Friday, May 30, 2008

The dogs and ponies are doing fine

Think Progress, with video, links, and comments:

Yesterday, CNN’s Michael Ware dismissed Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) recent assertion that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) travel to Iraq in order to get a better sense of the war. Ware said that U.S. officials’ trips to Iraq are usually “divorced from reality” adding that its “impossible” to “get much of a real picture.” Ware then noted that McCain’s own trips to Iraq have not helped him get a sense of the realities in Iraq:

WARE: I’ll issue a word of caution, too. I mean Senator McCain has been here, what, more than half a dozen times. And we’ve seen him get assessments of Iraq terribly wrong. So I wouldn’t be hanging my hat on the fact that your opponent has only been here once.

McCain did make a correct assessment of the dog and pony shows the administration had the Brass trot out for him. I've stood, and passed, inspections with inoperable gussied-up-to-look-good gear too. Shoot it may, but shine it must.

It's like assessing a used car by its paint job. You'll be sor-ree! It's no basis for foreign policy.

Related:

McCain falsely claims Mosul is ‘quiet.’

Today at a townhall meeting in Wisconsin, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) tried to claim that President Bush’s policies in Iraq are “succeeding,” by pointing to the “quiet” in Mosul and other cities:

So I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.


Mosul, however, is not quiet. In fact, today AP reported, “Another suicide bomber driving a police vehicle struck Iraqi commandos earlier Thursday in Mosul, killing three of them and wounding nine other people, according to battalion commander Capt. Aziz Latif.”

Thank you, McSenile, for proving my earlier point.

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