Aug 16th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
The Judgment to Lead
The New York Times has a good piece that actually looks at John McCain’s record in the post-9/11 world instead of just gazingly lovingly at his credentials. Highlight:
Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”
Meanwhile, nobody ever talks about this, but I promise you that back in 1999, McCain was calling for a land invasion of Serbia.
21 Responses to “The Judgment to Lead”
Register
RSSLogin
Advertisement
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Books By Matthew Yglesias
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Afghanistan
Basketball
Budget
China
climate
Congress
DC
Denmark
Economics
Economy
education
Energy
Environment
Finance
Gender
Germany
Health Care
History
International Law
International Relations
Iran
Israel
Media
Monetary Policy
National Security
NBA
Pakistan
Palestine
Philosophy
planning
Political Reform
Proliferation
Public Health
Public Opinion
Race
Regulation
Russia
Science
Sports
Stimulus
Sweden
taxes
Technology
Trade
transportation
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Contact Matthew Yglesias
Use this form to contact blog author Matthew Yglesias.
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
August 17th, 2008 at 12:12 am
In 1999 almost everyone thought that a ground invasion of Serbia would be necessary to end the Kosovo genocide. It appeared that Clinton had accepted a foolish “air only” posture in order to keep Congress from outlawing the war, and up until the day Milo crumbled it was assumed that Clinton would at some point send in ground forces. Obviously in retrospect relying on air power was a brilliant move, because it worked (without any U.S. combat casualties.)
August 17th, 2008 at 1:35 am
The close of that 1999 article???
Sometimes Mr. McCain will self-deprecatingly mock his own war record. At a recent Washington dinner featuring skits by reporters, he walked to a lectern, overloaded with war ribbons, and joked about his time as a prisoner of war and his quixotic attempts to ban the unregulated contributions to political parties known as soft money.
”As I was lying there in my prison cell in Hanoi having my legs broken by interrogators, one thought and one thought alone kept me going,” he said to laughs from the crowd, ”that some day I would come home and do something about soft money.”
But he acknowledged that the capture of three Americans by the Serbs left him anguished. ”It did bring back a few memories of when I was first captured,” he said, ”which I rarely ever think about.”
———–
The guys goes on non-stop about his POW experience. What he did was impressive and I respect that. But the sheer duplicity of the media with the tired “McCain reluctantly brought up his war record while discussing a completely unrelated topic” absolutely makes me nuts. He has nothing else to run on people! How about you start calling him on it? Wesley Clark was right. What happened in Hanoi 30+ years ago is largely irrelevant to running the United States of America in the year 2009.
If McCain can’t even begin to talk about the important issues (health care, our outlandish reliance on oil, the great sucking sound of dollars and lives lost coming from Iraq, etc.) then why should this race even be close? The Celebrity ads are pure Rove nonsense and distraction tactics and our media should be ashamed at their duplicity in getting to this point…
August 17th, 2008 at 7:23 am
If you are an unapologetic author and supporter of the biggest fiasco in American foreign policy history, if you cannot properly prioritize our national security challenges, then you cannot claim to represent a better Commander in Chief.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:44 am
The guys goes on non-stop about his POW experience.
One does have to admit, however, that those two quips of his were pretty darn funny.
August 17th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Maybe I was paranoid, but when I picked up the front page and saw the stacked articles about McCain and Obama, I had the opposite reaction. The headlines paired McCain as one who responded to 9/11 and Obama as needing to get real rather than just empty rhetoric of hope, both GOP talking points. Sure, that’s just the editorial addition, and the articles are a bit better. Even so, the McCain article starts right in with fearless leader recognizing the thread. “just after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. ‘This is war,’ he murmured to his aides. The sound of scrambling fighter planes rattled the windows, sending a tremor of panic through the room.” Dare one even question whether there were terrorist bombers flying overhead in this epic battle?
August 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am
McCain never met a war he didn’t like.
McCain has a quote at the end of that article: “I believe voters elect their leaders based on their experience and judgment — their ability to make hard calls, for instance, on matters of war and peace,” he wrote. “It’s important to get them right.”
But of course, he gets them rght about as often as a stopped clock.
August 17th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
“Next up, Knotted Pines Old Age Home!”
August 17th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Anybody else notice that he called Kosovo a “transcendent” issue? How many transcendent struggles of our time have there been according to this guy?
August 17th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
It’s interesting that another commenter brings in Wesley Clark, commander of Nato’s campaign in Kosovo. Of that war Clark wrote, ” the threat of a ground attack, I believe, proved decisive.” Here. There’s a longer story behind that, of initial expectations that a few days of bombing would be sufficient, of Nato coming to the end of its initial target list with still no movement from Milosevic, of Clark moving a many ground forces as possible into Albania to make Serbia think he was planning a ground invasion, and having to do it under the justification of ground support and force protection because of political resistance to committing ground forces. By arguing for invasion, McCain was leading where Clinton would follow. Again, in Clark’s own words:
August 17th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
JohnH, the latest Atlantic Monthly has a typically lengthy article by James Fallows on the presidential election titled “Rhetorical Questions.” That’s fine but on the cover retitles the article as “The Orator vs. the Warrior.” Nice framing there, don’t you think?
August 17th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
I’ve been telling you guys for weeks now that McCain is running totally on his “war hero” myth – and that unless Obama guts McCain on it by Swiftboating his ass, Obama is going to LOSE.
Get with the program. There’s a REASON Obama is barely tied to McCain in the polls – and the reason is that the Powers That Be intend McCain to win and the MSM is going to be pressured to insure that it’s framed that way – war hero vs uppity black guy.
Already, some people are suggesting that this whole Georgia thing was instigated by the neocons to make sure McCain gets “war hero” talking points (while Obama surfs in Hawaii) since it might be too difficult to get the Iran war going.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:26 am
vucxni omect nare hfznscxgy eifkgluv fjymza jbiom
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:41 am
levitraI want to say – thank you for this!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:59 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:27 am
tramadol
Great site. Good info
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 am
buy viagra online
I want to say – thank you for this!
March 24th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Hey, I own a similar blog as yours, and have a question. How do you control spam?
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:24 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
cheap brand pfizer viagra