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The Fall of Senator McCain
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03/15/07 07:35 AM ET
The comments of Senator McCain to the Firefighters Association demonstrate what has gone so terribly wrong in Washington and why Senator McCain will not be president.
First: truth to power. The Iraq war began as the bastard child of an arrogant and militarily incompetent commander in chief; a Republican Party that was submissive toward his will and derisive of alternate views; a Democratic Party whose elected officials listened to consultants advising them to support a bad war for bad reasons; and a media in which the deceptions and falsehoods that drove the country to war, though fear, dominated the front page of The New York Times and the editorial page of The Washington Post.
Things were done that never should have been done in our democracy, some of which continue to this day.
Truth to power: It is said on the floor of the House and Senate that those who favor the resolutions to change the policy are voting no confidence in the troops. This is a lie.
Can anyone argue with honor that Jim Webb, Chuck Hagel, Jack Reed, Daniel Inouye and John Warner are voting no confidence in the troops?
Those who make this charge are engaging in a defamation of our democracy, a defamation of their colleagues, a defamation to truth itself.
Truth to power: The scandal of abuse against our wounded troops is a dereliction of duty of historic proportion that will only be clearer and more nauseating with the cascade of new developments that will reveal countless more wrongs in the coming weeks, and stimulate a rising tide of outrage among our people.
How shameful that many of those who most aggressively pushed for this war, those who most derisively accuse their opponents of not supporting the troops, are those who should stand first in line to apologize to the troops for these derelictions toward the wounded.
Truth to power: Our former White House counsel and current Attorney General has been the official consigliere for policies of torture and violations of the Bill of Rights that history will judge as a defamation of our national character.
Prepare for a replay of the 2006 elections and expect a cascade of revelations originating from Bush administration officials and Republicans about how formal policy justified torture while those at the highest levels remain protected from responsibility. About constitutional provisions and federal statutes that were not faithfully executed. The breaking news of wrongdoing and scandal already drenches the airwaves and has only begun.
Truth to power: Isn’t it shameful that a wealthy and extravagantly compensated Democratic consultant advised a Democrat who aspired to be commander in chief and leader of the free world that because his experience was lacking, he should vote to send our troops to war to enhance his political opportunities?
What is noteworthy about this, is that in 2002, and far too often today, this is the rule, not the exception, in too many corridors of insider Washington. What does it tell us, that in the hours after Democrats assumed control of Congress, another well-heeled Democratic consultant was telling Democrats that they were not elected to solve the Iraq war and that the issue is a “distraction.”
The best news in Washington since the last election is that Democratic leaders rejected this foul and false advice. With this criticism of my party on the record, the Republican leaders maneuvering to another moment of destiny in 2008, and the media reporting the disunity of Democrats, here is my stand:
On the matters of military judgment, morality and electoral politics: I would rather see a Democratic Party in Congress divided between alternate means of setting things right in this disastrous venture in Iraq, than a Republican Party in Congress uniting behind clever tactics which locks them on record, as marching in lockstep, with this grossly unpopular president, and his catastrophically mismanaged war.
Nothing better sums up what has gone wrong in Washington than the recent words of Senator McCain. He said that presidents don’t lose wars, political parties don’t lose wars; the nation loses wars.
Senator McCain would never have spoken these words in his stirring campaign in New Hampshire in 2000, when he lifted the spirits of young people challenging them to fight for a cause greater than themselves and to take responsibility for the affairs of the nation and their own contributions to the cause.
Presidents can lose wars.
America had the moment to kill the perpetrators of 9/11, and our president chose to reject the call of commanders for reinforcements when the bombs were falling at Tora Bora. In that dark and demented moment of military neglect and incompetence by our commander in chief, Osama bin Laden was given the chance to escape, our war effort in Afghanistan was dealt a devastating setback, and the obsessive and compulsive march to disaster in Iraq was set in motion on a bloodstained road paved by presidential blunder and Congressional acquiescence.
No, Senator McCain, it may be an inconvenient truth in seeking a Republican nomination, but presidents can lose wars, and political parties that march in lockstep to exploit war for their partisan advantage can lose wars, too.
Presidents can lose wars, if they demean wise advice from generals with names Shinseki and Zinni. Presidents can lose wars, if they reject military advice and try to win war on the cheap, with far too few troops. Presidents can lose wars, if they disrespect military values and demean the Geneva Convention and end up with Abu Ghraibs that create anger and rage among the people whose hearts and minds we need to win.
No Senator McCain, don’t blame Americans first. The nation did not do these things; the president did, and the nation has voted out the people who supported this, while the president continues more of the same.
Presidents can lose wars, when they do not fight to give our troops the armor, helmets, bandages and protected vehicles in sufficient supply, and the president’s mismanagement of war causes what the Marine Corps pathologist calls casualties that are preventable.
Presidents can lose wars, when our allies are treated with such scorn and contempt that few participate in the mission, and the president humiliates his closest ally so severely he is ridiculed throughout his own nation and is labeled “the poodle.”
