Login HereMcSame is getting absolutely hammered today for his comments about Iraq on Good Morning Lauer.
LAUER: "If it's [the surge] working, Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?"
McCAIN: "No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That's all fine."
What's noteworthy here is that this is pretty much word-for-word what he said in his now famous 100-years-in-Iraq pledge, even down to the word, "fine."
Q: "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years..."
McCain: "Make it a hundred."
Q: "Is that ..." (cut off)
McCain: "We've been in South Korea ... we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans ...as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That's fine with me, I hope that would be fine with you..."
Make no mistake -- this is not some gaffe or Macaca moment. It's quite clear that McSame, like Bush, wants to occupy Iraq forever. And Americans will have a clear choice in November between indefinite occupation and getting out as quickly as possible.
The problem for the McCain campaign is that he keeps stumbling into clear statements of his actual policy, which is close to lethal since the vast majority of Americans disagree with his policy and Iraq is virtually the only thing he's running on.
Oh well.
Share This 
Spotlight
Bring on the debates! It’s gonna be like the Nixon-Kennedy debates, but in color!
I wish I could get excited about the debates. But Kerry won all three against Bush and got nothin’.
Oh sure, harsh my mellow.
The difference this time, of course, is that Obama is going to win. If for no other reason than the price of gas will be $5/gallon by that time. As Carville said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
It is so crystal clear. McCain sees the US forces as “occupation” forces. He believes that the US should occupy as many countries and/or regions as possible to maintain peace. That is his philosophy. He doesn’t see the forces living and defending the US at home and deploying when necessary. They are to be permanently deployed overseas in permanent bases…coming home occasionally to see their families…for the rest of their lives.
That is the essence of his thinking.
I remember watching the Kerry/Bush debates and being infuriated that Kerry would ignore smears, misrepresentations, and half-truths from Bush. I remember yelling at the TV that Kerry was letting repeated opportunities to slap Bush down pass by without a word.
All Obama has to do is slap McCain down once and watch his head explode.
Hey everybody, I don’t know about you, but I have a nice large ad from McCain’s campaign site right here on the link.
Let’s everybody click it and cost the bastards some money!
This is one sick dude…
Nah, I recall differently. Kerry did well, and he won independents in all three.
He cleaned Bush’s clock.
oops, right here on the lake, I meant to say…
The sole content
sof the newly released book, “Famous Quotes of James Carville.”Had it yesterday and clicked it until I lost my din-din. No gots today. Good thing. I just had lunch.
Bring on the debates! It’s gonna be like the Nixon-Kennedy debates, but in color!
lime green jello salad, baby!
Despite the fact that it’s presented as a survey, when you click on a box you find that they’re not actually interested in your answer, they only want to tell you what you should think, and hit you up for money.
It’s the only way they know how to use the intertoobz. Since McShitForBrains is computer illiterate he requires all his staff to follow suit. Damn, I went back to school at 53 and earned a computer science degree. How hard can it be, fer cryin’ out loud?
i guess they are smart enough to at least clean up his golf store
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=10594
Obama’s going to WAX poor McCane in the debates. Almost doesn’t seem fair.
I think johnny macs handlers need to take a cue from Tucker Carlson,when he made a bet that he would eat his shoe if HRC did something,I can’t remember what the bet was,But I remember when crossfire was on she bought out a shoecake for him it was quite funny.That said johnny mac is putting his foot in his mouth so much lately,he deserves some flavoring on that foot.
The occupation was the point of the war.
McCain and Bush keep telling us but the media won’t let the message be heard.
-G
With a side of crackers.
-G
There were so many of those last night, all over their store. Now they won’t let anyone leave reviews, not even ones extolling the virtues of their t-shirts while trolling for sex in airport bathrooms. So disappointing.
Yeppur. They’ve got some real rocket scientists over there. The reviews and comments are hilarious. I particularly liked the review of the product by none other than McShitForBrains hisself, “These balls were modeled after my own. They are hard enough to knock out a terrorist.”
Obama’s going to WAX poor McCane in the debates.
McSame already has the wax thing going on, a la Madame Tussaud.
piling on . . .
Senator Biden -
Senator Kerry -
Obama Campaign -
Majority Leader Reid -
I reloaded a bunch of times and still didn’t get it. I did, however, get one for Regents University. Clicked through on it a bunch of times. Heh. Take that, Gonzo!
