During the last Democratic debate, Obama told a story to illustrate how the War in Iraq is hurting our effort in Afghanistan. Now the right wing blogosphere has jumped on it as one more reason to question Obama’s patriotism. ABC news fact checked his story and came to the conclusion that it was true. But Michelle Malkin wants to defend the term “swiftboating” as an honorable exercise, so I have no doubt that the technique will be applied to Barack in the next week or so.
There is only one point that Barack was trying emphasize. No one can rationally deny that the Iraq War has made Afghanistan less stable not more. As the New York Times pointed out this morning, Secretary of State Rice, was in Kabul and Kandahar for a total of 8 hours on her last visit, never leaving the secure compounds of the American forces.
Six years after the United States invaded Afghanistan with the goal of rooting out Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the terrorist threat, Afghanistan remains a security danger zone for Americans, far more so than in 2002, the year in between the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is an ex-Army Ranger who served three tours in Afghanistan, who blogs under the name of Abu Muqawama and is widely read in the military, counterinsurgency, and middle east studies communities. He read the National Review critique of Obama’s anecdote which said the following: “the Obama military anecdote was absolute rubbish on so many levels. First, on his understanding of the military: Captains don’t command platoons, Second, we don’t split platoons between Iraq and Afghanistan”. Here is Abu Muqawama’s critique.
Alright, leaving out the fact that, once again, the anecdote Obama offered was sadly true, someone needs to point out that while this guy is correct in theory — captains do not lead platoons and units below division-level don’t get split up — he’s not correct in practice. First off, a lot of infantry platoon leaders leading their second platoons — whether in the Ranger battalions or in specialty platoons in their infantry battalions — get promoted to captain while still platoon leaders. (Abu Muqawama Personal Biography Fun Fact: He has lead platoons in combat three times and twice while a captain. Abu Muqawama spent a ridiculous and glorious two-and-a-half years as a platoon leader. Born under a lucky star, he was.) Second, because so many captains are leaving the Army, officers are getting promoted from lieutenant to captain at ridiculous speed. So officers leading even their first platoons might get promoted to captain while leading them. And finally, this guy was a captain when the Obama campaign spoke to him, sure, but he might have been a lieutenant when he was a platoon leader after all.
As for the rest of this guy’s comment, Abu Muqawama would like to point out that in the five months following the September 11th attacks, his infantry battalion was split between Kuwait, Qatar, Fort Drum (NY), Uzbekistan and Afghanistan at the same time. It was a nightmare, yes, but it happened as sure as God created the heavens.
Two weeks ago Limbaugh, Malkin and Coulter were savaging John McCain as a traitor to the True Conservative Cause. Now, after the New York Times revealed that McCain is a little closer to Lobbyists than he wants you to believe and both Newsweek and the Washington Post, backed up the Times story with further detail, the right wing media machine has come to McCain’s defense under “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle.
Obviously their rhetoric will have little effect on the Democratic Primary battle, but you can expect the Swift-boating crew to haul this out in September. Personally, I don’t think it will work this time.
27 responses so far ↓
pond // February 24, 2008 at 9:50 am |
The McClatchey papers has a story out from a couple days ago with the headline, ‘Why doesn’t negative campaigning work anymore?’ or some such.
We can only hope that trend is true and will carry on.
Now if we can just convince the major news media, especially the TV channels, to back off the ‘horse race’ coverage and look a bit more at the issues and the policies of the candidates.
rhbee // February 24, 2008 at 12:15 pm |
Just finished watching Maher and his take on the McCain lobbyists and the Obama patriotism act. He showed clips but truncated them in such a way as to actually play into the very point the conservatives are now jumping onto. We have an awful long wait before we get to vote but I believe that the fundamental difference that will mark this campaign once we get the candidates in place is that the Democants will be aggressive towards defining exactly how the Repugnants are responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves. They have to be. As far as patriotism goes, I was at the Laker-Clipper game last night, and as the anthem was being sung, two technicians were removing the sound equipment along the sideline, and the usher for my section was giving directions to several patrons. We may be in for a real discussion about what is a real patriot. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that denial will play a large part in keeping most people from making sense of the distinctions.