A president can lose wars when he has virtually zero advisers in his inner council who have served in combat, yet his partisanship is so all-encompassing, the national disunity he creates is so severe, that he hosts a national political convention where his cronies hand out little toys making fun of the Purple Heart, to slander an opponent awarded Bronze and Silver Stars.
Presidents can lose wars, Senator McCain, when they have the arrogance and pomposity to call themselves Deciders, rather than act as war presidents should act: as leaders of a government of coequal branches, who should work together and mobilize our people, in a common endeavor of shared purpose, based on the truism that this president has never learned — that we are all in this together.
And political parties can lose wars, Senator McCain, when they divide our country to win votes, rather than unite our country, to win the war.
Political parties can lose wars, Senator McCain, when their voices in Congress abandon their constitutional role of checks and balances, abandon their historic role of advice and consent, and abandon their responsibility to exercise sound military judgment and private conscience, and publicly campaign for policies they privately deplore.
The McCain I admired so much in New Hampshire in 2000 would have known and spoken this truth: Presidents can lose wars, political parties can lose wars and presidential candidates can lose wars when they look down on the American people with a politics of fear, a partisanship that ridicules and slanders opponents rather than uniting the nation in common cause.
Presidents, parties and partisans can lose wars when they say to heroic troops that you should fight to the death for the mission in Iraq, while we fight to the death for our tax cuts at home.
We are not a nation of shirkers and bums, who let our troops die preventable deaths, suffer preventable wounds, and endure unacceptable care while we count our tax cuts, gorge on our pork, dance to our iPods and let our heroes shed their blood on battlefields while the people on the home front shed their cash at the shopping malls.
Presidents and partisans do our country and our honor no service when they say to our troops that you should suffer the wounds of war and come home to ungrateful care, while we rub raw the wounds of our national division, by defaming our opponents with the lie that they vote no confidence in you.
In America we are all military moms and military dads. We are all ready to play our part and do our duty. We are all waiting for our leaders to ask — which is what true war presidents do — and we are all ready to answer, which is what great nations do when real leaders lead.
The Iraq war, misbegotten as it is, is not lost and need not have a catastrophic outcome.
There is a road out of the morass, which begins with the restoration of our national unity and our political honor.
There is road to a better outcome, but make no mistake: Presidents can indeed lose wars, and this one will, unless he understands that we are in this together, that we leave nobody behind, that we mobilize the entire nation behind the mission, that we stop smearing and demonizing each other, and that our leaders ask what we can do for our country, and that we get off our ass, together, and do it.
First: truth to power. The Iraq war began as the bastard child of an arrogant and militarily incompetent commander in chief; a Republican Party that was submissive toward his will and derisive of alternate views; a Democratic Party whose elected officials listened to consultants advising them to support a bad war for bad reasons; and a media in which the deceptions and falsehoods that drove the country to war, though fear, dominated the front page of The New York Times and the editorial page of The Washington Post.
Things were done that never should have been done in our democracy, some of which continue to this day.
Truth to power: It is said on the floor of the House and Senate that those who favor the resolutions to change the policy are voting no confidence in the troops. This is a lie.
Can anyone argue with honor that Jim Webb, Chuck Hagel, Jack Reed, Daniel Inouye and John Warner are voting no confidence in the troops?
Those who make this charge are engaging in a defamation of our democracy, a defamation of their colleagues, a defamation to truth itself.
Truth to power: The scandal of abuse against our wounded troops is a dereliction of duty of historic proportion that will only be clearer and more nauseating with the cascade of new developments that will reveal countless more wrongs in the coming weeks, and stimulate a rising tide of outrage among our people.
How shameful that many of those who most aggressively pushed for this war, those who most derisively accuse their opponents of not supporting the troops, are those who should stand first in line to apologize to the troops for these derelictions toward the wounded.
Truth to power: Our former White House counsel and current Attorney General has been the official consigliere for policies of torture and violations of the Bill of Rights that history will judge as a defamation of our national character.
Prepare for a replay of the 2006 elections and expect a cascade of revelations originating from Bush administration officials and Republicans about how formal policy justified torture while those at the highest levels remain protected from responsibility. About constitutional provisions and federal statutes that were not faithfully executed. The breaking news of wrongdoing and scandal already drenches the airwaves and has only begun.
Truth to power: Isn’t it shameful that a wealthy and extravagantly compensated Democratic consultant advised a Democrat who aspired to be commander in chief and leader of the free world that because his experience was lacking, he should vote to send our troops to war to enhance his political opportunities?
What is noteworthy about this, is that in 2002, and far too often today, this is the rule, not the exception, in too many corridors of insider Washington. What does it tell us, that in the hours after Democrats assumed control of Congress, another well-heeled Democratic consultant was telling Democrats that they were not elected to solve the Iraq war and that the issue is a “distraction.”
