McCain 'confused' on foreign policy?
Posted: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 2:04 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Athena Jones, Carrie Dann and NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Seizing on the phrase "not too important,” the Obama campaign, the Democratic Congressional leadership, and unofficial Democratic dean Sen. Joe Biden have all weighed in, condemning McCain as “out of touch” with the wishes of the American people and their military leaders.
VIDEO: Republican presidential nominee John McCain talks to TODAY's Matt Lauer about troop levels in Iraq.
The Obama campaign -- with surrogates Sen. John
Kerry, foreign policy adviser Dr. Susan Rice and former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig -- held a conference call Wednesday morning to argue McCain was “confused” about foreign policy, misunderstood the conflict in Iraq and was out of touch with the concerns of American families with loved ones serving there.
The call was held to respond to John McCain’s comments this morning in an interview on NBC’s TODAY in which he told Matt Lauer it was “not too important” when American forces could come home from Iraq and that, “What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea; Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine.”
Kerry said McCain’s statement was “out of touch and inconsistent” with the concerns of American families with troops in Iraq and argued the Arizona senator had continued to articulate a policy for staying in the country even though American generals have said the military could not sustain forces at the current levels. The former Democratic nominee said he had a message for McCain: "It is important when they can come home. It is important when we can revitalize our military.”
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Biden, who was not on the call, issued a blistering statement during it, calling McCain's choice of words "evidence that he is totally out of touch with the needs of our troops and the national security needs of our nation."
Majority Leader Harry Reid -- also not on the call -- referred to the phrase as "a crystal clear indicator that he just doesn’t get the grave national-security consequences of staying the course." And the Obama campaign launched a morning conference call headlined by Sen. John Kerry to discuss the comment.
DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen released the following statement: “The American people want change and John McCain’s stunning comment today that bringing our troops home from Iraq is 'not too important’ is further proof of his intention to serve George Bush’s third term and make his policies even worse. In fact, if it was up to Senator McCain, he would leave our troops in Iraq indefinitely, spend countless billions more without seeing sufficient Iraqi political progress, and ignore the growing threat Al Qaeda poses in Afghanistan. Democrats are committed to responsibly redeploying our troops from Iraq, taking care of them when they come home with a new G.I. Bill, and finishing the job in Afghanistan.”
DNC Chairman Howard Dean also weighed in. "Senator McCain is wrong. One of the most important questions in this campaign is when and how Senator McCain would bring our troops home from Iraq. Senator McCain stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that the American people do not want our brave troops in Iraq for 100 years under any circumstances. They want a president who will end the war responsibly." (*** UPDATE *** The DNC is already up with a Web video attacking McCain on it.)
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds shot back in an email statement that the Democratic response is a “false” and “baseless political attack” that distorts McCain’s words and muddies Obama’s “willingness to disregard facts.”
“The Obama campaign is embarking on a false attack on John McCain to hide their own candidate’s willingness to disregard facts on the ground in pursuit of withdrawal no matter what the costs. John McCain was asked if he had a ‘better estimate’ for a timeline for withdrawal,” Bounds wrote. “As John McCain has always said, that is not as important as conditions on the ground and the recommendations of commanders in the field. Any reasonable person who reads the full transcript would see this and reject the Obama campaign’s attempt to manipulate, twist and distort the truth.”
Kerry listed what he called an "array of contradictions” in McCain’s statements about Iraq and said he needed to conclude the debate he was having with himself on the issue before engaging in one with Obama. The Massachusetts senator said McCain had contradicted himself on how long troops would stay in Iraq and misunderstood the history of violent clashes between Sunnis and Shiites, who leads Iran, how many U.S. troops are deployed in Iraq and who makes up Al Qaeda and that he had offered conflicting reasons for staying in Iraq, first because violence was up and now because it is down.
Rice said McCain did not appreciate the strain the American military was under and that by focusing, along with George Bush, so squarely on Iraq, both had missed the forest for the trees. She also said the Arizona senator had argued that the true leader of Iran was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “when "everyone knows it’s ” the Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Danzig said he worried McCain’s statements, which indicated support for an open-ended commitment in Iraq, seemed to back up “the jihadi, the terrorist narrative about U.S. ambitions and U.S. desires in Iraq” and that they showed poor judgment because such remarks by an aspirant to the presidency would be used against America.
The meaning of ‘confused’
During the question-and-answer session, call participants were pressed on whether their use of the word “confused” was meant to suggest that McCain was too old for the job.
Rice said the word was not intended to be a comment on McCain’s age and that it was merely meant to point out that on critical questions the presumptive Republican nominee had “gotten it wrong.” She again listed his comments on Sunnis and Shiites and on identifying the leader of Iran.
Kerry was even sharper in his response. “I think it’s unfair and a little bit ridiculous that because you use a word that’s used every day that you jump to the conclusion that it’s about McCain’s age,” he said. “There are plenty of senators older than McCain who don’t make those mistakes. He cited John Warner and others, who don’t make those mistakes.”
Danzig added that it’s “not a question of age at all.” He said McCain’s statements were “bad judgment” “tempered by inconsistency.”
On a lighter note, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest chimed in, “Now that we’ve cleared up the confusion about the word confused, let’s take the last question.”
Here’s part of the transcript from TODAY:
MR. LAUER: When the president, though, came up with this surge at a time where everyone, it seemed, was thinking the contrary, you endorsed it with great conviction and great courage. And a lot of people now say the surge is working.
SEN. MCCAIN: Anybody who knows the facts on the ground say that, yes.
MR. LAUER: If it's working, Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?
SEN. MCCAIN: No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That's all fine.
American casualties and the ability to withdraw -- we will be able to withdraw. General Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are.
But the key to it is we don't want any more Americans in harm's way. And that way they will be safe and serve our country and come home with honor and victory, not in defeat, which is what Senator Obama's proposal would have done.
MR. LAUER: Senator --
SEN. MCCAIN: And I'm proud of them, and they're doing a great
job. And we are succeeding. And it's fascinating that Senator Obama
still doesn't realize that.