Morgan Warstler // February 25, 2008 at 7:49 am |
http://drudgereport.com/flashoa.htm
It is Hillary doing the swiftboating…
Jon Taplin // February 25, 2008 at 8:20 am |
Sure looks like it.
johnhendel // February 25, 2008 at 1:44 pm |
People are getting better at detecting bullshit, I think. Sure, those attacks will be launched against Obama but I agree with you–it won’t be particularly effective.
What’s consistently struck me as so funny and unusual about the McCain story is that no one brings up that his first marriage was ruined by his admitted affairs…that his current wife Cindy was one of those affairs. Given such context, suggesting an affair isn’t a particularly heinous, new concept in the life of McCain, and it’s an idea that becomes relevant when you tie it to lobbyists and rhetoric about ethics as the Times did.
hughvic // February 26, 2008 at 5:02 pm |
Just because John Kerry, in his impotent desperation, has spent years and lots of money trying to turn the term “Swift Boat” into a pejorative verb, because that’s exactly how Sour Grapes that man is, is no reason to rise to his bait. You rose to it, took it and swallowed it. Malkin rose to it, examined it and rejected it.
As I write this, Sen. Obama is getting hit with dirt, sure, but it’s not coming from McCain’s camp, but from Clintons’ [sic]. Knowing the Clintons’ oppo people, I assure you that it’ll get a lot dirtier in the next five days, especially on Saturday morning.
There’s some disturbing stuff on Barack Obama, but it’s not stuff Sen. Clinton can use, no matter how many cut-outs McCauliffe or Carville think to employ. It recoils on Hillary too hard.
The past seven years’ worth of dirt on the Clintons is moot at this point.
The real smack is the stuff on McCain, and it comes from three directions; from the oppo people who worked for his opponents four years ago, some of whom have passed stuff to Clinton’s shop; from Clinton’s shop itself; and from McCain’s own erstwhile folks who ran counterfoil oppo on him four years ago for his own protection only to become disaffected by his politics of the past four years.
From the Democratic side, the plan all along was for Clinton to run against McCain—to them, an ideal opponent. Not for nothing did the DNC green-light its people to bail out Huckabee financially in New Hampshire, when he was running on fumes. Huckabee, more than any single person, will have been responsible for delivering the nomination to McCain, Clinton’s preferred foil.
Enter Obama.
Morgan Warstler // February 27, 2008 at 5:15 pm |
ok hugh, whats your worst case scenario? what do you think is hanging out there on McCain? Obama?
hughvic // February 27, 2008 at 6:20 pm |
I know only the stuff, or much of the stuff, on McCain. Obama, rumors. In any event, I’m not dishing dirt. I’m just saying, get ready.
To me, the analysis of the trade in dirt is far more important than the content of the wares traded. This kind of analysis is, I believe, the proper province of scholars of communications and of political science.
My sense, frankly, is that at most two or three of those who threw their hats into the presidential ring are what they seem. The way in which a candidate is “packaged” into something he or she is not—this is the story.
If you are asking for my forecast, I’ll say that the winner will be whichever candidate is perceived by voters as having the least disconnect between who she says she is, and who she really is. I’m not a political scientist, and am no longer a journalist, but my sense of what’s unusual about this election is that people are sick to death of being duped, of opening their morning paper or tuning into the evening news or encountering some supposed online news source and discovering, at once or later, that they’ve been propagandized.
The press are for the most part run ragged by the new media’s replacement of conventional deadlines with a 24-hour workday. They’re better trained than ever, and are as wary as ever, but they’re beat. The political machines deliberately defeat them with the media equivalent of a defense attorney’s paper blizzard.
Meanwhile, the journalists are mostly unaware of the ideological air they breathe. To them, it’s just air. The ideological particulates are invisible to the journalistic eye.
hughvic // February 27, 2008 at 6:47 pm |
And Morgan, bear in mind that politicians can be destroyed by rumors and even fabrications. Consider the two waves of straight news reporting on Rudy Giuliani’s lobbying for interests inimical to the commonweal. The first wave had him lobbying for Hugo Chavez. Some outlets had his firm doing the lobbying; others had him doing it. There was no lobbying.
