Grumpy McSame seems to be in a perpetually disgruntled mood lately. He’s starting fights with Vladimir Putin. He’s even blasting House Republicans. I first noticed that Sen. McCain was suffering from butthurt when Obama announced the end of the Iraq War:
McCain, speaking from the floor of the U.S. Senate, said Obama’s decision on a full withdrawal — with no residual force behind — was timed to the start of the 2012 presidential election, and leaves Iraq vulnerable to terrorists and to anti-U.S. neighbors like Iran.
“I believe that history will judge this president’s leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves,” McCain said.
I thought, “My, isn’t that about the most ungracious, ill-tempered, and petulant thing he could have possibly said? And from the Senate floor, too?”
Now he’s going after Joe Biden for saying that the Taliban aren’t our enemies.
“If [the Taliban] aren’t the enemy who has been shooting at us all this time,” McCain said on Fox News, quoting from a tweet he said he got from a member of the military. “For the Vice President of the United States to make a statement like that is an insult to the men and women who are serving today. … But also, what about the families of those who have been killed by the IEDs that Taliban have manufactured, the same Taliban that sheltered Bin Laden and was responsible for 9/11. What about all that? It’s just disgraceful.”
You have to be willfully stupid not to understand Biden’s point, which is that we didn’t invade Afghanistan so we could fight the Taliban for the rest of time. We went there to destroy the al-Qaeda network, and we can leave now (or in the near future) because the al-Qaeda network has been decimated by the Obama administration. But McCain doesn’t care. He’ll latch on to anything that can be politicized. He’ll take any hawkish angle he can. Why?
Partly because he’s just a dick. But partly because Putin is right. He has a few marbles loose. And he’s really bitter than he got his ass kicked in the last election and he can’t let it go. He should have retired with a shred of dignity. Now he’s just an empty husk that walks around the Senate where he has only two friends (Graham and Lieberman) and no prospect of accomplishing anything. When Lieberman leaves next year, he’ll be down to one friend. And he’ll still be shouting at clouds.
Nah, McCain is suffering from a case of sour grapes heavily treated with frustrated & deepseated anger at his own Party for their self inflicted wounds. Ya think he enjoyed being bashed by the TParty in his run? Kind of like the final straw after losing to Obama.
His kind of twisted nastiness comes from having to shoot arrows around the corner instead of straight at himself for once being the leader of this failed Party.
Can’t imagine why, though.
Never mind. Steve M’s thread is back now.
Partly because he’s just a dick. But partly because Putin is right. He has a few marbles loose.
I’d add a third element to this: he really is an ideological hawk. He really does think that everything is Munich, that everything needs to be settled with gunfire, and that any outcome that isn’t total victory is total defeat.
Booman – I have a question for you about voter registration drives and the like. (I figured you’d be the best person to ask since you’ve been involved in it personally.)
Do you know what organization is doing the most on-the-ground real voter registration drives and voter education (say about the new ID laws, etc.), especially in swing states? I’d like to point people that way for their donations, but don’t know who to tell them to donate to.
Bitter? Party of one.. Mr. Bitter?
It’s not just that he was crushed by Obama in the last election- I think it’s more about getting crushed by the Cheney/Rove/Bush cabal in 2000. He actually had big Momentum going into the SC primary, remember? Then the cabal dropped the “black love child” bomb on him and muscled him out of the way. They treated him like crapola.. I’m guessing he was told to “wait his turn”; meaning waiting for two terms of shrub.. and when “his turn” did come up, he was of course beaten.
Regarding Iraq, like most clownservative hawks, McSame simply isn’t honest. He can’t/won’t acknowledge that a large chunk of the “missing” billions in cash flown to Iraq from the U.S. was part of the surge strategy: millions given to the Mullahs and tribal leaders, probably to al Sadr, etc., as pay off to get the insurgents to stop shooting at our troops and laying IED’s in the roads.
If not for this massive pay-off, we would not be leaving Iraq now.
This is ALL about money/oil; it’s not about winning any sort of “war”.. guerilla/network wars aren’t won by sheer military force. We’ve known this for years.
He will NEVER get over losing to ‘ THAT ONE’.
You write:
Not that McCain isn’t a nasty specimen, but…do you really mean to say that the withdrawal timing was not to some great degree “timed” to coincide with the real start of the campaign?
Plesae, Booman. You can’t have it two ways. Either Obama is a good politician…which you keep emphasizing on this site…or he isn’t. He is certainly in it to win it, and this is part of the plan. Bet on it.
Further…the “leaves Iraq vulnerable to terrorists and to anti-U.S. neighbors like Iran” part?”
It does exactly that.. As Oui recently posted here:
Ummmm…Iran has a Sunni majority, Iraq a Shi’ite majority. If a warrant for the arrest of a U.S. Vice-President who was representative of a minority that was allied with a rival state was “cited for terrorism, and is accused of planning bomb attacks against Iraqi government and security officials” (true or false), would the words “vulnerable to terrorists and to anti-U.S. neighbors” be so easy to mock?
I think not.
AG
Not that McCain isn’t a nasty specimen, but…do you really mean to say that the withdrawal timing was not to some great degree “timed” to coincide with the real start of the campaign?
I’m pretty sure that Nouri al-Malaki and George W. Bush were not thinking about Barack Obama’s reelection when they set December 31, 2011 as the date-certain for the withdrawal of American troops back in 2008.
You write:
And I am pretty sure that Obama was thinking about his re-election when he honored it. And publicized it…”hyped” might be a better word. Dates of that sort are not set in stone. Those with the guns make the decisions. What, you think Obama’s afraid of a little bad press? Naaaah…he can handle it. Lookit how he handled the potential for bad press with the assassinations of bin Laden and al Awlaki. Teflon!!!
“We” are “leaving” Iraq now because…
Bet on it.
AG
P.S.The quotation marks around “we” and “leaving above? I don’t handle that “we” thing so well since nobody ever asks me what I want to do, and “leaving?” Are the CIA, the various covert troops and the masses of contractors leaving? I don’t think so.