The Columbus Dispatch has an interview with John McCain yesterday, in the course of which he doubled down on his bet that the only thing he has to say is smear itself:

I will repeat my statement again, that [Obama] would rather lose a war than lose a campaign. Because anyone who fails to acknowledge that the surge has worked, who has consistently opposed it, consistently never sat down and had a briefing with General Petraeus, our commander there, would rather lose a war than a political campaign.

Credit where credit is due: The reporters pressed the point. (Next week, will anyone remember that McCain has in an instant turned half of America into surrender monkeys?) Still, too many reporters remain entranced by what they take to be the incontrovertible success of the surge, viz. Katy Couric, premising a line of questions to Obama on a claim of success that she did not question. ("You raised a lot of eyebrows on this trip saying even knowing what you know now, you still would not have supported the surge. People may be scratching their heads and saying, 'Why?') Even the Dispatch reporters, stuck in the lastest news and too hasty for memory to catch up, failed to put it to McCain that he crowed about the great promise of "rogue-state rollback" and American troops are still fighting more than five years on. That's "history."

In the meantime, McCain uttered uncontested drivel:

I know how to win wars. I know how to win them.

How does he know? Which war did he win? Vietnam? Personal courage didn't win it. Nothing did.

Finally, one of the Dispatchers said:

Q: I wanted to know how we pay for it.

A: We pay for it by a great sacrifice on the part of Americans.

Next unasked question awaiting another interviewer in another town: Senator, Given the size of her fortune and the tax-cut benefits that have accrued to the tiny percentage of Americans in her tax bracket, how much of a sacrifice has your wife made?

Rummaging through American history, I just stumbled on this, from Franklin Roosevelt's 9th State of the Union Address, January 6, 1942:

If any of our enemies, from Europe or from Asia, attempt long-range raids by "suicide" squadrons of bombing planes, they will do so only in the hope of terrorizing our people and disrupting our morale. Our people are not afraid of that. We know that we may have to pay a heavy price for freedom. We will pay this price with a will. Whatever the price, it is a thousand times worth it. No matter what our enemies, in their desperation, may attempt to do to us- we will say, as the people of London have said, "We can take it." And what's more we can give it back and we will give it back--with compound interest.

"'Suicide' squadrons"! "Terrorizing our people"! And now, here is the same country a few generations on, up against a far, almost inexpressively punier enemy in jihadist Islamism-- but today, by and large, we quiver and quaver. Political so-called leadership blusters on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and purveys fear on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. For eight years now, the country has found this moral cowardice acceptable. It's enough to make you believe that the nation is in a fever of individual self-seeking, a miasma of moral default, as long as its political leaders fear to say ringingly today that we are not afraid.

On ABC World News Tonight, David Wright to John McCain:

It sometimes seems, as an outside observer, that both of you guys sometimes get stuck in the past. Senator Obama's kinda stuck in 2003 and whether the war was a good idea in the first place, and you kinda seem stuck sometimes in 2007 and whether the surge was the right strategy. Shouldn't this debate really be about the future and where we go from here?

McCain:

Oh, you're exactly right. It's all about the future. And the future in my view--we have succeeded but it's still fragile. The point is that we are responsible for our records. I was right, Senator Obama was wrong. So therefore I think that I have more credibility on what the future should be as opposed to Senator Obama, who if he'd have had his way we would be--very likely be involved in a wider war today.

The obvious next question is: "Senator, you want credit for being right about the surge, but were you right about the war in the first place?

Read more »

The NYT's Sabrina Tavernese and Jeff Zeleny today report the Maliki sidestep as it ought to be reported-- as a lame cover-up:

Diplomats from the United States Embassy in Baghdad spoke to Mr. Maliki's advisers on Saturday, said an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss what he called diplomatic communications. After that, the government's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, issued a statement casting doubt on the magazine's rendering of the interview.

The statement, which was distributed to media organizations by the American military early on Sunday, said Mr. Maliki's words had been "misunderstood and mistranslated," but it failed to cite specifics.

Read more »