I think this needs to be added in order to put everything into context;
and the interviewer let that rediculous statement go unchallenged
I don’t think there is any professional at all who thinks the surge worked for anything but allowing a greater level of troops
Sheesh.
I do believe that McSame is truly incapable of controlling his mouth to the extent that he will continue to throw wrench after wrench after wrench into his campaign transmission. His only real hope of getting elected is the level of stupidity, hate, and fear extant in the general American public - these are the people that will fall for the Willy Horton adds, the Obama-Osama-Muslim innuendo, etc.
It will be interesting to watch the contest between McSame’s self immolation due to his mouth (and by extension, his policies) dragging himself down in flames and the RWNM scare and hate mongering driving him up.
But remember:
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public –HL Menken
lol, yeah, that was pretty funny.
OT–Second day in a row of big afternoon thunderstorms here. Maybe our drought will end.
Don’t worry, pups. I unplugged and am running on battery until the lightning stops.
there was some good news on the radio today, the polls show that obama has arrowed the bigot devide here in new york
before he won the primary he was an underdog to for white males mccain by quite a few points and now they are tied
but that’s new york, I fear obama might not be able to overcome bigotry where it counts the most
I know, and I certainly wouldn’t go past the sign up page.
But they get charged each time a new person clicks the link, it doesn’t matter if anyone actually signs up.
oh and some guy named Wes -
bombing Iran, he betrays a disrespect for the office of the presidency.”
Re: Obama withdrawing the troops. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I remember that - Tucker said if she sold X number of books he would eat his shoe.
Her coming on his show with the shoe cake was an incredibly classy way to tell him to shove it up his ass.
I wait in eager anticipation, but Obama was not the best candidate on the debates, let’s hope he rises to that occasion and is well prepared with a barrage that will stun McCain into a babbling old man
let’s hope we get the oportunity to press the issue
Think news of this is getting to the troops?
What can FDL do to get un-blocked from military bases?
Exactly, exactly, exactly…he has no policy formulation experience. He has no national security policy formulation experience. It is BS. Clark lays it out correctly.
Considering how close McCain is currently, it shouldn’t take much of a push.
Why can’t FDL commenters be as funny as the ones on John McCain’s “Golf Gear” link?
McCain is holding on tight to the “put the boot up someone’s ass” vote.
He keeps repeating the permanent bases in other parts of the country like it’s a true analogy. It’s BS. Of course. But the boot/ass people might buy it.
ooops, epu-ed:
Fresh Froomkin up now. Bush’s latest Iraq backfire.
And MSNBC pimpin’ the Nightly News broadcast release tonihgt of first-ever super-duper razzle-dazzle Wall Street Journal poll on Obama-McCain matchup
Lately, I have been finding that SOME blogs are no longer blocked (USAFR). Dkos, Firedog, and a scattering of others are no longer blocked entirely. What is proving impossible, however, is logging in so one can post.
After the election’s over or they stop the blogad, whichever comes first, we must remember to send them a nice thank you note for all the money they gave us so we could continue to hammer him.
McSame is admitting, unwittingly, that CheneyBush’s goal is the permanent occupation of Iraq. Were he not, he would envision an endgame and return of our troops and be devising a plan to achieve them. He doesn’t. He probably can’t imagine why or how they would come home. They’re just there. Shouldn’t they be? Wrong question, St. John.
Keeping our forces — including the half of them comprised of very expensive contractors and mercenaries (arranged under largely still secret, and no doubt, poorly drafted contracts) — in Iraq, would be excruciatingly expensive and serve no purpose other than to inflame passions against us throughout the world. Even assuming that all is peaceful and that none of them come home in a box.
But an occupying army of 300,000+ troops and mercenaries, in a land where they are deeply resented, will suffer repeated heavy casualties. Think France in Algeria, the British in India, America in the Philippines, American in Iraq. Troops will suffer and die. They will come in home in pieces, whether alive or dead.
McCain’s choices, as with those presented to us by CheneyBush, are false. Our options do not include a fifty or hundred year peaceful occupation of Iraq, as if it were suburban Tokyo or Seoul, where the biggest risk is getting drunk, being ripped off in Itaewon, or the embarrassment of an errant GI “merely” raping a few locals. Staying in Iraq means continued warfare, the continued destruction of Iraq, and unnecessarily heightened danger to us at home and abroad. McSame would willingly drive us off the cliff because his only mode of operation is pedal to the metal, full steam ahead.
