McCain's hyperbole this week downright scary

I've got plenty, and I do mean plenty, to say on the Russian/Georgia conflict when I have more time later on this evening. However, for now, I couldn't resist commenting on this absolutely ridiculous, absurd assertion made by McCain a few days ago.

So, let's get this straight, the conflict in Georgia is the most serious international crisis since the end of the Cold War? Hmmkay - so I guess the Rwandan genocide, the famine and slaughter in Somalia, the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, not to mention the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan don't qualify in McCain's mind. (I guess if he wasn't running for president when those things took place, they didn't qualify as a crisis in his mind.)

Seriously, this guy is either unwilling or unable to remember more than three months in the past, or he has absolutely no problem with telling blatant lies and wild distortions to the American people. You decide, but it's one or the other.

If anything, the War in Iraq definitely qualifies - we have created one of the biggest refugee crises in the world, to the tune of more than four million Iraqis, many of whom have left the country altogether.

McCain's Today debacle

A few days ago, John McCain appeared on NBC's Today, and I don't even know where to start to comment about it. During his 7+ minute appearance, he turned into a virtual gaffe machine.

First, his plastic, creepy smile is enough to give me the chills, but his words made up for my skeeviness, because I was belly laughing in no time.

It's so blatantly obvious that he's doing whatever he can to appeal to the GOP's base, especially the people who remain in la-la land, who believe that cutting taxes is the answer to our significant economic ills.

Enter McCain's proposed "gas tax holiday," which is a complete joke. I just don't know how else to describe it.

When asked by Matt Lauer what he or Barack Obama could do about gas prices, McCain lamely responds, "We could give them [American consumers] a break." Does anyone, and I do mean ANYONE with half a brain, honestly believe that if the federal government stops collecting the gas tax, that prices would go down at all?!? You don't have to be an economist to conclude that Big Oil would simply take up the slack by raising prices by the same amount or more (not to mention OPEC). Another highly undesirable result of suspending the gas tax - the federal government's deficit, which has already reached astronomical heights, would have another huge hole blown in it by another unaffordable tax cut. Not to mention our crumbling infrastructure (which, thus far, neither candidate has addressed in any significant way), which is already underfunded by Congress, would crumble even more. (The gas tax largely funds highway and infrastructure improvements.)

However, my favorite part of the segment above is when Matt Lauer asked McCain what he thought we would be paying for gas by election day. To be fair, it's a "Gotchya Question" (Nice job, Matt, and I don't say that often), but McCain handled it about as bad as he could have...

I'm not sure, because I think part of it depends on how we are making advances in alternate energy.

Lauer came right back at him with, "In that short amount of time?" It was great watching McCain hem and haw after that, saying we could come up with "a battery that could take a car 100 miles or more." Gimme a break. In six months?!? I sure hope I'm wrong and he's right. And those batteries? They've already been invented, senator, but thus far, automakers haven't been putting them in cars in significant numbers. (For those of you who are interested, see the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? for loads of more insight.)

More kudos to Lauer (!) for mentioning the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan tax group, which has analyzed both candidates' tax plans, and has concluded that 80 percent of McCain's tax proposals would go to those Americans who need it least. Draw your own conclusions there. It is worth noting that McCain was very disingenuous when he talked about "millions of Americans" being affected by raising the Social Security income cap. Yes, that's true, but those affected by raising the cap, according to Obama's proposal, would be well into six figures, NOT lower income Americans. The same goes for capital gains taxes. However, most outrageous of all is how McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate. Obama should use that as a political cudgel for the rest of this campaign, period.

McCain really was at his "best" when questioned about Iraq...

LAUER: Do you have a better estimate on when the troops can come home in Iraq?

McCAIN: That's not what's important. What is important is the casualties in Iraq.

Really? It's not important when Americans can come home? He's gotta be kidding. I can only hope that any family with a soldier in Iraq heard that comment (and soldiers in the field as well), and I hope they remember it in November. Of course, now that there's an uproar, McCain will undoubtedly reverse himself, but that reversal will be merely out of political necessity and not a reflection of his true feelings. Remember, McCain is the guy who said that we could be in Iraq for the next 100 years. (He later shortened it by saying that troops could be coming home by the end of his first term - how reassuring.)

I also tire of people like McCain citing Korea, Japan and Germany as examples of our troops being permanently being stationed overseas. A substantive political discussion of our military can never be had without a World War II reference. Too bad that those three examples are from the Cold War, something that ended long ago. Comparing the so-called War on Terrorism and the Cold War is like comparing the NFL to Pop Warner football. The two are simply not analogous.

I also found it interesting that McCain mentioned that General Petraeus is going to testify to Congress next month about when we can begin drawing down our troops. I've got a Benjamin that says he'll testify "another six months" or something similar, which is testimony he has repeatedly given Congress since he took over command in Iraq. I've written it before many times, and it bears repeating - it's foolhardy to ask a military general when troops should be withdrawn from the field of battle, because no general is ever going to say, "You know what, committee? What I'm doing in Iraq is a miserable failure. Bring those boys home." It's setting the system up for failure. The last time I checked, our military leaders take orders from civilians elected by the American people in this country, not the other way around. I've little doubt that our command structure in Iraq and elsewhere have the best of intentions at heart and that they do a terrific service to our country, but these repeated Congressional bull sessions where commanders are asked whether they are failing or not are simply ridiculous - it's a broken record every time.

