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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
www.NationalView.org's Note From a Madman
A Special Friday Night Pre-Debate Madman
September 28, 2008
Due to personal reasons, Note From a madman will be published sporadically over the next week or so. -NG
"Understand"
A quick search of this past Friday night's debate transcript shows an
interesting pattern: Senator John McCain, the GOP nominee wants us all to know
that Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, doesn't "understand". As a
matter of fact, McCain wants us all to know that Obama doesn't stand so much
that he insisted upon telling us every chance he got:
"I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand..."
"...but what he (Obama) doesn't understand..."
"I -- I don't think that Senator Obama understands..."
"Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand..."
"What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand..."
"He (Obama) doesn't understand..."
"Senator Obama still doesn't quite understand -- or doesn't get it ..."
-McCain
No less than seven times did Senator McCain offer up his opinion that Senator
Obama just "doesn't understand". Senator McCain is, "afraid Senator Obama
doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy" as it related
to the War in Iraq. Too bad that most of the talking head news programs noted
after the debate, McCain confused "strategy" with "tactic" as he was admonishing
Obama. (Note: I didn't watch much of Fox News Channel's coverage. I switched
between PBS, MSNBC and CNN for commentary.)
But what Senator McCain doesn't realize which most of our nation does, is that
as long as the bulk of our troops and so much of our treasury is committed to
Iraq, we are playing right into the hands of our enemy - al-Qaeda and other
terrorist groups.
And when McCain said, "And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what
he doesn't understand, it's got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he
condemned in Iraq. It's going to have to be employed in Afghanistan," McCain has
his very own problems with the deployment and "strategy" in Afghanistan. Iraq is
by no means safe and it was the lack of troops, at the beginning of the war,
that was the problem. With real experts calling for a larger initial force - one
they considered necessary for the upcoming occupation in Iraq - McCain, the
"expert" was nowhere to be found. He wasn't on the Sunday Morning news programs;
he wasn't standing up in town hall gatherings to decry the lack of planning for
the war; and he wasn't calling on President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld or Vice President Dick Cheney to re-think their "Strategy" that led us
to the necessity of a troop surge.
And when, in 2004, when future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi came on Meet
the Press and suggested that we need more troops in Iraq, there was no John
McCain sighting to stand next to her and confirm it.
REP. PELOSI: We need more troops on the ground. General...
TIM RUSSERT: American troops if necessary?
REP. PELOSI: ...Shinseki said this from the start, when you make an appraisal
about whether you're going to war, you have to know what you need.
And when General Shinseki was being "retired" because he had the temerity to
suggest that we needed ore troops on the ground, as now Speaker of the House
Pelosi said so clearly in 2004, where was your support for him?
Nowhere.
The original plan of attack, as prepared by former CENTCOM Commander General
Anthony Zinni, was discarded by his former underling and successor General Tommy
Franks. But Franks was just succumbing to the pressure he faced from Rumsfeld,
Bush and Cheney who wanted to see a "portable" army and a quick success in Iraq.
Where were you, Senator McCain, when the original plan of attack was being torn
apart by the Terrible Trio in the Pentagon and White House?
Nowhere, again.
Now that we've established that McCain did nothing prior to the invasion of Iraq
in advising the White house, we wonder what role he did play. Well, after the
news came out that our troops were fighting a war without enough resources; and
after the likes of the New York Times and Washington Post told us all that
soldiers were going through trash dumps in Iraq to up-armor their Humvees.
McCain made statements like this:
"The problem is that they don't have enough resources,"
-McCain on Meet the Press
But nothing was said by "The Maverick" that as the was in its planning stage.
Let's just call it "Monday Morning Quarterbacking," and realize that it's a
favorite pastime of Senator McCain.
Making bad decisions about our national security are not foreign to Senator
McCain. More than once, the Candidate Formerly Known as The Maverick stated that
Afghanistan was a success and that the terrorists are no longer a problem there.
With inadequate troops strength and a "Strategy" of putting all of our efforts
into Iraq, McCain failed to "understand" the national implications involved in
fighting two wars. When McCain should have been calling for more troops and
resources in Afghanistan, he had this to say instead:
“Nobody in Afghanistan threatens the United States of America,"
-McCain on Hannity and Colmes (April 10, 2003)
"There were many people who predicted that Afghanistan would not be a success.
So far, it's a remarkable success,”
-McCain on CNN (March 2, 2005)
“the facts on the ground are we went to Afghanistan and we prevailed there,"
-McCain on CNN (Wolf Blitzer Reports, April 1, 2004)
Maybe the last quote was an April Fool's day joke.
“Afghanistan, we don’t read about anymore, because it’s succeeded,"
-McCain on The Charlie Rose Show (October 31, 2005)
Or, perhaps, McCain, the foreign policy "expert" saw what happened to the Former
Soviet Union in Afghanistan and decided that the US should take the same course.