Gas may be $5 a gallon before election day–part of the re-make of Enron Summer–but betcha gas will be $2 or thereabouts right before election day as Team BushCo counts on total American amnesia…with a little chaser of scary black man coming from the likes of Floyd Brown.
Well I know the mighty informed folks here at the Lake know the facts. But we’re also going to have to chip away at “image” politics as well. Not everyone has caught onto the game.
I hope you are correct, but I’m not sure that the debate won’t center around something like gay marriage. CA has a ballot measure that will be on the ballot in November putting a ban on gay marriage into the constitution. Gas will be much higher by then, but it the debate’s about keeping gays from marrying, gas prices or other priceswon’t matter. Nothing will be more important to the Republics than standing firmly against gays being married, not Iraq, not the economy, nothing.
Many of those same Republic politicians like marriage so much they get married more than once. It might be interesting to ask them why they want to protect gays from divorce.
My niece is a civilian living on a military base. She can see FDL via RSS, but can not log in or play the youtubes.
He’s really a very unintelligent person.
Republics just have to get close and let Dibold do the rest.
Having been one of those “American troops in Japan” in my tenure in the military it was of great comfort to me that no one was shooting at me or putting IEDs under my car when I went off base.
What an incredible jackass. Hmmmm…let’s see, when we “occupied” Japan and Germany it was following their defeat in a agressive war that they had waged and we and our allies won. In the case of Korea we are technically still there as part of the UN Forces called into Korea during that “Police Action”, and left behind as a remnant of the Cold War. Trust me when I tell you that the South Korean army is a very, very capable and fearless force and would give the North K’s as good as they would get, should they ever cross the 38th Parallel southbound. It would be a numbers and weapons game if that balloon ever went up, pure and simple.
So that leaves St John of Dementia and his George Bush’s dirty little civil war. We leave our troops forever in the middle of a civil war, eh? Nice planning from a guy who says he’s all about the military and foreign policy. Sounds to me like he’s got two agendas: to leave a force in place to invade Iran and to see if fellating Bill Kristol makes him gay or just happy.
We are more up against the media than we are McCain.
My favorite golf gear comment
why won’t gas prices fall like in ‘06?
LOL!!
Thanks for saying it more clearly than I can! :]
It’s going to take a real big push to work around the cable TV news blather but I think he can do it.
Just as bad, in an applicant for the world’s hardest job, is that he follows his lobbyists’ lead the same Pavlovian way that Bush heels at Dick Cheney’s command. And McSame would make Cheney his DNI or SecDef. Imagine that one.
I like the nickname for Iraq: “the sand trap”.
When and if companies like GE start losing money in Iraq, the political slant will change.
It is the corporations that own the media that control the message that control the minds of the vulnerable listeners that are the major opponent.
Wow! You get my vote for False Occupation Analogies Pushback spokesperson!!! wtg.
More like this please!!!
Yes, it is really bizarre. Were there American troops getting killed every day in Tokyo or Berlin in 1951?
At first I was offended by right-wing ads on lefty blogs, but then it was explained exactly how those things work…
I can cost the right money while helping the left all by clicking a link… …and then closing the page the second it is done loading.
So click those right wing links people. For extra fun, you can sign up using Worse_than_bush@asshat.com as your email address, that sends an added message!
need a wedge to get outta it
Yes. McCain responded “Hell yeah” when asked if he would use Cheney in his cabinet.
I like the one at the top:
too funny.
I also like the fact they have to “dirty” themselves by appearing in DFH territory.
Clearly, the man is not thinking with a full deck.
Carpetbagger’s take on all this is that McCain’s confusion has nothing to do with his age
This morning on Democracy Now, McClellan said that Cheney looked at the oil reserves in Iraq and likely considered controlling those reserves as a reason for war, but he couldn’t be sure…It will replay this afternoon. The transcript on their website didn’t go as far as McClellan talking about the Iraq war, but if you listen to the program you will hear him say that.
When McCain’s advisors and supporters hear this, do they cringe, or pump their fists in a macho frenzy of agreement?
