Friday, May 30, 2008

Ready to Lead, Huh?

You might be more convincing, Senator if you, oh, I dunno, had a clue what you were talking about:



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.

Uh, nope. There are 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, which is, last time I checked, more than the 130,000 we had there pre-surge.

The McCain campaign's reaction?

Advisers to Sen. John McCain said the flap over whether the senator was mistaken about the troop level in Iraq is nothing more than "nitpicking" about "verb tenses."

McCain's advisers, including Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl and McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, both hit back hard on a conference call this afternoon.

"It is the essence of semantics," a frustrated Scheunemann told reporters who asked about the mistake. "We're having this call about a verb tense. If you choose to write a story about Senator McCain and a verb tense, you need to hold Senator Obama to the exact same standard."

Let's be clear here: Republicans are lambasting Obama because he misstated the name of the concentration camp his great uncle liberated 63 years ago. McCain doesn't know the number of troops we have in Iraq RIGHT NOW. Either that, or he's lying through his teeth.

"Verb tenses. " Jesus Christ.

If I tell my wife, "yes, I took out the garbage" and I have not, in fact, taken out the garbage, I have not "missed a verb tense." I have lied.

Here's another howler from the McCain campaign:

considering Barack Obama hasn't been to Iraq in 873 days and has never had a one on one meeting with Gen. Petraeus, it isn't a surprise to anyone that he demonstrates weak leadership.

So what does it say that McCain HAS gone to Iraq and HAS met with Gen. Petraeus, and he STILL gets it wrong?





2 comments:

Toni said...

Or, just as bad, so confused as to not know the difference. Which, frankly, scares me.

Randy Johnson said...

JD, one thing I've learned listening to the Bush adminisration is that arguing with them is like banging your head against a brick wall. You come away damaged and bloody and they go serenely on as if nothing happened.
After all, they still insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that we had good reason for going for going into Iraq(I mean besides trying to control crude oil flow).
And what will McCain's administration be, assuming he's elected(God, I hope not), but an extension of Bush's.