And now, today, he has had to change his tune:
McCain has suggested that the "success" we enjoy in Afghanistan could show us
the way to "success" in Iraq. But more recently he has reversed that course:
"the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan,"
-McCain
So as McCain tells all of us that Senator Obama "doesn't understand", one
wonders what Senator McCain, himself, understands:
Politics.
Say anything; do anything; change anything. It ought to be McCain's campaign
slogan.
-Noah Greenberg
A Debate Review
Sept 27: Shorthand Thoughts after the first debate.
One candidate lags in experience, the other in credibility. Both get polarized
into unrealistic positions, we need a better middle path. So far, I continue to
pull for Obama, the less experienced but better intentioned one, who at least
looks to moderate his views in the face of realism. And has the better
collaborative skills.
On the Iraq war:
The dilemma of this conflict is that two domains have been collapsed into one.
A) The domain of the foundation for the war and B) Managing the war.
-On A) The foundation was a lie: Bush clearly stated our criteria were the WMD’s
and the evidence of terrorist support. Neither were true; and McCain, while
attempting to show himself as the maverick who protested how we administered it
(didn’t hear much from him in 2004 though), he continues to avoid and deny that
the INTEGRITY of the thing stank. Therefore, how can we trust his judgment on
what are legitimate criteria for entering other conflicts?
Obama is right to bring this up as it is an indication of how the next president
will enter conflicts.
On B) McCain has a point: whatever got us in, we can’t just cut and run allowing
a bigger mess that would pull us back in. Here’s where Democrats have been
fooled or polarized into looking foolish: Objecting to A) the war’s foundation
means you must withdraw immediately. But that’s a bit like leaving the patient
open on the operating table after you learn they didn’t have tumor you thought.
Once you’ve used the scalpel, you must guide the patient through healing no
matter what.
And guiding them through recovery does NOT mean you supported the surgery in the
first place. And acknowledging that the surge has had some positive effect does
NOT mean you condoned the operation either.
Both parties share some guilt on treating the American Public like meatheads who
can’t understand the difference.
To Obama’s partial credit, he keeps moderating his view on how soon to pull out-
makes him look a little flip floppy, but also willing to re examine the evidence
as it comes to light.
To McCain’s discredit is his pedantic rhetoric (victory vs. Defeat) that cannot
acknowledge the NEW reality of the NEW wars we fight: there are no clear winners
anymore. In the “old” days, when you could knock out a specific regime leading a
specific country, it was victory or defeat. In these days, when such regimes are
extensions of decentralized networks fed from surrounding countries, you at best
achieve an advantage when you topple a specific government, then are left with a
long term commitment to keep the inevitable insurgents at bay.
So no matter who gets elected, we ain’t leaving either Afghanistan nor Iraq
anytime soon, even if we’re fortunate enough to push them both back to a
temporary stability. Which leaves a question neither candidate addressed: that
we need more troops in general. A LOT. That’s another can of worms no one wants
to open, I guess.
So just as Obama can’t fully face the mess of leaving the misbegotten Iraq too
soon, McCain is stuck in his antiquated notions of working to a specific day
when we can declare Victory. Didn’t we do that in both Afghanistan and Iraq
before 2004, and didn’t that come back to haunt us?
To McCain’s credit; his recounting of his many trips over the years to these
regions, his first hand legislative and military experience is impressive and
there’s only so much intellectual reasoning Obama can trump up to counter this.
Experience is experience, no doubt.
To his glaring discredit: If experience is so important, as he emphasized in the
debate, than how dare he pick a VEEP that pales even when compared to Obama ?
And don’t tell us, that’s OK, she’ll have good advisors, because then the issue
becomes moot as Obama can do the same thing.
We haven’t even touched on the economy yet, where both men are truly in
uncharted territory, like the rest of us.
The short note on this, is that while McCain, again, has the experience, he
certainly wasn’t using it to reign in the Bush administration he so avidly
supported over the last eight years.
So there you have it so far. One Democrat guy wants to do better for the
country, but is still a bit new on the scene and sometimes polarized to the
opposite corner.
The other Republican guy wants to play both ends. Saying he was the rebel who
objected to so many of the heinous Bush policies, but then again literally
standing with Bush and the party on every political stage they’ve occupied for
the last eight years. The man of true experience, who picks a running mate of
meager experience. A credibility problem, I say.
-Ken Kraus
Losing One's Home Because of Health
Care
No hospital or medical facility in the U.S. has the power to take your home.
That's a fact. People who lose their homes do so because of having to come up
with enormous amounts of cash up front for surgery or other medical expenses.
It's a shame that the way medical care has been allowed to run rampant and to be
governed by business, not health care entities, that people would even have to
consider selling or mortgaging their homes.
-Ginger
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-Noah Greenberg