Did Matt Lauer follow up with a question like, “But our armed forces are strained beyond belief - doesn’t that mean we need to bring many of them home? Or, since Afghanistan is not going so well, shift them over there??”
some of us left some of those comments.
Glad someone saved a copy!
How much did it fall? When it soon goes past $5/gallon how much will it have to fall to make voters decide that the Republics are really swell?
Or:
Ouch!
I’m an idjiot. Where is the ad you are speaking of? Which one and where?
Plus, I don’t think they are smart enough to realize their folly. All they see is they got 10,000 clicks from the lefty blog… …obvious answer is to buy more lefty blog ad space!
Or maybe a “terrorist fist jab?”
Don’t use Japan as some great measure of how it should/could be. If you have read Chalmer’s Nemesis you would realize that all is not candy and roses even in Japan. The central government of Japan may be 90% OK with the nature of our occupa…err…presence in Japan but the people actually next to, and often smothered by, US bases and their personnel, the feelings are not all that happy.
Personally, I would like Obama to come into office and as soon as possible announce that our military footprint around the world is going to be shrunken and our SOFAs are to all be renegotiated to be more amenable and considerate to our hosts. First, servicemen and women who commit crimes in their host country must NOT be coddled and protected, and second, the Pentagon must be made responsible for protecting the environment of the land they use AND be responsible for cleanup. No ifs, ands, or buts.
As for Japan, I would like to see most of the Japanese bases shut down and the personnel either brought back stateside or consolidated on many fewer bases. There is no way in hell we need close to 40 frickin’ bases in Japan (no more than we need/deserve close to 60 in Iraq). Our footprint is way too big and it is way too costly for we the taxpayer to support this bloody empire.
Well done. I’ve pissed myself.
Blodads rotates the ads, so we don’t all see the same one. I am talking about a black ad pretending to be a poll that asks “Is is OK to meet unconditionally with anti-American foreign leaders?”
When you click it you go to McCain’s campaign website and a plea for money. There is no actual poll. Try reloading, you might get it this time.
It’s like the right-wing lotto… …some lucky lib’s gonna get it.
Late to the table but this is another ‘kosher bacon’ moment from John McCain - it’s ‘fine’ with him if we station people in Iraq on, like a ‘forever’ basis…as long as no one gets hurt? And he thinks no one has gotten hurt in Japan or Korea or Germany(as if no US personnel has ever been hurt over there…or, has not ever hurt any local civilians?)? Hmm? What alternative universe does he live in? If we stay in Iraq, US personnel is guaranteed to get hurt. And THAT, John McNobrain, is NOT FINE.
I’m not doing that. I agree that we shouldn’t have bases in Japan or Germany. I’m merely pointing out that McCain’s comparison is historically bogus.
McCain has given the media a very consistent position: he is an idiot. Now if only the media would pick up on the story he is telling them.
I’ve heard that ROK Marines are second to none. Koreans may resent our presence, but I believe understand it as a mixed blessing whose demerits can be negotiated. And the North hasn’t invaded and its agents aren’t planting IEDs along the South’s roads and in its cities, bus terminals and airports.
The analogies of Iraq to Germany, Japan, Korea are false. McSame has no more plan than Bush; he may not even know what Bush’s “plan” is. From a distance, it appears to be political and financial profiteering from induced chaos. The resulting wealth and power immunizes that plan’s proponents from the physical and legal risks of their conduct.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission is needed, in part to take away their Linus-like security blanket and to expose them to a little of what they so gleefully brought down on others.
Somehow, we’ve got to get off of the Bush dollar and back to the real AMerican dollar.
with nothing but anecdotal observation to back me up - I disagree
we have seen that little lower the price jit dance again and again - but we didn’t see it this past 3 day week end and I don’t expect to see it for labor day either
could be the extractionists know Republics are on their way out so there’s no reason to risk lower profits on a losing cause
could be the ever increasing demands of the Chinese and Indians, I don’t know - I just know they could’ve helped out the Republics a week ago as they have so often in the past . . .but didn’t
He didn’t get to see his family for five years. Why should they get to see theirs?
He’s just Old Age having a go at Youth, as little Alex would say.
Thanks. I notice that everytime I refresh I get new ads, but they are Snorgtees and Donita. I’ll keep an eye out for the poll one or others.
