McCain and Obama face off -- again

Posted: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:20 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: Democrats, Republicans, Security

From NBC's Mark Murray and Chuck Todd
As we mentioned earlier today, McCain and Obama have already traded some barbs in the past several days. And that continued today. Obama issued this statement responding to McCain's Iraq speech today (and making another jab at the Arizona senator's comments after his Baghdad marketplace visit): "No matter how much this Administration wishes it to be true, the idea that the situation in Iraq is improving because it only takes a security detail of 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships to walk through a market in the middle of Baghdad is simply not credible or reflective of the facts on the ground."

Obama added, "What we need today is a surge in honesty. The truth is, the Iraqis have made little progress toward the political solution between Shiia and Sunni which is the last, best hope to end this war. I believe that letting the Iraqi government know America will not be there forever is the best way to pressure the warring factions toward this political settlement."

In his own speech today, meanwhile, McCain referred to Obama by name -- drawing upon Obama's earlier call for Congress to give Bush a "clean" Iraq supplemental after he vetoes legislation that contains the withdrawal timelines. "When the President vetoes, as he should, the bill that refuses to support General Petraeus' new plan, I hope Democrats in Congress will heed the advice of one of their leading candidates for President, Senator Obama, and immediately pass a new bill to provide support to our troops in Iraq without substituting their partisan interests for those of our troops and our country."

Interestingly, McCain and Obama are actually battling for a similar constituency in one state: New Hampshire, with its famed independent voters. McCain was seen in 2000 as the "different" politician. And now Obama is getting that kind of treatment. New Hampshire independents can wait until Election Day to decide which primary -- Democratic or Republican -- they'll vote in.

EMAIL THIS

Comments

Hundreds of American military putting their lives on the line so mccain can have a photo op and then lie. DISGUSTING

ex-marine,vietvet (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:30 PM)

I didn't know that by passing a bill that gives the President the funds required, the democrat's were not supporting General Petraeus' new plan. Unfortunately, I think we could support this plan 'til the cows come home and it won't change a thing. Sunnis and Shias and Kurds have been fighting hundreds of years. Until they decide to live in peace, nothing we do will change this. No matter what this administration says, this is a CIVIL war and we should not be referees.

Jamie, Elmwood Park (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:36 PM)

Truth is, every one of the politicians who has traded his vote for "financial considerations" contained within the Iraq War appropriations bill should be removed from office. I understand that good government requires some level of compromise, but this just smacks of outright bribery. In fact, it pretty much defines what bribery is, doesn't it? The trading of valuables for influence? Just once in my life, I would like to see a bill go through our legislative system, that strives to correct one wrong or strengthen one right, without being back-loaded with unrelated amendments or "earmarks" that cost me and all of us other tax-payers our precious tax dollars. Why should a bill asking for money for our troops in a foreign war be saddled with requests for money for peanut storage? Or rice farming? How are the two related? Tell me, someone, please. If no one can, I must assume that each and every one of our elected representatives is nothing more than a money-grabbing, power-hungry, influence-peddling prostitute, selling the integrity of the office for a few dollars. Heaven help us all.............

Darrel Sisson in Edinboro, PA (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:48 PM)

Mc Cain is a deranged old fool, who seems to look worse every time he speaks. I think he has a brain disease called early Bushheimers.

j fl (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 1:57 PM)

Obama, by the way, is right - Congress can't keep sending back the same bill to Bush if he vetoes the first one. For the Democrats the winning strategy would be to acknowledge the presidential power of the Veto, and send him a modified bill. This puts the Republicans having full ownership forever on the Iraq disaster. On McCain, if the surge proves to change nothing on the ground or worse still be a disaster(i.e. makes things worse) - I think currently there is even money on each, McCain is permanently done. He has really done himself almost fatal damage with his "feckless photo-op foreign policy" (I use McCains own words that were used to describe Clintons foreign Policy) nightmare in Baghdad.

U2 (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 2:01 PM)

Darrel - It's bartering more than bribery - the Dems have something the Republicans want (money) and the Republicans have something the Dems want (votes). I'm not crazy about pork, but that's the way things work in Washington. I'm also not crazy about the Iraq funds not being included in the budget. As someone else said in another post, it can hardly be considered an emergency anymore. All it doesn is warp the "official" numbers for the budget.

Carrie, NW Iowa (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 2:27 PM)

Gasbag McCain wanting a bill without substituting partisan interests?? You're kidding, right? This old fool is indeed senile!

Steve Althouse (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 2:30 PM)

You categorized these comments as "barbs", but they were very civil. In fact, Obama's comment was directed at the situation, not McCain's speech. And McCain was laudatory of Obama's idea.

