How Low Can McCain Go?
John McCain is out with a new attack ad, this one mocking the huge, enthusiastic crowd Barack Obama drew in Berlin. McCain compares Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. WTF?
Since when is an American politician being greeted warmly abroad a bad thing? I appreciated Jon Stewart's take on this. He showed video of the crowd in Berlin, with many people waving American flags, and stopped short and asked something like, "What's wrong with this picture? None of the American flags are on fire." I used to think Bush and McCain adopted a unilateralist American foreign policy because none of our allies would join us in fighting al Qaeda. Now, I'm beginning to believe that Bush and McCain don't want foreign support and maybe even consider the whole rest of the world the enemy.
Anyway, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, James Mitchell had a different take on McCain's ad that hadn't occurred to me at all:
"The comparisons to a couple of airheads whose celebrity status is due only to this nation's fascination with all things Hollywood is a deplorable, deceptive putdown of Obama's accomplishments and indirectly the achievements of millions of African-Americans who have worked hard, really hard, and often against long odds for impressive gains."
Commenters found other racial overtones in the Obama/Britney/Paris juxtaposition. When another reader defended McCain and claimed being an African-American had nothing to do with the ad, reader "Davebo" summarized the argument as "Why are you all complaining? This ad doesn't tell you to hide your white women!"
I can understand these viewpoints, but personally, the racial overtones did not occur to me. I found the Obama as Paris Hilton analogy just plain silly, too silly to be offensive. I'm still steaming over McCain's lies that Obama hates the military and wants to lose a war to win the Presidency. Now that's offensive. To each his own, I guess.
P.S. In this fast moving campaign, McCain is now accusing Obama of "playing the race card" when Obama said "What [Republicans] are going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Obama's campaign says Obama was not referring to race at all. Just like McCain's campaign claimed that the Obama/Britney/Paris ad didn't have racial connotations, either. If we're going to condemn the two campaigns for "playing the race card," let the record show that McCain's ad aired before Obama made his comments. ;-)
Assessing the "Surge"
The Dallas Morning News published an editorial admitting they were wrong for opposing the surge in troops in Iraq. Editorial board member Tod Robberson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, says no one needs to offer apologies for opposing the surge. He claims opposition to the war also played a part in reducing violence in Iraq. Maybe yes, maybe no, but there are other factors of greater significance.
No one should deny that the surge played a big part in reducing the violence in Iraq. Obama certainly doesn't. But it would be wrong to ignore other factors. Tod Robberson mentions the anti-war movement in the US as one. That prodded Iraq to do something before the US pulled out, whereas Bush's "stay the course" strategy did not. Also critical was the Sunni tribal leaders flipping their support to the US and away from al Qaeda. Also critical was the Shiite militias calling a cease-fire. Finally, you have to recognize the impact of ethnic cleansing. When Sunnis and Shiite neighborhoods were purged of the other, the amount of violence dropped. There were fewer targets. The decrease in violence tracked the increase in refugees, which is now in the millions.
If Iraq were all there is and victory at all costs was justified, then the "surge" would have been a logical tactic. But we're in a global war on terror and Iraq was and is a sideshow, a distraction from our bigger national security interests. So, no matter how successful the surge was in reducing violence (bringing political reconciliation is a whole 'nother matter), it risks turning out to be a Pyrrhic victory. Obama has always taken a more global, strategic view of things. In that view, the surge prevented us from focusing more attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Obama rightly views as the central front in the bigger war. The final grade on the surge has yet to be awarded.
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