CNN's Blitzer ignores possible political motives in McCain's call for more troops
SUMMARY: On The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer asked whether Sen. John McCain's call for more troops is "a Profiles in Courage kind of statement," adding that McCain deserves "credit" for his statement because "he totally believes that the United States does not have enough troops in Iraq right now." But Blitzer ignored the possible political motives behind McCain's proposal.
On the December 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer asked if Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) call for more troops in Iraq is "a Profiles in Courage kind of statement." Blitzer also asserted that "[y]ou gotta give [McCain] credit" for his statement because "he totally believes that the United States does not have enough troops in Iraq right now."
Blitzer's suggestion that McCain is showing courage and his assertion that McCain deserves "credit" appear to be based on his claim that McCain "totally believes" in sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, which is "not necessarily a very popular statement." Democratic strategist James Carville responded: "I think what he's hoping is that it helps him because he can say it and he knows it's not going to happen." Carville's statement echoes comments by National Public Radio senior news analyst Cokie Roberts. As Media Matters for America documented, on the November 20 edition of NPR's Morning Edition, Roberts noted that the military is unlikely to adopt McCain's proposal to increase the U.S. troop presence in Iraq by 20,000 because, she said, referring to a comment by Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the "Army is so depleted." For that reason, she stated, McCain's plan is "a somewhat convenient position, because he can always say, 'No one tried to win the war the way that I suggested to win it, " adding, "I think that this is a position that is useful for Senator McCain."
As Media Matters noted, on the November 13 edition of The Situation Room, Blitzer similarly touted McCain's proposal to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq while ignoring the question of whether his plan is achievable and said of McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), "[M]any would regard them [as] a little bit of mavericks."
From the December 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:
BLITZER: You gotta give him credit, though, James. He's a -- he's a -- he totally believes that the United States does not have enough troops in Iraq right now to get the job done and by suggesting sending tens of thousands of more -- not necessarily a very popular statement on his part.
CARVILLE: Well, it's not a popular statement. He knows it's not going to happen. It can't happen. Every military analyst that come up and said, "We don't have the troops." And --
BLITZER: But politically, that could hurt him by even saying that, right?
CARVILLE: Well, I think what he's hoping is that it helps him because he can say it and he knows it's not going to happen. And then he can say, "Look, I've taken the sort of unpopular point." McCain -- but to his credit, or his detriment probably, he's always wanted -- his answer to everything is "more troops." The American people don't want that. Right now, I think he's getting both sides. He's sort of saying, "Well, I'm calling for something unpopular," but he knows that it can't happen because we don't have the troops to send.
TERENCE P. JEFFREY (Human Events editor): You -- you know the truth is that if the United States is still in Iraq in 2008 and we're taking casualties there, John McCain is not going to get elected president. The Democrats are going to elect an antiwar president if that is in fact the case. I think McCain sees that something is going to have to happen in Iraq in the next few months to change the political situation there and change the equation into which U.S. troops are going or else, forget it, it's not going to happen.
CARVILLE: And what I -- what I suspect he figures is what everybody else does. It's going to end being pretty much of a disaster, and he'll be able to say, "Look, I -- I said back then the unpopular thing."
BLITZER: But is he -- but it's very unpopular including, I suspect, with a lot of Republicans right now to be calling for an increase of U.S. forces in Iraq given the vulnerability -- the dangers there. Is this a Profiles in Courage kind of statement that he's making?
JEFFREY: Well, I think -- I think McCain has definitely been consistent on the Iraq war. He's been principled. I think a lot of people have a question whether the strategy he's pursuing right now would be successful. I suspect you might see the Bush administration increase troop forces in Iraq in the short run before they begin a drawdown next year.
It's a War For Absolute Power on Earth. None of the multitude of lies leading us into this war was true. If Iraq's primary product was watermelons and bananas we would not even be there. Instead we would be united with many other countries to wage the real war on terror outside of Iraq.
The U.S. invaded Iraq because it has enormous oil resources, mostly untapped, and it's right in the heart of the world's energy system. Which means that if the U.S. manages to control Iraq, it extends enormously its strategic power, what Zbigniew Brzezinski calls its critical leverage over Europe and Asia. The major reason for controlling the oil resources in, as Bush says, "The Region",---- it gives you strategic power.
I'd have more respect for our government if they just came right on out and admitted the truth for the reason we are there.
McCain, Bush, and most of our government with the exception of some Democrats, intend to control the region no matter what the cost in lives or money.
The voters of our country are theoretically supposed to be important, but they don't care about the historic statement we made on November 7th. We earned a mandate, but McCain takes the liberty of defining what our mandate is. He says we want to win the War On Iraq.
It's sad that so many troops and Iraqis are dying in vain over there, because a military victory is already lost. Our only escape from this nightmare is a political settlement, but our president has been too stubborn to meet with the key players in the region.
Remember the promise made long, long ago...when Bush said, “When They Stand Up We'll Stand Down?" Don't hold you breath for that one. Bush also said he's against time tables for the War, but he set one himself when he said the war won't end during his time in office.
Take Care .... Sam
and all magnify the deficiencies in the media, demonstrated here by Blitzer, and the weaknesses in the critical thinking skills of our country as a whole.
Seems to be more and more common to hear supposed journalists commend a politician taking a "strong stand" on something completely meaningless.
And more frequently we hear our fellow Americans showing their respect for platitudes.