Our corporate media gives a lot of credence to the fact that McCain knows a great deal about foreign policy. I think the man's clueless. And let's not even get started on the economic issues here at home. (Which, by the way, polls say is the most important issue this election season.)

I just don't see how anyone but the most rabid Republican partisan can possibly cast a vote for this guy.

Korean deal needlessly delayed

It's amazing to me how the Bush Administration will go to just about any lengths to pat itself on the back, even when it flies in the face of facts and reason.

For some perspective on the deal that was just struck with North Korea to suspend its nuclear weapons program, one must go back to January 2001. The Clintons were leaving the White House, and the Bushes were moving in. The mood in the new administration was decidedly anti-Clinton.

Along that vein, the dialogue America had with North Korea, Iraq and the combatants in Israeli / Palestinian conflict vanished almost overnight. The general modus operandi of the new administration about most policies was if the old Clinton team supported a policy, it was anathema to the Bushes. Out with the old (even if successful) and in with the new. (Honestly, this just isn't my opinion, either; books by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and former Anti-Terrorism Chief Richard Clarke outlined this turn of events in their books.) Tragically, that also included an obsession with Al Qaeda, but that's the subject for another post.

The newly installed neocons in the White House derided the Clinton Administration, both covertly and overtly, for negotiating with countries like North Korea. One didn't have to be a diplomat to read between those lines - Clinton and his minions were all being pussies - the Bushes weren't going to give North Korea a plug nickel, and no, they still can't have a nuclear weapon, thank you very much.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when word out of the Korean peninsula was that a deal had been reached between the North Koreans and the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Korea has agreed to halt its nuclear weapons program in return for millions of gallons of crude oil and other aid. In other words, exactly what the Koreans agreed to in 1994.

During Bush's first term, had the president decided to negotiate with the North Koreans, who knows? Perhaps they would not have acquired a nuclear weapon, which most believe the country has, at least in small quantities.

The heart of the problem is that the Bush Administration equates dialogue with weakness and concession. It's not. But differences can be overcome between sworn enemies if there is dialogue. Even during the Cold War, American presidents met with their Soviet adversaries.

I do have hope that the Bush Administration will learn the value of diplomacy from the Korean experience by beginning talks with the Iranians and Syrians. Much can be accomplished and learned by talking to your enemy. One thing's for sure - one can't learn anything about an adversary if there is no dialogue.

It's too bad that this administration is so driven by ideology and much less by common sense and diplomacy. But, it's not too late. It's just too bad that we still have a president learning on the job over six years after his inauguration.

Worth a look: The Fog of War

The War in Iraq has been on my mind a lot today for some reason - I guess it's because it's all over the news. It got to me thinking about a stunningly insightful film I saw a few months ago - The Fog of War. Normally, I only bring you movie trailers about current or recently released films, but I decided to post this one because it relates so well to Iraq. It's an amazing film, centered on Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who served in that capacity under JFK's entire administration and nearly all of Lyndon Johnson's.

A brilliant man, McNamara's arrogance and hubris got the best of him, his president, his nation, and the lives of thousands of young American men who died in Vietnam, over a civil war that we had no business butting our noses into. But, under the guise of fighting the Cold War, that's precisely what we did.

Sound familiar? Just substitute Donald Rumsfeld for McNamara, Iraq for Vietnam, and War on Terror for Cold War, and you could shoot another documentary, with the cooperation of Rumsfeld. Of course, you have a better chance of President Bush resigning than getting Rumsfeld to admit a mistake.

Anyway, the film is absolutely apropos to contemporary thinking about American military might and our disastrous foray into Iraq, all in the name of fighting terror and spreading Democracy.

The film is excellent for other reasons, too. McNamara takes the viewer on a historic tour of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and of course, Vietnam. It's very instructive about the perils of glorifying war, which America has a monopoly on.



And I couldn't resist to bring you one more clip from the movie - it's McNamara's take on the nuclear bombing of Japan. I'm not sure I totally agree, but he's got a whole lot more expertise on the subject than I could ever dream of. Regardless of your point of view, it is thought provoking.

After watching it, still think war is all glory? I sure as hell hope not. Japan had it coming, no question, and in the end, I think dropping the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right decision, because Japan wasn't going to surrender unless it was absolutely forced to do so. However, the firebombing of Tokyo, killing 100,000 civilians? I'm not sold on that one. McNamara offers up a stunner at the end of this clip, saying Curtis LeMay thought American generals would have been prosecuted as war criminals had we lost the war. Wow.

My point in bringing this up now is that war should absolutely be the last resort, not the first one. World War II had to be fought. Iraq did not and does not.