The best news in Washington since the last election is that Democratic leaders rejected this foul and false advice. With this criticism of my party on the record, the Republican leaders maneuvering to another moment of destiny in 2008, and the media reporting the disunity of Democrats, here is my stand:
On the matters of military judgment, morality and electoral politics: I would rather see a Democratic Party in Congress divided between alternate means of setting things right in this disastrous venture in Iraq, than a Republican Party in Congress uniting behind clever tactics which locks them on record, as marching in lockstep, with this grossly unpopular president, and his catastrophically mismanaged war.
Nothing better sums up what has gone wrong in Washington than the recent words of Senator McCain. He said that presidents don’t lose wars, political parties don’t lose wars; the nation loses wars.
Senator McCain would never have spoken these words in his stirring campaign in New Hampshire in 2000, when he lifted the spirits of young people challenging them to fight for a cause greater than themselves and to take responsibility for the affairs of the nation and their own contributions to the cause.
Presidents can lose wars.
America had the moment to kill the perpetrators of 9/11, and our president chose to reject the call of commanders for reinforcements when the bombs were falling at Tora Bora. In that dark and demented moment of military neglect and incompetence by our commander in chief, Osama bin Laden was given the chance to escape, our war effort in Afghanistan was dealt a devastating setback, and the obsessive and compulsive march to disaster in Iraq was set in motion on a bloodstained road paved by presidential blunder and Congressional acquiescence.
No, Senator McCain, it may be an inconvenient truth in seeking a Republican nomination, but presidents can lose wars, and political parties that march in lockstep to exploit war for their partisan advantage can lose wars, too.
Presidents can lose wars, if they demean wise advice from generals with names Shinseki and Zinni. Presidents can lose wars, if they reject military advice and try to win war on the cheap, with far too few troops. Presidents can lose wars, if they disrespect military values and demean the Geneva Convention and end up with Abu Ghraibs that create anger and rage among the people whose hearts and minds we need to win.
No Senator McCain, don’t blame Americans first. The nation did not do these things; the president did, and the nation has voted out the people who supported this, while the president continues more of the same.
Presidents can lose wars, when they do not fight to give our troops the armor, helmets, bandages and protected vehicles in sufficient supply, and the president’s mismanagement of war causes what the Marine Corps pathologist calls casualties that are preventable.
Presidents can lose wars, when our allies are treated with such scorn and contempt that few participate in the mission, and the president humiliates his closest ally so severely he is ridiculed throughout his own nation and is labeled “the poodle.”
A president can lose wars when he has virtually zero advisers in his inner council who have served in combat, yet his partisanship is so all-encompassing, the national disunity he creates is so severe, that he hosts a national political convention where his cronies hand out little toys making fun of the Purple Heart, to slander an opponent awarded Bronze and Silver Stars.
Presidents can lose wars, Senator McCain, when they have the arrogance and pomposity to call themselves Deciders, rather than act as war presidents should act: as leaders of a government of coequal branches, who should work together and mobilize our people, in a common endeavor of shared purpose, based on the truism that this president has never learned — that we are all in this together.
And political parties can lose wars, Senator McCain, when they divide our country to win votes, rather than unite our country, to win the war.
Political parties can lose wars, Senator McCain, when their voices in Congress abandon their constitutional role of checks and balances, abandon their historic role of advice and consent, and abandon their responsibility to exercise sound military judgment and private conscience, and publicly campaign for policies they privately deplore.
The McCain I admired so much in New Hampshire in 2000 would have known and spoken this truth: Presidents can lose wars, political parties can lose wars and presidential candidates can lose wars when they look down on the American people with a politics of fear, a partisanship that ridicules and slanders opponents rather than uniting the nation in common cause.
Presidents, parties and partisans can lose wars when they say to heroic troops that you should fight to the death for the mission in Iraq, while we fight to the death for our tax cuts at home.
We are not a nation of shirkers and bums, who let our troops die preventable deaths, suffer preventable wounds, and endure unacceptable care while we count our tax cuts, gorge on our pork, dance to our iPods and let our heroes shed their blood on battlefields while the people on the home front shed their cash at the shopping malls.
Presidents and partisans do our country and our honor no service when they say to our troops that you should suffer the wounds of war and come home to ungrateful care, while we rub raw the wounds of our national division, by defaming our opponents with the lie that they vote no confidence in you.
In America we are all military moms and military dads. We are all ready to play our part and do our duty. We are all waiting for our leaders to ask — which is what true war presidents do — and we are all ready to answer, which is what great nations do when real leaders lead.
The Iraq war, misbegotten as it is, is not lost and need not have a catastrophic outcome.
There is a road out of the morass, which begins with the restoration of our national unity and our political honor.
There is road to a better outcome, but make no mistake: Presidents can indeed lose wars, and this one will, unless he understands that we are in this together, that we leave nobody behind, that we mobilize the entire nation behind the mission, that we stop smearing and demonizing each other, and that our leaders ask what we can do for our country, and that we get off our ass, together, and do it.
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