I was in my 20s when Bush's old man said "read my lips, no new taxes", and knew it was BS even then.When he jacked up taxes, I prepared for a huge backlash, and remember turning on the news one night for a segment asking people who voted for Bush #1 what they thought of his ditching a major plank in his platform.
My naive, optimistic little self was shocked to hear the faithful, almost without exception, say that they still liked him because he SAID he wasn't going to raise taxes. Unlike them Democrats, who weren't nice enough to even lie to the people about it.
There's still some of that optimistic kid in me, I see a majority of Americans, according to polls, recognizing what a scam this administration has been. I don't know how many of them can see clearly back as far as Reagan,but I'm hopeful.
At the same time, I know that there are still a pretty good number of us that don't want the truth, and an obliging media that paints the truth-tellers as "America-haters" and "Naysayers".
I',m not sure what McCain's plan is- to win the scared old ladies, dittoheads and chickenhawks over with the "more troops" BS (They might actually believe him), while hanging onto some of the more reality based voters who are awake enough to know it's not going to happen, and just like hearing him say it.
I'm very thankful that I had a pretty good dad. Keeps me from looking to my public servants to fill that role.
Take heart: the exit polls in 2006 show that the surprising "skew" in the election numbers suggest strongly that the machines were set THIS time to shift every 50th vote from the Dem to the GOP, a doubling of the trend in 2004, which showed a measurable 2% shift (every 100th vote). What this means is that the Democrat had to have a 5% (!!!) edge over their GOP opponent to actually have the machines show them as a "slim winner". To the end, Rove showed the confidence even into late on election day: He believed such a skew to be a "safe" margin to retain GOP majorities. Even at THAT, the Dems gained control of both houses of Congress.
I'm confident that now in POWER, the Dems will investigate and uncover this nefarious plot by the rightwing to steal elections, and will fix the problem (and hopefully jail a slew of rightwing partisans who sought to destroy Democracy in America).
The reason I bring this up is your fretting that the a great many of the American people might be fooled by rightwing lies, and LIKE being fooled. This last election showed America has waken up, and in MUCH greater numbers than the "official" Diebold counts showed. How many GOP candidates "won" by a margin of 4% or less? ALL these would have been DEM wins, without the "skew".
An honest media would be announcing the obituary of the GOP, rather than continuing to try to prop up potential candidates for 2008 who don't have a prayer with suggestions of "stay the course" or even "ESCALATION" of violence in Iraq.
McCain is unelectable, yet the "STORY" continues that it is Hillary who "has electability problems". The Rightwing Media struggles to hang on to the status quo, while the American People have left them behind.
I'm not convinced. The Election Defense Alliance report appears to pick a few statistics which match the assertion. However, a more complete examination casts doubt on the conspiracy theory. [link to www.dailykos.com]
That said, the fact that we're using electronic voting machines that produce no paper trail is asinine. The NIST would seem to agree. [link to www.miami.com] Even if we don't have a problem now, any system so open to abuse eventually will be abused.
What next? "Well, you can't blame me for the war's problems.. I suggested we send 100,000 cyborgs to handle things!"
It's about as realistic.
pro-active on issues. We have a huge dirty bomb problem now that more troops can't fix. This polonium isotope spreading out came from a country Bush said he could look their leader in the eye as friend.
describing McCain as reactionary. He does have a record of proactive in fighting pork politics in congress.
"...the exit polls in 2006 show that the surprising "skew" in the election numbers suggest strongly that the machines were set THIS time to shift every 50th vote from the Dem to the GOP, a doubling of the trend in 2004, which showed a measurable 2% shift (every 100th vote)." "...I'm confident that now in POWER, the Dems will investigate and uncover this nefarious plot by the rightwing to steal elections, and will fix the problem."- Tex
I think your tinfoil hat is a little tight, Tex. It's obviously cutting off the oxygen to the mush in your skull.
I'm just glad the republicans didn't win by a slim margin. You Lefties would have come unhinged again. It would have been "Dems Gone Wild II" with court cases, conspiracy theories galore and spiral-eyed "Crazy Al" Gore spinning out of control with more of his insane rants.
Didnt count the votes in Florida. A non partisan accounting firm did and what did they find? Thats right they found if all valid votes were counted Gore won Florida by ANY COUNTING STANDARD USED. That isnt tinfoil hat that is an outright undeniable FACT. What is amazing is the GOP isnt even ashamed of stealing an election. In international monitering exit polls are used to verify the results it was the exit poll discrepency that ran Shevernadze out of power. In the many years I have beenwatching elections I have NEVER seen exit polls be wrong except the last few elections where conincidentally there is no paper trail to VERIFY the results. How in the world is that acceptable? WHY would we WANT to have election results that we cannot in ANY WAY verify. Why would anyone even design election machines that way. WHO could possibly think that is a good idea. If only to stop exactly this kind of speculation which is inevitable under a system that by design cannot be verifiied, we need to have a paper trail where the results of an election can be absolutly verified.
Your twisting of facts is getting monotonous: [link to en.wikipedia.org]
Stealing elections? STEALING ELECTIONS??? Which party busses people to the polls and tells them how to vote? Which party routinely uses dead people to vote in Chicago? Which party uses forged documents to try to steal elections (Can you say Dan Rather)? Which party has felons routinely vote? Which party tried to deny the military absentee vote in 2000? Yes, solon. That's right. It's the DEMOCRATS.