McCain Screws The Pooch

I wrote about McCain's claim that the "Anbar Awakening" (a reduction in the violence in Anbar) was a result of the surge, despite the fact that the awakening took place four months before the surge was implemented.

When confronted about it, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds reiterated his initial claim to avoid the error. However, he also said this:

"If Barack Obama had had his way, the Sheiks who started the Awakening would have been murdered at the hands of al Qaeda."

On September 17th, 2007, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, a Sunni Sheik who was instrumental in starting the Anbar awakening, was murdered at the hands of al Qaeda in an assassination near his home.

Note: This is a mistake made by one of McCain's spokesmen, not McCain himself.

On July 18th, the McCain campaign released a 30-second TV spot. The narration of that ad claims:

Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan. He hasn't been to Iraq in years. He voted against funding our troops.

Let's examine this piece by piece.

Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan

This is literally true; as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on European Affairs, Obama never held any hearings on Afghanistan. However, he did attend one of the three Afghanistan hearings held by the committee as a whole. McCain, on the other hand, attended zero of the six meetings held by his Senate Armed Services committee in the last two years.

Let's recap: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Obama is a part, held three hearings on Afghanistan; Obama attended one of them. The Senate Armed Services Committee, of which McCain is a part, held six hearings on Afghanistan; McCain attended none of them.

Afghanistan Hearings Attended By The Candidates In The Last Two Years:
Obama: 1 out of 3
McCain: 0 out of 6

He hasn't been to Iraq in years.

This is also literally true: Obama traveled to Iraq in January 2006; then, as McCain's ad was released, was en route to Iraq. He arrived four days later, and news of the trip first first broke on July 11th, six days before McCain released that ad. So, yes, technically, there was a two year and five month period during which Obama had not been to Iraq. But it doesn't mention that Obama was in the process of going to Iraq, and if McCain had released that ad five days later, his statement would have been patently false, instead of just intentionally misleading.

He voted against funding our troops.

Again, the absolute most literal interpretation of this, devoid of any context, is correct. But when you look at the facts that it omits, the deceptive nature of it becomes evident.

Obama did vote against funding out troops - on one occasion (measure H.R. 2206, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, in 2007). On every other war funding bill that went through the Senate, Obama voted yes. FactCheck.org has the whole story, complete with links to the US Senate website that back up Obama's voting record.

Katie Couric recently interviewed both Obama and McCain. While talking with McCain, they had this wonderful exchange:

Couric: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?

McCain: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history.

As our friends at the United States Department of Defense can tell us, then-Colonel McFarlane briefed the media on the Anbar awakening on September 19th, 2006. That's months before the surge took place.

This isn't a matter of misstating a small detail. No; this demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge about just what exactly is going on in Iraq. It confounds me McCain, who consistently displays an incomplete knowledge of the geopolitical arena surrounding him, has the audacity to accuse Barack Obama of being inexperienced in foreign policy.

Update: The Huffington Post picked up the story as well; they've got a bit of additional information.

On July 14th, The New York Times ran an op-ed piece by Barack Obama, in which details his plans for Iraq, and why, he believes, McCain's plans for Iraq are flawed. On July 21st, John McCain submitted a rebuttal piece to the same paper. However, the times rejected it. Times Op-Ed Editor David Shipley explains :

The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.

"It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan."

Hmmm. That really kind of makes you want to read the original piece, doesn't it? Well, fortunately for you (but unfortunately for McCain), The New York post got their hands on it, and decided to publish it.

Turns out, The New York Times made a wise decision in not running the op-ed. The Huffington Post reports on a myriad of errors made by McCain in his piece. However, some of the claims made by HuffPo, while factually sound, were a bit misleading or dubious, so I've not included them in this post. Rather, I'll just direct your attention to this quote from McCain's piece:

"In 2007, [Obama] wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we'd taken his advice, the war would have been lost. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

"To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Maliki has endorsed his timetable - when the Iraqi prime minister has merely said that he'd like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of US troops at some unspecified future point."

Fact: Maliki did endorse Obama's timetable - two days before McCain submitted his piece. As Spiegel Online International reported in an interview with Maliki:

"US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Well-played, McCain.