He’s not necessarily an idiot. He may actually be well on the way to being senile. In either case, we’re doomed if he takes office.
I finally got it. Clicked through close to 20 times. Tried registering an email worse.than.bush@idiot.com (zip code 66666) but it was rejected as invalid email.
Understood.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say we shouldn’t have ANY bases in Japan, Korea, Germany, but I would say we should have FAR fewer - and they should be there on a truly voluntary basis on the part of the host country. No sort of arm twisting or threats involved in getting them or keeping them.
I don’t necessarily think we should have NO footprint around the world amongst our erstwhile allies, just a much, much, smaller and nicer, more tolerable, footprint.
hey Tex! - hope you are well and having a comfortable day -
the easiest way to show it has nothing to do with his age - is showing him expressing the same militaristic and oh so clueless sentiments 20 years ago - and they’re out there believe me. :D
Yeah, and hence the need for impeachment hearings to get the evidence that would otherwise be buried under an avalanche of “Executive Privilege” claims. One of the things any “Truth and Reconciliation” Commission should be empowered to do is to ban for life anyone in this administration from any dealings with any future US Governmental agency or commission unless they are duly elected (will of the people and all) since we seem to get the same recycled fuckers in every administration that the republicans grant us. Y’all know, the “Elliott Abramses” of the DC Weenie set, convicted but still in play.
More footprint, less bootprint.
Imagine Dick Cheney as head of national “intelligence” for St. John of Dementia. (h/t JoFish) You could bury your secrets in the back garden and find them gone the next day. FISA would be remembered as an obsolete Italian car. “Private” would replace “Entrance” at the doorway of every government department in Washington.
The strategic plan is actually to move a lot of our Asian presence back to Guam. There are already reports and studies in the works for greatly expanding infrastructure there. Even so it appears that the Pentagon may have more needs than Guam has land or resources.
There’s no “D” in “itiat”, any more than there is in “soljah”. My Fair and Balanced newsreader tells me so.
I will leave the country.
Ding, ding, ding. I agree absolutely. If the goal is to make sure none of these wombats are ever able to either work in government, get elected or lobby, then this is a great idea.
I saw the Nixon-Kennedy debates, and McCain is no Nixon, and Obama is no Kennedy. The core issue was Quemoy and Matsu — nobody but us oldies remembers — two little islands off the coast of mainland China held by the Nationalists. The big issue was whether the United States would back our ‘ally’ China (i.e. Chiang Kai-shek (old transliteration) in the coming conflict. Though the debates were better than later ones, they held all the seeds of the sound-bite fests we have come to know and love.
You have 2 minutes to respond, Senator.
I new dat.
Yeah, I don’t understand why we need troops in Japan. I think it’s nuts.
loosely related - as predicted by this dfh - a certain disgraced adulterer congressman from Georgia was in both houses yesterday, giving pep talks to the downtrodden - bwaahaaahaaa - he’s the key to Dobson and that fundamentalist fools gold - would love if the Party pressured McCrazy pick him as veep
I think the argument is that with troops spread out across the world, some troops could be deployed in any given region much more quickly in an emergency than loading them up here and flying them 10,000 miles somewhere.
All this gloating when the position of the (D) nominee is not so different.
Obama says ‘yes’ to enduring bases,
Obama says ‘yes’ to using mercenaries,
yes to continued occupation, with a different set of neo-liberal policy wonks playing toy soldier with American troops.
also:
from http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/scahill
the Nation is basically a safe, (D) captured lefty site, a member in good standing of the progressive blogosphere due to its devotion to the party of the Least Worst, so take a chance of a waver in your faith, and see if Obama really intends to be that different from Bush, Cheney, and McCain wrt the debacle in Iraq.
Statutorily, I don’t know about the “getting elected” unless a finding from such a commission was equivalent to a felony, and that’s got its own set of legal issues I’m sure. But as for working for/lobbying absolutely. Neither of those things is a “right” and both could be withheld easily I would imagine. As for election, well the person would have to convince their voters that they really really aren’t scumbags when they sort of officially are via a “finding”.
The world has changed a lot in the last 60 years. It’s time to review all those posts and any treaties which are related to them.
As a nation we’re rich, but our government isn’t. We need to consider our national interests, but find ways to effect policy without going bankrupt.
It’s time for a Democratic administration to revi