The second wave of reports had him lobbying on the Hill for earmarks for his deep pockets clients. The press betrayed no awareness of this, but had he actually engaged in such practices he’d today be an unconvicted serial felon warranting multiple jail terms. Last year Congress increased the sentencing requirements for unregistered and unreported (two separate violations) Congressional lobbying, and made both crimes felonious.
Again, Giuliani did no lobbying. All this information was easily accessible, in the form of public records available online, but the press no longer does what we think it does. It gossips, and hides behind the Public Figure Doctrine as though that cataract of Constitutional Law ever vindicated willful disregard of fallacious, tortious harm.
The People will elect whoever is least full of it. And this will have been seen, in retrospect, as the year in which it became apparent that journalism had vanished from the U.S.
Jon Taplin // February 27, 2008 at 7:57 pm |
Hughvic-Obama kicked McCain’s butt today in the exchange over Al Queda and the future. You over-estimate the power of the Republican attack machine. Anyone who believes Obama is some sort of closet Muslim, is not voting Democratic in November anyway.
hughvic // February 28, 2008 at 5:49 am |
Jon, I’m glad that he kicked McCain’s butt. Anyone who thinks Obama’s a crypto-Muslim deserves to get HER butt kicked too.
I don’t think much of the Republican attack machine(s). I do know the Clinton one—well, and from the inside—and it is quite porous. Only THAT devil’s workshop would stoop to the Islamification of Sen. Obama. (If, by “machine”, you mean the people who earn considerable sums researching and “placing” news stories and expensively delivered hit pieces full-time.)
I truly wasn’t trying to get portentous about that’s-for-me-to-know-and-you-to-find-out. It’s just that, to get to where I was trying to go, I had to name the subject, which is smack on McCain and Obama. As I said, there is some—and more on Sen. M than on Sen. O—and it will come out. (Look for some on Obama to hit Sat. AM, compliments of the Clinton shop.)
It’s the whole How Does It Get Here? thing that I was hoping to engage you on. That’s all. I don’t care about political dirt especially, for pretty much same reason that I don’t care about the celebrity of film stars: the pols are either straight shooters or they’re not; the stars are either artists or they’re not.
It’s the husbandry of the dirt, as it were, and the possibility of your helping to expose that husbandry, that I’m after. It’s so much more important than dirt.
hughvic // February 28, 2008 at 5:50 am |
For example, I don’t give a damn about Rudy Giuliani.
Jon Taplin // February 28, 2008 at 9:10 am |
Hughvic-I’m aware of some more bimbo problems for Sen. M, but that’s not my role and besides I think his cozy relations with the lobbying community are far more problematic for the country if he were to be President. That is worth looking into.
Morgan Warstler // February 28, 2008 at 12:06 pm |
I’m still trying to understand what Obama said to kick McCain’s butt.
O: I’d reserve the right to go back into Iraq if there was Al Qaeda.
M: There is Al Qaeda in Iraq.
O: There wasn’t Al Qaeda in Iraq until we invaded.
M: It doesn’t matter how they got there, if they are there, we gotta get them out.
Did I miss something?
I don’t think he’ll make “this was your dumb idea” stick to McCain.
I do think Obama is going to have to prove he will be able to leave. That’ll probably be the rally cry from the McCain end. If the debate actually gets phrased / becomes about “should we leave?”
To win on this subject, McCain has to convince people we shouldn’t / we can’t leave Iraq. He said as much two days ago, right?
Chad Lake // February 28, 2008 at 1:01 pm |
One thing about this election that has worried me from day #1 is that the next president, whoever it is, will be inheriting a *huge* cross to bear. The list of the odious decisions BushCo has made in the past 7 years will haunt us for years if not decades to come. Specifically in Iraq, where I believe there is no good solution to be found- withdrawal or stay forever or anything in between- no matter what we do there will be a tremendous price the US will have to pay.
So I worry that the American public won’t fully realize that no matter what the next president does, some things are just going to suck (it is always easier to create a mess than to clean it up, and this mess is 7 long years in the making). It will be easy to put too much blame on the Obama/Hillary/Etc instead of realizing that a large chuck of our future suckage is due to Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, Kristol, and the rest of the BushCo nitwits.
