http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/07/18/ad-hawk-bon-voyage-barack.aspxJohn McCain sure knows how to say bon voyage.
With Barack Obama packing his bags for next week's journey to Europe and the Middle East--where the entire U.S. political press corps will watch, dumbstruck, as hope and change and audaciousness spread unbridled o'er the land--the Arizona Republican this afternoon gave his rival a not-so-friendly parting gift: the first real negative ad of the 2008 general-election cycle. Called "Troop Funding," the blistering spot uses the Democrat's overseas trip to compare him unfavorably to McCain on national security and press the case that he's a no-good, yellow-bellied, flip-flopping opportunist.
The only problem: it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
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More importantly, while the individual complaints may sound damning when simplified and strung together, they quickly crumble upon closer examination--especially as contrasts with McCain. It's true that Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan--but that's because Joe Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, has insisted that hearings on this critical issue be held at the full committee level, and not at the subcommittee level. It's also true that Obama has only attended on Afghanistan-related Senate meeting over the past two years, as McCain has loudly noted elsewhere. Unfortunately, McCain's record--zero of his Armed Services committee's six hearings on the subject since 2006--is even worse. Sadly, that's what happens when you're running for president--the day job suffers. Neither Obama nor McCain should treat his opponent's Capitol Hill absences as especially unusual. Nor should voters.
Then there's the little issue of "vot
against funding our troops." Sounds despicable, right? Unfortunately, it's just another example of the way Washington works. Obama did, in fact, vote against a 2007 war-funding bill. But it wasn't because he hates American soldiers. Instead, he was registering an objection to legislation that "lacked a timetable for troop withdrawal"--a position that arguably means he was more concerned about troop well-being, not less. Reasonable people can disagree over whether timetables are warranted. But portraying this as a vote "against the troops" is silly. It's also a game two can play. On March 29, 2007, McCain voted against H.R. 1591, an emergency spending bill designed to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and provide more than $1 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Why? Because it included a timetable for troop withdrawal. Does than make him anti-solider? Not at all. But it wouldn't stop an opponent from characterizing his vote--unfairly--as such.
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more at link, and links from those paragraphs.
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