Grasping at Straws
Posted in: Iraq
Lord McCain gave a weird interview on MSNBC today, where he engaged in a little revisionist history regarding the re-election of his Surge Sister, Joe Lieberman:
Joe Lieberman would never have been re-elected — a strong proponent of the war — against an opponent who was for pullout, if that was the American people's attitude.
As Eric Kleefield notes, the Connecticut exit polls beg to disagree:
They show that sending more troops had the support of — get this — 15% of voters! Meanwhile, 63% of voters said some or even all troops should be withdrawn, in complete opposition to Lieberman's real position.
Second, given the total number of people who cast their vote for Lieberman, it's nothing short of absurd to say that it's in any way indicative of anything national. According to the final results, a total of 563,725 people voted for Lieberman — in other words, just over half a million in a nation of 300 million people.
Finally, Lieberman won because he was able to misrepresent his views on Iraq, not because voters agreed with his actual views on the subject. Back in July, Lieberman actually said he thought we'd be able to draw down "significant" numbers of troops by now. What's more, Lieberman worked hard to blur the line between himself and Ned Lamont on the Iraq issue. In one ad, for instance, he spoke of wanting to "bring our troops home from Iraq."
The numbers — and Lieberman's own statements during the campaign — prove that McCain's debunked claim is at best false, and at worst dishonest.
But then McCain goes completely bughouse (watch it at ThinkProgress):
RUSSERT: Go back, Senator, to 2002. The administration saying we would be greeting as liberators. John McCain saying you thought success would be fairly easy.
MCCAIN: It was.
RUSSERT: In all honesty…
MCCAIN: It was easy, it was easy. I said the military operation would be easy. It was easy. We were greeted as liberators.
What color is the sky in John McCain's world?
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