Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain’s top surrogates, laid the groundwork for McCain’s criticism in a television interview in which he noted Obama’s absence from Iraq and floated the idea that Obama and McCain should go together to be briefed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Asked whether he’d be willing to take such a trip, McCain told the AP: ‘‘Sure. It would be fine.’’ ‘‘I go back every few months because things are changing in Iraq,’’ he said. McCain questioned whether Obama has ever been briefed by Petraeus. ‘‘I would also seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way.’’ Obama spokesman Bill Burton declined to respond directly to McCain. ‘‘Senator Obama thinks Memorial Day is a day to honor our nation’s veterans, not a day for political posturing,’’ Burton said.
Both McCain and Obama spent part of Memorial Day in New Mexico, a general election battleground that was decided by razor-thin margins in 2000, for Democrat Al Gore, and in 2004, for Republican President Bush. McCain used a speech at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial in Albuquerque to press his case against withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Coming Anytime Soon? The Road To Baghdad - Two Senators; One America
John Sidney McCain: 'You seem to think the world is just some sort of a three-ring circus, and all you've got to do is to run around and have fun.'
Barack Obama: 'I just want you to stand there and admire me for a while. I just got an idea that's gonna make us a fortune. I don't know how I do it. Hey, Mac! (Seeing the desert for the first time]
This must be the place where they empty all the old hourglasses.I can't go on! No food, no water. It's all my fault. We're done for! It's got me. I can't stand it! No food, nothing! No food, no water! No food!
John McCain: What's the matter with you, anyway? There's New York. We'll be picked up in a few minutes.
Barack Obama: You had to open your big mouth and ruin the only good scene I got in the picture. I might have won the Academy Award just like Al Gore! '
John McCain: Barry, from now on you are sacred, you just became a full-blooded American idiot. You've got red blood, ain't you?
(Barack is startledSeeing Terrorists for the first time)
Barack Obama: Yeah, but I don't want to get it all over a stranger.
John McCain: Go ahead, eat up son.
Barack Obama: Those guys don't monkey around, they've got knives, they're liable to try and get the food back the hard way.
CNN Reporter: Do you know him?
[pointing at McCain]
Barack Obama: Well I used to but I kinda outgrew him, I don't dally with riff-raff these days and he's a pretty riffy kind of raff.
John McCain, 'Let's leg it, Junior! Plenty more to see and do.'
N.B.
Quote redacted, like the DNC's pretzle of McCain's 100 years Comment, from Old Hope & Crosby Movies
Sunday on CBS's Face The Nation Senator Lindsey Graham suggested that Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama accompany Republican nominee Senator John McCain to Iraq. This suggestion was made to provide Obama the opportunity to see all the progress and changes that has taken place since 2006. This was the last time that Obama presumably has been to Iraq. My thinking was that there is no way that Obama is going to do this because that would mean that he would have to admit that he is wrong, which is not happening. Well the following response was released this afternoon by the Obama camp's spokesperson Bill Burton:
ReplyDelete"John McCain's proposal is nothing more than a political stunt, and we don't need any more 'Mission Accomplished' banners or walks through Baghdad markets to know that Iraq's leaders have not made the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge. The American people don't want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military, and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer."
Who would have thunk it? Does this really surprise anyone who has been following this election?