- Obama initially claims additional troops will not solve things and probably will make things worse. I can take "worse" to mean that Iraqi's will continue to be dependent on American military might while advancing their own military and politics more slowly. The video then shows him one year later saying that additional troops would result in increased security and lower violence. I don't hear a flip-flop; I hear apples (long-term results) and oranges (short-term results).
- Our troops are doing a good job of their assigned task. That is difficult to question considering few, if any, other countries have militaries that could or would do something similar. Applauding the troops' work does not equate with opposing a troop surge.
- The war in Iraq has gone on for at least 5 years now. To show clips from various years of Obama speaking about the war should be expected to change because the situation in Iraq is changing. I consider it illogical and foolish to hold the same position through 5 years of such a situation. One formulates a response and a plan to what transpires. This is poor politics on McCain's behalf.
- It's not as simple as voting for or against additional funding for the war. This may reflect a broken political system that makes it difficult to vote about items individually.
- The "translation" pages are bogus, appealing to Americans that don't, or won't, think critically about such weighty issues. Worst of all, it's called a "documentary". Please, callit political propaganda or something else accurately reflecting its true nature. This is, again, dirty politics from McCain.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
McCain "Documentary" on Obama's Iraq Policy
Here's a link to a 7 minute video put out by McCain. I still have to give his campaign credit for having better multimedia than Obama's, to my surprise. The point of the video is to show that Obama has flip-flopped on the issue of Iraq. I noted a few irregularities:
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I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with several of your points here. I'll respond briefly to each of the items you listed:
ReplyDelete1. What Obama actually said about the surge is not that it would "make things worse" in general, but specifically that it would not solve the sectarian violence and would in fact "do the reverse." This can only be taken to mean that Obama opposed the surge on the grounds that it would increase sectarian violence. In the later comments in the video, Obama claims that he said adding troops would cause a reduction in violence. The two statements are in contradiction. I don't consider this a flip-flop so much as a lie. Obama is falsely representing his position on the surge to make it appear that his predictions were correct.
2. Not sure what you're saying here. Opposing the troop surge does not equal opposing the troops? That's true, as far as it goes, but I don't see where the "documentary" claims otherwise.
3. I wholeheartedly agree that it is reasonable to change positions as the situation changes. That said, don't then claim that you held the same position all along and were proven correct. Secondly, on this point, the main issue is not Obama's consistency, but his judgment. Obama opposed the troop surge because he believed it would increase violence. Now Obama says that the surge has reduced violence. Presumably, had Obama been president, he would not have implemented the surge, so it is reasonable for McCain's campaign to suggest that Obama misjudged the situation in Iraq and that being incorrect in this instance calls into question his other proposals for the Iraq War.
4. I agree with you here, for the most part. There are many reasons why someone may vote for or against a bill. Just make sure you remember that fact when Democrats try to attack McCain for "voting against the troops" on the "new" GI bill. Secondly, I'm not sure that I agree with your statement that the way the legislature works reflects "a broken political system." Compromise is an essential element of the legislative process and we might not want a system in which all items are voted on individually. This is one reason I oppose the line-item veto for the President. After Congress has hammered out a compromise bill that is amenable to a majority of the House and the Senate, the President should not be able to strike out just some parts and not others.
5. I don't see how the translation slides are "bogus." They are meant to sum up the point of including the clips that preceded them. You may disagree with them, but that does not make them bogus (though I certainly think a few of them try to guess at motives when they shouldn't). Secondly, the term "documentary" may be a bit of a stretch. I would call it an ad, even a negative one, if you prefer. However, the ad is made up of clips of Barack Obama speaking in his own words. There is no indication that anything is fabricated or that statements are taken entirely out of context for the purposes of the piece, so it is--in a sense--documenting Obama's history on this issue. It is certainly no more partisan or opinionated that many of the full-length documentaries that are out there (Michael Moore comes immediately to mind, of course). Finally, this ad may be negative and it may paint Senator Obama in a less-than-flattering light, but I don't see how it amounts to "dirty politics." Surely you agree that the candidates' positions on the surge and other issues are legitimate topics for discussion in this campaign. There is no ad hominem attack made in this video, as far as I can see. The ad is about policies and the truth of a candidate's statements, both of which should be able to be raised as issues in a political campaign.