Joe (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 2:43 PM)

I don't see how people like Obama think they can judge how a war is going. Having no military service and just a politician who wants to get votes from dead American soldiers. If anyone here was a soldier who was near Baghdad years ago and went back within the last year they would tell you things have changed greatly and stop looking at the body counts of dead Americans as a way of judging progress.

George Gowanlock, Michigan (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 2:56 PM)

"I don't see how people like Obama think they can judge how a war is going. Having no military service and just a politician who wants to get votes from dead American soldiers." But you take Cheney's word for how the war is going, right, George?

Lee in MV (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 3:24 PM)

Geroge Gowanlock- "....stop looking at the body counts of dead Americans as a way of judging progress." Dang, why didn't I think of that after Katrina? If I'd have just stopped looking at all the pictures in the papers, magazines and TV, I'd have realized the storm wasn't nearly so bad after all. Silly me.

Glen in Indy (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 3:43 PM)

George, Michigan: Therefore, how can Dick 5-deferments-in- a-row -Cheney with obviously "no military service and just a politician who wants to get votes" be any kind of a judge on how a war is going? "Greeted as liberators", "last throes of the insurgency" etc.etc......Talk about a politician who has no clue - look no further than Mr. Undisclosed Location (other than popping up on Rush every few weeks to contradict the Pentagon or anyone else who disagrees with him).

R.Merrell, Vietnam Vet (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 3:47 PM)

49 dead American soldiers in the first nine days of April.

Desmond (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:09 PM)

War is going great - That's why we have to extend the tours of duty to 15 months. Didnt Bush say yesterday that if the Congress didnt send him a "clean" bill, the troops may have to stay there longer: now he comes back the next day and extends the tour of duty himself? What kind of double speak is this?

U2 (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:14 PM)

Darrel, the truth of the matter is even if the Democrats stripped all of the pork off of the bill, the president would still veto it because it has a withdrawal date attached to it. The bluster about pork is just a smokescreen. It's just a smokescreen for the Administration to hide behind while more people die in Iraq. The same old BS they ask you to swallow while they do whatever they want.

Robert Catalano, Salem, OR (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:16 PM)

Tragically, the body count of dead Americans is a way of judging lack of progress, criminal waste of precious lives, imbalance of sacrifice, and the immediate urgency of getting the hell out of Iraq right now.

Scott in South Texas (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:33 PM)

And yet we are focusing on Don Imus and Larry Birkhead. Touche Desmond @ 4:09

Susan, Nebraska (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:43 PM)

Making out the fighting between the Shia and the Sunni to be a fight for 'political control' is nonsense. This is about who is a 'heretic' and who is the true decendent of Mohammad. To call it anything more than a religious war is ignorant.

Jesse Toler, San Diego CA (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:47 PM)

This country is in dire need of a Prophet like Elijha, Elisha or even a Son of God like my resurrected Jesus out there turning over tables with nothing less than the invincible Spirit of God WATCHING HIS BACK!

Jesse Toler, San Diego CA (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 4:52 PM)

"man of god, man of god, aint no messin'with the man of god"-Man Of God-Eliza Gilkryson

Still Crazy After All These Years (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 5:04 PM)

as long as our troops are in iraq it is actually a 3 way religious war sunni, shiite and christian, thanks jesse for pointing that out.

mikeeg,abdn,wa (Sent Wednesday, April 11, 2007 6:22 PM)

George - Is the body count of dead American's not a legitimate guage of how things are going in Iraq? To say "things are going great! More soldiers are dieing now than before" is just stupid. Too bad for the Bush administration that things like that aren't just ignored. I get the impression that you are ignoring such obvious things because you see your political party falling apart and you are getting desperate. It's not working, and Obama is speaking for the people. If that gets him votes then good, it should.

Ken, Seattle WA (Sent Thursday, April 12, 2007 12:10 AM)

There's a lot of finger pointing going on with the Iraq situation and people continue to try to put blame on the administration... I think majority opinion is that this is a war for oil and everyone wants to point a finger at Bush. Now, I'm definately not defending him, he's far from innocent and I'm sure his family stands to gain a lot financially... but it's supply and demand and I think it's hippocritical for Americans to think it's anyone but our own fault for being there. If we were REALLY against this war, we'd put our money where our mouth is and invest in alternate fuel option an SUV to drive to a protest. If you and I really wanted to make a change and bring them home, we would hit those companies in the pocketbook because there's no other way to 'force' anyone... government or a corporation to do anything unless they stand to gain financially from it.

Nathan Crowe, O Fallon, IL (Sent Thursday, April 12, 2007 4:06 AM)

SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.):

Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private) Remember me?

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=131696