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John McCain: What Has He Gotten Right So Far?
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. John McCain said any added military deployment in Afghanistan smaller than the 40,000 troops reportedly requested by the top U.S. commander there "would be an error of historic proportions."
Asked whether he thought the war in Afghanistan could be won with fewer troops than Gen. Stanley McChrystal has reportedly requested, McCain said, "I do not."
Would someone kindly tell me how this man even gets approached about the way a war is ran?
This man for the most part was in the military during peace time (1958-1967), graduated 894th out of a class of 899, reportedly known for being careless and reckless, crashed his airplane at least twice, began his combat duty which started in 1967 which was also the same year through 1973 that he spent as a POW.
The man by any standards should have won the office of the Presidency; but because of his first decision as a presidential candidate for his Republican Party being such a big huge flop, he lost. To this day he still says,
Sarah Palin will be "a formidable force" in the GOP and said he remains open to the possibility of Palin being his party's presidential nominee in 2012
Oh sure, the man may have been correct in his thinking that a surge in Iraq would calm things down -- but this is also the same man that thought Iraq would be easily controlled from the very beginning.
He's also the same man that helped to declare an easy victory in Afghanistan back in 2002 and 2003, remember? He also said we can,
"muddle through in Afghanistan". A year earlier, on CBS' Face the Nation, McCain said capturing Osama bin Laden wasn't "that important."
In late 2002 and early 2003, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was a fixture on cable television, assuring Americans that an invasion of Iraq would be "easy." "I believe that the success will be fairly easy," McCain told CNN in September 2002. "We will win this conflict. We will win it easily," he told MSNBC the following January.
Possibly being partially right 'once' out of your life Senator McCain, doesn't suddenly make you 'all knowing'.
Too bad the press and media ignore all his WRONG DECISIONS.
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Should we expect that flying an airplane off a carrier to bomb a city gives a person any special insight into how to fight a ground war and what it takes to do so? There are several million current and former enlisted men available who have more relevant knowledge than McCain.
October 12, 2009 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup - that is right. My point is however, he's been WRONG more than RIGHT the past 9 years. In fact, 99% wrong....so why bother asking HIS or Dick Cheney's opinion on ANYTHING?
October 12, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
You raise a point that is true for much of the right in general - what have they got correct in years, and why does the media continue to treat them as if they have earned credibility? Why do the Neocons, Dick Cheney, or worse, his daughter, still get treated as though they haven't been disastrously wrong at every foreign policy juncture?
October 13, 2009 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh I, for one, am really happy McCain is not President of the United States.
Take EVERYTHING SAID BY A REPUBLICAN FROM 1993 TO 2008, CROSS REFERENCE WHERE WE ARE NOW ON THE ISSUE DISCUSSED, AND THE STATEMENT WAS WRONG, WRONG DEVASTATINGLY WRONG.
October 13, 2009 2:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are RIGHT ON dickday!
October 13, 2009 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Decades ago a GMO seed was planted and an invasive species was created that has crowded out the light from the organic plant that is intelligence and education. We are now eating the fruit of that plant. People are being fed with plants that have no nutritional value. It looks like food, but has no flavor. It's the iceberg lettuce of the corporate restaurant's salad bar with agribusiness tomatoes that can retain their shape and color for days across thousands of miles without delivering any vitamins or flavor.
John McCain, all dressed up in his uniform, providing meaningless advice. Daughter of Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove, all semi-articulate empty heads with no idea what a real democracy would look like. And the people simply either nod in agreement lacking any judgment as to whether what was said makes sense, or detaching from their government convinced they are powerless. If their minds were functional, they wuld challenge the offerings given and demand better, but lacking any decent food for thought, the weed continues to spread, choking the life from a once great nation.
It's truly sad how we have let this get away, but I will retain hope that somehow we can recover.
October 13, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
When he told Crazy McCain-Palin Lady that Obama was NOT in fact an "Arab". He nailed that one.
October 13, 2009 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
*Nailed* it! Gotta give credit.
October 13, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
He said Iraq would be won in three weeks. He has actually been wrong on just about everything as Paul Krugman recently pointed out.
I guess you could call it "leading with the uniform." He's a war hero (if POWs are heros) and he totally milks it.
October 13, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, he did marry (financially) well -- on his second try -- his first wife (who waited at home while he was a POW) was disfigured in a car accident, but she was thrown over for the young heiress. McCain doesn't even treat her with any respect; he is always rude to her.
John McCain is an old coot who rose WAY above his abilities, and the best thing that ever happened to him was getting shot down in Vietnam. What else has he accomplished?
His "Bomb, bomb, bomb....bomb bomb Iran" should have finished him off in my opinion. Such is the sewer-like standards of his party.
October 13, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
And to think it all started with a little affirmative action (oops I mean legacy) preference.
October 13, 2009 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain was in favor of the surge in Iraq. That turned out pretty well.
He was also in favor of taxing peoples' healthcare benefits, and that's something Obama is also embracing now after earlier rejecting it.
October 14, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink