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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2008 / The World According to McCain

The World According to McCain

by John Cole|  July 24, 200811:14 am| 34 Comments

This post is in: Election 2008, War on Terror aka GSAVE®

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Has anyone pointed out yet that McCain is giving credit to the surge for things that happened not only before the actual surge began, but to events that took place before General Petraeus, the architect of the surge, was even in Iraq? Seriously- the Anbar Awakening:

In the summer of 2005, the Abu Mahals needed help. A tribe of notorious smugglers by the Syrian border, they were being pushed out of their own area by a competing tribe that had struck a deal with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown extremist group that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners.

Some of the tribe’s men had been insurgents, killers of American marines, but the border was an out-of-control no man’s land. So when the tribe proposed an alliance, the Americans decided to give it a try. Weapons and training flowed to the tribe, the extremists were pushed back on their heels — and the Awakening was born.

Another story:

In November 2005, American commanders held a breakthrough meeting with top Sunni chiefs in Ramadi, hoping to lure them away from the insurgents’ fold. The sheiks responded positively, promising cooperation and men for a police force that was then virtually nonexistent.

Hell, Bush didn’t even announce the surge until January of 2007, General Petraeus wasn’t even promoted until a few weeks later, and then did not get to Iraq until February 2007.

The “surge” in forces didn’t begin to arrive in Iraq until the middle of February:

Overall, however, the report said it was too soon to judge whether the security crackdown was working.

The security operation was launched Feb. 14 and is still unfolding as the last of an additional 28,000 or so U.S. forces are getting into position in and around the Iraqi capital. The Pentagon is required by Congress to provide its initial assessment of the operation in July, and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said he will report in September.

Here is Michael O’Hanlon noting that the surge forces were not even completely implemented in June of 2007:

While the American and Iraqi troops for the so-called surge are nearly all in place, it’s far too early to judge the effect. Still, given America’s waning patience with the war and the bad circumstances that prevailed in Iraq when the surge began, optimism is hard to come by. Our latest chart of leading indicators, based on American and Iraqi government data and news reports, doesn’t brighten the picture much.

In other words, not only is McCain completely full of it when he tries to redefine the “surge” to mean something other than the widely agreed upon “surge” in troops, but he really doesn’t even appear to have any of the basic facts right. That he is not being openly mocked in the media is certainly a sign of liberal media bias.

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Reader Interactions

34Comments

  1. 1.

    stormskies

    July 24, 2008 at 11:19 am

    Right, and if Obama had done this and all the other stupid things McBush has said the Corporate/Repiglican Media = Mafia would have already ended his run to be president .. 24/7 with the shock and mockery of these pundit pimps on the cable media / corporate cabals …

  2. 2.

    gbear

    July 24, 2008 at 11:28 am

    Johnny McPilgrim has come unstuck in time.

  3. 3.

    rachel

    July 24, 2008 at 11:32 am

    Maybe the media are afraid of what’ll happen if they upset the old crank.

  4. 4.

    Zifnab

    July 24, 2008 at 11:33 am

    Listen, all of that just proves how we were winning in Iraq back to 2005. But where were the pre-Surge! Democrats, lining up to give Bush all the praise for setting up the Anbar Awakening? Nowhere to be found. Why? Because they wanted us to lose the whole time.

    And now that violence is down – AS PROMISED – by the Bush administration, all you can do is argue about timelines and he-said / she-said.

    The important thing to remember is that WE’RE WINNING IN IRAQ! And that is why we can never leave.

  5. 5.

    nightjar

    July 24, 2008 at 11:35 am

    And to add a quote from Col Macfarland on the tribal “fence sitters” in September of 06″. Via Crooks and Liars.

    With respect to the violence between the Sunnis and the al Qaeda — actually, I would disagree with the assessment that the al Qaeda have the upper hand. That was true earlier this year when some of the sheikhs began to step forward and some of the insurgent groups began to fight against al Qaeda. The insurgent groups, the nationalist groups, were pretty well beaten by al Qaeda.

    This is a different phenomena that’s going on right now. I think that it’s not so much the insurgent groups that are fighting al Qaeda, it’s the — well, it used to be the fence-sitters, the tribal leaders, are stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, and it’s had a very different result. I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they’re finding themselves trapped between the coalition and ISF on the one side, and the people on the other

  6. 6.

    Original Lee

    July 24, 2008 at 11:35 am

    There were some talking heads last night who were pointing out that McCain was trying to take full credit for The Surge and essentially making stuff up, but they were only allowed to put it out there before figuratively being hustled offstage in straitjackets.

    As far as liberal bias and making stuff up goes, I happened to be in the room when Rove was on Fox, and he was trying to make out that because Obama was talking about S 1430 (of which he is a sponsor) being in the Banking Committee, Obama was claiming to be on the Banking Committee. Um, no, Obama was talking about his sponsor remarks to the Banking Committee about the bill, which is about divesting from the energy sector in Iran. But hey, that qualifies as a gaffe for Rove’s purposes.

  7. 7.

    Ricky

    July 24, 2008 at 11:42 am

    Mikey O’Hanlon also told the NYT that McCain was 75% right in his surge arguments. Since O’Hanlon has been 100% FOS about the war, I am not able to complete the multiplication to figure out the answer. I think it is the headline from the previous post on this topic.

  8. 8.

    montysano

    July 24, 2008 at 11:42 am

    Shorter history of the Anbar Awakening:

    How’s about we pay you to quit killing us?

    Just another amazing example of history disappearing down the Memory Hole. Meanwhile, we have an Islamic govt in Baghdad (something that in 2003 was deemed “unacceptable”), and a greatly strenghened Iran.

    Heckuva job indeed.

  9. 9.

    Punchy

    July 24, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    Somebody cue Malkin.

  10. 10.

    The Moar You Know

    July 24, 2008 at 12:05 pm

    rachel Says:

    Maybe the media are afraid of what’ll happen if they upset the old crank.

    I would be. Johnny McAsshole would either stroke out or knock your teeth out if you pissed him off.

  11. 11.

    Wilfred

    July 24, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    Radon levels in granite countertops have gone down since the surge.

  12. 12.

    dslak

    July 24, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    nce O’Hanlon has been 100% FOS about the war, I am not able to complete the multiplication to figure out the answer.

    What’s 75% of 0?

  13. 13.

    Heshe

    July 24, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    That he is not being openly mocked in the media is certainly a sign of liberal media bias.

    Maybe the media has been promised another finger licking good BBQ at the shack in AZ. If so, it would be a party killer at this point for any of them to publicize his latest make believe BS.

  14. 14.

    BlueMonkey

    July 24, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    I’m sure Andrea Greenspan will be all over this once she’s done bitching about Obama not inviting her to a barbeque.

  15. 15.

    Ricky

    July 24, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    dslak Says:

    nce O’Hanlon has been 100% FOS about the war, I am not able to complete the multiplication to figure out the answer.
    What’s 75% of 0?

    Damn, and there I was trying to figure out the Force multiplier. What confused me is that both O’Hanlon and McCain claim to have been critical of our losing strategy even before the surge began and they Awakened to our winning the war.

  16. 16.

    dslak

    July 24, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    Well, Ricky, we are always winning the war, but there are some points in the past when we weren’t. We were winning at the time, however.

  17. 17.

    scudbucket

    July 24, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    The important thing to remember is that WE’RE WINNING IN IRAQ! And that is why we can never leave.

    For McCain, it’s because we’ve already WON in Iraq that we can never leave. The logic of having to destroy the village in order to save it is alive and well in McCain, and has rendered him incapable of speaking coherently. It also causes him to utter strings of sentences that sound like English, but are actually complete jibberish.

  18. 18.

    w vincentz

    July 24, 2008 at 12:38 pm

    OT— Barack’s Berlin speech. WOW!

  19. 19.

    Wilfred

    July 24, 2008 at 12:45 pm

    It also causes him to utter strings of sentences that sound like English, but are actually complete jibberish.

    You mean like this?

    For too long, we have let history outrun our government’s ability to keep up with it.

    That from his cottage cheese/lime jello effort.

  20. 20.

    Cain

    July 24, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    OT—- Barack’s Berlin speech. WOW!

    Do tell?

    cain

  21. 21.

    r€nato

    July 24, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    OT—- Barack’s Berlin speech. WOW!

    Well, you know, Hitler spoke in Berlin to adoring crowds of Germans, too.

    Now, I am not comparing Obama to Hitler; I’m just saying that there are some uncomfortable similarities between the two.

    /Goldberg

  22. 22.

    cyntax

    July 24, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    Wilfred Says:You mean like this?

    For too long, we have let history outrun our government’s ability to keep up with it.

    I have to say there’s certain zen-like quality to that pronouncement. Perhaps there’s a Tao of McSame that we’re not considering here.

  23. 23.

    rawshark

    July 24, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    For too long, we have let history outrun our government’s ability to keep up with it.

    Was it Kristol who said a conservative stands athwart history screaming stop!? Is McSame plagiarizing or paraphrasing?

  24. 24.

    TenguPhule

    July 24, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    For too long, we have let history outrun our government’s ability to keep up with it. If elected I promise to run down history and beat it to death with a horse, thus ensuring only government approved history praising Dear Leader is available to future generations.

    Fixed.

  25. 25.

    4tehlulz

    July 24, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Was it Kristol

    I thought it was Buckley.

  26. 26.

    Ash Can

    July 24, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    a conservative stands athwart history screaming stop

    That’s a good way to end up with history’s tire marks across your face.

  27. 27.

    J. Michael Neal

    July 24, 2008 at 1:51 pm

    a conservative stands athwart history screaming stop

    That’s a good way to end up with history’s tire marks across your face.

    Some biker will keep history from driving away.

  28. 28.

    w vincentz

    July 24, 2008 at 1:55 pm

    @ Cain,
    I posted the answer to “WOW” one thread up.

  29. 29.

    slippytoad

    July 24, 2008 at 1:57 pm

    I’m not sure I understand why McCain in particular, and conservatives in general, are so emotionally invested in the success of Teh Surges. I asked this of a poster on another blog, and I’ll generalize it here:

    The problem in Iraq is that we’re fighting the terrorists over there in order that we do not have to fight them over here. That’s what I understood the mentally-deranged Republican policy to be. Right or wrong, I accept that as a premise of the Iraq war.

    Therefore, to have “won” any significant advance in the GWOT, or GSAVE, we would have to set as a criteria that an American can go to this formerly terrorist-jihadi cesspool (again, this is their premise, not mine) and freely display his Americanness without fear of a terrorist/jihadi killing him on sight, as a “win” would constitute all of those jihadis being dead or converted to Christianity a peaceful way of life, and re-conditioned to love Americans.

    So my challenge was this: I want to see a conservative cheerleader of Teh Surge fly to Iraq and stand in Fardus Square where the statue of Saddam was toppled in one of the many Potempkin Village moments of this Administration, wearing an American flag, with the Iraqis throwing roses at him. I want to see it on film, wide angle, with witnesses.

    Then, and only then, would I accept that anything substantial has been “won” in the Iraqi fiasco.

    I know it’s an absurd request. But it’s in response to a ridiculous assertion.

  30. 30.

    Ricky

    July 24, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    Where is that damn block quote button:

    “So my challenge was this: I want to see a conservative cheerleader of Teh Surge fly to Iraq and stand in Fardus Square where the statue of Saddam was toppled in one of the many Potempkin Village moments of this Administration, wearing an American flag, with the Iraqis throwing roses at him. I want to see it on film, wide angle, with witnesses.”

    Sorry Slippytoad, due to a weak ass hurricane 500 miles away, McCain couldn’t even fly to an oil rig and stand before the cheering oil industry.

  31. 31.

    Peter Kauffner

    July 24, 2008 at 9:12 pm

    The Anbar Awakening might pre-date the surge, but it could never have succeeded with the Saudis on board. The surge convinced the Saudis that we were in it to win it, which is why it had a major impact even before actual troops arrived.

  32. 32.

    Doug

    July 24, 2008 at 9:57 pm

    The Surge is to McCain as 9/11 is to Giuliani.

    Noun, Verb, Surge.
    McCain 2008.

  33. 33.

    Jim

    July 24, 2008 at 10:09 pm

    So let me get this straight. John McCain is being criticized for the timing of his references to the surge. The same surge, that Barak Obama (Omaniac) has yet to reference as having been successful. Is the foreign policy naiveté Omaniac contagious? The MSM (Omaniac’s nursemaids) has been equally ambivalent to the realities of Iraq.

    From European governments, the Clinton administration, the MSM, and the current Bush administration the threat posed in Iraq was well documented.

    Bush acted, where the rest of the world would not.

    John McCain supported that endeavor. Omaniac and the MSM did not. Both are on record.

    When the circumstances were clearly not effective in the Iraq theater, the clamor for a change was palpable. From the left, and Omaniac, it was retreat and defeat. From Bush and John McCain it was different. Increase the presence and change the strategy. The result is a situation in theater that has changed to the positive. Not perfect, and still requiring a force presence by our military.

    How, and when, our military leaves Iraq must be dependent upon the realities on the ground and not the “feelings” of us citizens. Sure, let’s take the Omaniac position and hand our potential victory to our opponent as their victory. Let’s revisit Viet Nam history yet again. Give up on a military positive position, effect a political positive position, and sit by while millions are affected (if not killed) in the wake.

    Omaniac is not a messiah. He is a product of the Chicago political machine. The Chicago political machine is contemplating calling in the National Guard since they can’t police their own city. I am so looking forward to the spraying of fire hoses on the protesters in Denver. Though, they will have to aim precisely to get through the fences that the public will be encaged in. If only the NYACLU was active in protecting the public in Denver as they were in NYC when the Republicans were here. HYPOCRACY

    As in the case of all communist societies (which the hard left is striving for) the suppression of the public is a necessity to achieve the goals of the ruling class. Omaniac is a communist at heart. His associations in Chicago, his recorded legislative history in Illinois, and his extreme Senate voting record, all certify this fact. He wants us citizens to capitulate to his persona. Thus, with the creation of a Supreme Leader, we will all follow like lemmings.

    Not exactly.

  34. 34.

    TenguPhule

    July 25, 2008 at 2:07 am

    The same surge, that Barak Obama (Omaniac) has yet to reference as having been successful.

    Because it was not successful.

    Number of Stated Goals Reached (without moving the goalposts)….

    Violence back to where it was at the START of the 2004-2005 period. You call that fucking progress?

    Increase the presence and change the strategy. The result is a situation in theater that has changed to the positive.

    Bush and Shitstain blew the last wad of troops to buy a political settlement that didn’t work.

    That’s it. No more troops to keep the ‘surge’ going unless you start throwing them into 2 year tours. Meanwhile, the Shia are taking the place of the Sunni as enemy number 1 in Iraq. And there are a hell of a lot more of them.

    victory. Let’s revisit Viet Nam history yet again.

    You mean the part where the Republican kills more Americans by failing to realize the war is FUBAR? You stupid fucks have learned nothing from Vietnam, and it shows.

    How, and when, our military leaves Iraq must be dependent upon the realities on the ground and not the “feelings” of us citizens.

    Fine, here’s the reality.

    The war has fucked America’s effective military strength for the next decade. We have the Navy and Airforce, that’s it. If Iran chooses to, they can inflict more casualties on our forces then Soviet Russia ever did.

    We’re also bleeding money to the tune of over 4 BILLION a month on the stupid Iraq adventure. Then there’s all the vehicles and equipment that desert and urban fighting has trashed.

    And who could forget about Stop-loss and the plumment in military standards to allow crooks and gangbangers access to military grade weapons?

    Though, they will have to aim precisely to get through the fences that the public will be encaged in.

    Projection, Freech Speech Zone Jim. It’s not for films anymore.

    As in the case of all communist societies (which the hard left is striving for) the suppression of the public is a necessity to achieve the goals of the ruling class.

    The Communists have at least one virtue. They tend to shoot corrupt SOBs caught being too crooked.

    We’d have a lot less Republicans and a few Democrats that way.

    Thus, with the creation of a Supreme Leader, we will all follow like lemmings.

    Yes, you already do follow Dear Leader. We know.

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