Of McCain's Comments

The Senator opened his big mouth Tuesday with a comment that spurs me back to working with my fellows in the blogroll...this angers me in a way that much hasn't in quite some time.

Tom Maguire at Just One Minute takes it head on and in inimitable fashion, nails it:

"I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required," McCain said. "Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders. I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be."

Those phrases are closely associated with top members of the Bush administration, including the president.Well, yes, but... John McCain is a great American, but does he have a great memory? Perhaps he remembers who said this on March 18, 2003, on the eve of war:

O'REILLY: All right. Now you are confident it's going to be a quick military knockout, correct?

MCCAIN: I am reasonably confident of that. There is such a thing as the fog of war, there is such a thing of Saddam Hussein complicating the problem. But I am confident our technological capabilities are overwhelming and the men and women in the military are superb. We can count on them. To be fair, McCain was presumably referring to the initial liberation, and he was correct that it was a quick knockout. However, he certainly did not emphasize the possibility of a long and problematic occupation in this appearance.

Whatever - at least the man is educable.

Whatever is right. The President never painted the picture attributed to him. Not once. While the VP is ridiculed for the now famous "Greeted as liberators," line, one who was there sheds a little light on things. It happened:

Pres. Bush: "strikes out . . . on the fact that we were going to be treated as liberators."

Hitchens: "I saw it myself."

Matthews: "Pictures?"

Hitchens: "No. I was there. I saw it myself. American soldiers and British soldiers were greeted by hundreds of thousands of people with real joy. I saw it myself. I can't believe people say it didn't happen."

Maguire gives us another quote from Cheney about force size. I suppose McCain and others have the right to ridicule it but they are not right. The force was in fact large enough for overthrowing the regime. The mistakes came later.

Senator McCain and his fan club are welcome to criticize the anticipation and handling of the insurgency but this nonsense about Bush and the Cake-walk is absurd and I've had it. For a man who claims he's supportive of the President's policy in the biggest sense to turn around and lie about what was or wasn't said goes beyond the pale. Why he thinks it will win him conservatives in '08 escapes me.

But he's not running. Yeah, right.

Then this morning, Instapundit noted this little flap in this post:

The substance of McCain's claim is pretty weak: I don't recall Bush ever saying that Iraq would be a "day at the beach," and in fact casualties to date are considerably lower than what was generally expected for the ground war to Baghdad, where you generally heard figures in the 10,000 range. It's more the duration, and the extent of the bad press, that has exceeded expectations, really, though McCain's pretty sensitive to bad press.

He even indicates that some are accusing McCain of 'backstabbing.' I don't think so, I just think he's makin' stuff up. Politically expedient people do that.

The Senate Majority Project shows us how.

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