Thinking about McCain

by Demophilus

Patrick Appel links to a video montage of McCain's various statements about the duration of our stay in Iraq. Am I the only one who actually likes McCain more after watching it? By that I mean that with the partial exception of the "100 years" comment I actually think McCain has fairly consistently argued that adhering to an artificial timetable for withdrawal, regardless of the facts on the ground, would be imprudent. When he talks about staying for a longer period of time, McCain seems to to do so only with large caveats -- most notably, that Americans aren't being killed. And its worth noting that the video leaves out all discussion of the size of our presence. What if "staying" means a rather small group of advisers remain in Iraq to help train their army? The point is that McCain's core message has been that our policy should be based on actual conditions in Iraq, and setting a date for withdrawal that we adhere to no matter what would not be responsible. And if we do stay, it would only be because it is not costing us all that much in terms of life and treasure. He's been fairly consistent on this. He's acted as if the details will always be in a state of flux, dependent on local conditions. So why should we expect the details of his comments to always remain the same?

I also want to make a point about how the Left (forgive the generality) wants us to think about McCain. His liberal detractors want us to believe that he has a temper, is prone to flying off the handle, and thus possesses a kind of underlying rage that makes him ill suited for the presidency. But they also want us to then parse his every statement as if it were a measured, well-thought out policy brief. In short, the Left wants us to believe McCain will often say things that are flippant AND then act as if we should treat these very statements as if they represented his considered position. I'm not sure you can have it both ways. Its just stupid to repeat day after day that McCain is the type to say frivolous things and then feign shock when he, in fact, does.

For awhile now I've considered this similar to how many liberals want us to think about Reagan -- that he was stupid, perhaps senile, an "amiable dunce" who didn't know anything AND that he was the mastermind behind Iran-Contra who should be held accountable for his furtive, diabolical scheming. (You could play this game with multiple policies; Iran-Contra is merely my favorite.)

Comments

[Dare Dorm]

Great one