant/Respondent

CLINTON WILLIAM JEFFERSON - Defendant/Respondent

D. COLETTE WILSON ATTORNEY AT LAW - Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner

DOYEN MICHAEL R. - Attorney for Defendant/Respondent

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON FOR U.S. SENATE - Defendant/Respondent

KREEP GARY G. - Former Attorney for Pltf/Petn

LEVIN JAMES - Defendant/Respondent

02/28/2008 Notice of Ruling (on Ex Parte Application for Extens ion of Time to Serve Pleading )
Filed by Attorney for Pltf/Petnr

02/28/2008 Summons Filed (ON FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT )
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner

02/21/2008 Order-Case Management
Filed by Court

02/21/2008 Ex-Parte Application
Filed by Attorney for Plaintiff/Petitioner

02/21/2008 Notice of Ruling (on Ex Parte Motion for Order Short ening Time & on Motion to Discharg e Gary G. Kreep as Counsel of Reco rd )
Filed by Attorney for Pltf/Petnr

02/21/2008 Statement-Case Management