Senator John McCain (R-Delusion) simply has no credibility left on defense or foreign policy issues. I understand that he was, at one point, a reasonable person and a man of reported integrity, someone who could work with groups and individuals on both sides of the aisle.
That time has passed.
The Senator said yesterday, regarding Iraq, "The consequences of failure are catastrophic because if we come home, bin Laden and Zarqawi, they are going to follow us." Um, Senator . . . Zarqawi is dead. Not only is he dead, but the Senator used his death, which occurred nearly ten months ago, to smear those who advocated redeployment: "[Zarqawi's death] has got to be viewed as a success," he said. "It's got to be viewed as perhaps a bit of a rebuke against those who are advocating that we cut and run out of Iraq."
Almost a year later, with no improvement and tens of thousands more dead and wounded, McCain is saying the same things. Yesterday he claimed that General Petraeus, the commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq, "goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee." This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. As CNN's Michael Ware reports, "certainly the general travels in [an up-armored] humvee. There’s multiple humvees around it, heavily armed. There’s attack helicopters, predator drones, sniper teams, all sorts of layers of protection. So, no, Sen. McCain is way off base on this one."
The only hope for McCain and his war is to confuse and mislead the American public to the extent that they no longer understand the reality of the situation. It would be sad if it wasn't so pernicious.
Between the ghost of Zarqawi following us home and our super General traveling with no defenses in the peaceful neighborhoods of Baghdad, it's increasingly clear that McCain is unfit for any public office, let alone the presidency.
