Today's TRMS
Obama's best chance for winning in November might just be John McCain. Or rather, John McCain's campaign, the most poorly managed, embarrassingly outmaneuvered campaigns since Katherine Harris ran for Senate. So on today's show Rachel will be running through the litany of missteps and miscalculations, from the canceled visit to an oil platform during a hurricane to his backward timeline on the surge and the Sunni awakening.
Our first guest is Ilan Goldenberg from the National Security Network. Later John Amato from Crooks and Liars joins Rachel to talk about CBS
news editing out John McCain's mistake on Iraq -- and also about the Blue America pac's campaign against the rightwing "Freedom's Watch"
pac. Learn more about Blue America here.
All that is true, but it
All that is true, but it doesn't conflict with my points.
The surge was a political tactic by Bush, but it was also sending in more troops at a time when the Generals were saying they needed more troops. Heck, Jon Stewart's biggest criticism of the surge was that they weren't sending in enough troops.
The surge was definitely a debate tool. When the Democrats and America in general wanted to talk about withdrawal, Republicans said again and again, "Hold on, give the surge a chance, we shouldn't discuss anything at all until we've given the surge time to succeed." That was a huge cheat in the debate. However, the surge was also part of what reduced violence in Iraq.
You're right that the word "surge" is a debate tool. Like I said, part of what McCain says is true, but he's exaggerating it to the point that Obama can't admit that truth without it sounding like a concession on the whole issue.
My point is that it's not as simple as "Surge: Evil or Awesome?" McCain has a point and Obama has a point, but the truth is a mixture of the two. I think McCain is at fault for stratifying the conversation into the extreme right-or-wrong mess that it is now.
- parent
By Jason M. BryantJuly 24, 2008 - 12:59pm