I wish I knew more about presidential history to really grasp what happened with FDR’s terms. Economic devastation, WWII, my god what a shit storm he had to deal with. And it seems like he found a decent way out of it except for unintentionally fomenting the modern-day neoconservative movement, which got us BushCo (oversimplification, yes, I know, but I think the point still sticks). People keep saying that Obama is the next JFK, but is he really the next FDR?
I tell you, I really don’t know why these people are fighting to be president. I think I’d rather be the night shift safety officer at the nuclear power plant when Homer Simpson goes home for the day. Who the hell would want that job?
-c
rhbee // February 28, 2008 at 2:41 pm |
Morgan, the butt kicking came in the form of Obama not backing down and stating clearly that the only reason Al Qaeda is in Iraq in the first place is because we are there. We leave they go back to Pakistan and Afganistan where they came from. And if we leave Afganistan also, then Al Qaeda becomes the Arab nations problem as it should have been all along. McCain and the Repugnants simply have no answer for that statement. And I’d be willing to bet that when it comes up in the debates it is going to be shoved down their militaristic mouths no matter which Democant shows up.
Morgan Warstler // February 28, 2008 at 4:03 pm |
” We leave they go back to Pakistan and Afghanistan where they came from.”
Uhm, that’s not true tho.
They came STREAMING into Iraq with the fall of Saddam. Insurgents came from all over to fight us, we killed most all of them, used the “surge” to push them all back and their leaders wrote lengthy letters crying they couldn’t find any supporters.
That’s not a butt kicking.
Obama not backing down? Huh? I don’t expect him to back down, I don’t want him to back down. But if we are going to call something a “butt kicking” – it has to be one. This is not the cheer-leading section of the Obama campaign is it?
Leave Afghanistan? Obama and McCain intend to stay there, so both disagree with your analysis there. So Obama agrees with the “Repugnants,” not with you.
Obama might even bomb Pakistan. McCain likes to joke about bombing Iran. Obama reserved the right to GO BACK INTO IRAQ if Al Qaeda was there, THEY ARE THERE now, but losing more every day.
rhbee, I’m not seeing you make much of a point here. Try and stick with the prove-able stuff, not the wild assertions.
BTW, Al Qaeda became our problem on 9/11.
rhbee // February 28, 2008 at 4:42 pm |
No cheer leading, just an honest recognition that Obama is not Kerry.
If they came streaming into Iraq, then wherefrom and of why?
No, Bush became our problem on 9/11. Before that he was just a cheater who had bamboozled his way to the top. Al Qaeda saved him from immediate failure by giving him the excuse to use our fears and take us into Iraq and begin building his own monarchy. Somewhere there are the ghosts of Russian KGB agents laughing at how the CIA got hoist on its own petard and now the US is on its way to a crushing economic disaster of its own.
Leave Afganistan, I know it seems so heartless after what Charlie Wilson’s War did for them. Gee, I wonder if any of the Afganis got profit points? But we need to stop making war and learn how to make peace. We need to actually learn how to go through the United Nations not around it. Besides, if we’re out of Iraq, the focus goes back to catching those responsible for the attack on 9/11. Not where it is now, in making war on any country that could be responsible. Those responsible were not a country. And they never claimed to be. The neocon/Bush/Cheney group apparently were never smart enough to see the distinction.
Morgan Warstler // February 29, 2008 at 1:34 pm |
Angelina Jolie:
“As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022702217_pf.html
Hillary Clinton (and Obama):
“We’ve Got Two Wars. We’ve Got To End One, We’ve Got To Win The Other.”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTBhYzNiNDVhZTYxZmNlZDIzMjhmYjQ5MDUwZWFlYzI=
Rhbee, I mean this in the best possible way – you are a special kind of conspiracy nut. Look, George Bush is not getting rich by invading Iraq. He is rich. He was rich. Dude, the guy owned a baseball team. Being president is NEVER the best job for a Republican (think about that), I swear, Bush pretty much “agreed’ to go be President. As in, it wasn’t going to be too hard and someone had to do it. He told his other rich friends to get out their checkbook and he went and did the job.
AND HIS JOB, let me give you a REAL conspiracy here to grasp – his job WAS TO MASSIVELY deficit spend.
Re-read that. I don’t mean you like it. I don’t mean it makes him a good or bad guy, I’m saying that since 1980, Republicans have had one single exclusive strategy against the concept you imagine as “democracy.”
Their strategy is called DEFICITS. Please stick with me here so I can explain the reality you face.
Democracy is the wrongful notion that you can win votes and power for yourself, but promising to take a rich guy’s money and give it to a poor guy.
Deficits ensure politicians are ONLY able to PROMISE to give people things. You cannot actually deliver. Deficits kill the “free stuff” benefits of democracy.
Want proof? Bill Clinton is the first Democrat President to fail to deliver a single new economic benefit to the poor. He actually took one away- he ended welfare and started workfare.
I GUARANTEE YOU if Obama or Hillary wins they will immediately announce they can’t afford to deliver any new benefits. Otherwise, the bond market will exact its pound of flesh and they will lose re-election.
Now that’s a real conspiracy for you to fret over. Glad to help.
—
As to Afghanistan, that’s where the UN is getting ready to send more troops to do our bidding to catch Al Qaeda and kill off Talibani (sp?) . Thank Prince Harry.
John Hurt // April 15, 2008 at 9:58 pm |
Morgan
Just for the record, George Bush was not and is not rich. He did not own a baseball team. You have happened to hit on one of the very few things I actually know something about.
Morgan Warstler // April 15, 2008 at 10:29 pm |
Ok true. But still he did buy the team, run and benefit form selling it. I think I’m just enamored with the Owners Box.
Would you still not call him rich?
P. Cross // April 16, 2008 at 5:39 am |
We seem to forget who is king of Government spending, try the New Deal and Lyndon’s new deal deal, now thats commitment.
The part I really like is how well it worked, deficit spending, for the government that is.
Clinton was smart and took Republican ideas and made them his own. Bush was dumb and took on Democratic new deal deal spending habits. How dumb was that.
John Hurt // April 16, 2008 at 5:49 am |
He did not buy the team, nor did he run it. He was given a small interest in the team, because, due to the fact that his father was president, he had the political connections to help get a new stadium built so the team could be flipped.
I was playing golf one day with one of the guys that put that deal together and who is someone greatly admired by the president. Somewhere on the front nine, he got a call. I heard him saying, “No, tell George I’m not going to be able to make it up there.” Later, when we were having drinks, I asked him if that was the White House on the phone. He said that it was, that George wanted him to come up there for something, but that he had no interest in going to the White House. He then started talking about the Texas Rangers deal. He said, “I told George to just sit in the owner’s box, look pretty, take pictures, and sign autographs, but *not* to get involved in the running of the team, because he would just screw it up. And now,” he said with a hollow, mirthless laugh, “he is running the country.”
And no, neither he nor his father were rich. His father has some money now due to a couple of deals he was included in after he left office. And the Carlyle Group, although who knows what shape they are in at the moment. But GW Bush doesn’t have any money. One thing for sure though, there are going to be some defense contractors who are going to tighten him up when he leaves office. But, contrary to the publicity, the Bushes didn’t have any money. Still don’t really.
John Hurt // April 16, 2008 at 6:48 am |
Morgan I have one other true story for you.
During the 2000 election, this girl friend of mine said to me about GW Bush, “I just know he is going to get elected and we are going to be perceived as weak, and someone is going to attack us, and he is going to start some stupid war and get the whole world pissed off at us.”
That is the god’s honest truth. She said that before the election. In the Bible days, the people (the same type people you represent here on this web log) would have put that girl in a hollow log and sawn her in half.
Hugo // April 16, 2008 at 7:03 am |
See there? The trade in Harvard MBA sheepskins just took a nosedive, and already analysts are tracing the cause back to John’s posts.
I wonder whether the Business School taught that notorious course in “Strategic Misrepresentation” when GHWB was there…
Morgan Warstler // April 16, 2008 at 7:04 am |
Sounds like Rainwater.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2084356
$9,634,088-$26,593,000
I’d call him rich.
John Hurt // April 16, 2008 at 8:57 am |
Clinton made how much last year? GWB’s numbers will go way up after he gets out of this fix he’s in right now.