McCain Keeps Up Iraq Attack on Obama
The McCain campaign's newly aggressive approach was on display today at a “Straight Talk Town Hall” event in Pennsylvania.
Wilkes-Barre, PA — Sen. John McCain today continued his stepped-up criticism of his Democratic rival’s position on the war in Iraq, saying Sen. Barack Obama would “rather lose a war in order to win a campaign.”
Speaking at a “Straight Talk Town Hall” event here, McCain reiterated the accusation he made Tuesday in New Hampshire as he sought votes in a region of Pennsylvania that went heavily for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
Reminding his audience that critics said his early support for more troops in Iraq would doom his presidential hopes, McCain recalled, “I said I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war.”
The “surge” has been credited with reducing violence in Iraq to its lowest levels since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“Senator Obama said that the strategy of the surge would not succeed. He said it was doomed to fail. He said there would be an increase in sectarian violence. He still, to this day, has said that the surge is not succeeding,” McCain told a crowd of about 900 people at the morning event at the F.M. Kirby Center in downtown Wilkes-Barre.
“It’s a remarkable failure to understand the facts on the ground. So, apparently, Senator Obama would rather lose the war in order to win a campaign,” he said.
Similar remarks by McCain during a Tuesday appearance in Rochester, N.H., were denounced by many critics, including Time magazine columnist Joe Klein, who called it a “scurrilous statement” that “smacks of desperation.”
The repeated attack on Obama — who is currently in the midst of a weeklong foreign trip — appears part of a newly aggressive approach for the McCain campaign, which recently reshuffled staff and brought in former Bush political operative Steve Schmidt as a senior advisor.
The visit to Wilkes-Barre represents a key opportunity for McCain to flip a Democratic blue state to Republican red. In the April 22 Democratic primary, surrounding Luzerne County voted 3-to-1 for Clinton over Obama, and clearly the McCain campaign hopes to win over Clinton Democrats in a potential swing state that Bush narrowly lost to John Kerry in 2004. A June Rassmussen poll showed Obama with a four-point lead over McCain in Pennsylvania.
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Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party . A frequent contributor to the American Spectator, he blogs at The Other McCain.
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37 Comments
1. Lulu Pickles:McCain’t doesn’t know his geography. McCain’t is hoping that a still questionable POW story is going to win him the Presidency. McCain’t doesn’t have any other leg to stand on (but the false honor that comes with being a fly boy who murdered innocent families – oops, we’re not supposed to remember this part). The guy is a loser and he should have given up a long time ago.
Go drink a beer and RETIRE 08!
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:21 pm 2. Mike Puckett:Thank you Lulu for helping me make my decision.
I just sent McCain a payment of $100.
If lying, unthinking, slimebuckets like yourself feel the way you do, then he is unquestionably a man of honor and worthy of our support.
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:36 pm 3. Mrs C:The more I learn about about John and Cindy McCain and their life together and their family, the more I like them. The more I learn about the Obamas the less I like them.
Those who want to guilt trip soldiers about murdering ‘innocents’ are stuck in the drug-induced hay ‘daze’ of the 1960’s which was about,,oh 40+ years ago! I suppose those who fault our soldiers and airmen for killing others are the same ones carrying the Code Pink banners that say it’s ok to kill U.S. Servicemen. Thank God most Americans see past the rantings of a marginal and extreme fringe group.
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:38 pm 4. oMan:Lulu Pickles: ad hominem attacks only show that you have nothing to say. McCain’s POW story is part of his life, he doesn’t need to tell us what it means. What he brings to the job is his experience and judgement and backbone. Which is based in some no small part on how he handled himself in the face of years of torture. He has taken the measure of evil. There is a fighting chance he won’t be gulled or cowed, nor that he will talk himself and us into a fairy-tale of “peace in our time.” Can we expect as much from Obama? He has seen almost nothing of the world. His resume is laughable, a hopscotch of self-aggrandizement. He claims to be about “change” but in his constant shiftiness he is changeless. A child who makes up whatever he needs to get by. He is the master of the provisional self-narrative, constantly editing his account and his “position” to escape the cost of standing his ground, of answering for his half-truths. I think the electorate are wising up. McCain is not perfect but of the two he is a giant, Obama a pygmy. And your spew shows us your stature.
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:39 pm 5. DaveS:LOL @ LuLu. As a reluctant McCain supporter, I am asking you and people like you to PLEASE keep talking! As loudly as you can.
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:40 pm 6. scank:I’m with Mike Puckett.
Lulu – for shame!
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:44 pm 7. A. N. Pierson:Make that $200
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:49 pm 8. Roger Dean:Yes indeed it is questionable. McCain is obviously faking not being able to lift his arms above his head due to war injuries. But what an actor! He’s kept it up for three decades now! Congratulations, Lulu, on exposing him with your “no evidence” and your “pointless whining.”
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:50 pm 9. Steph Houghton:lulu they were as innocent as the civil population of any dictaorship. The fact is the north was part of the worst system of dictatorship the world has even known (oops we aren’t supposed to remember that). The population of the north was supporting the forces that were trying to subjugate the south to the same communist tyrany. Learn some history!
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:54 pm 10. First Sergeant USA:Lulu Pickles
John McCain and I have served so that you can make a complete idiot of yourself.
Your quite welcome,
Top
Jul 23, 2008 - 4:58 pm 11. Chaz:Geography and history are two different subjects. Sure, A geography gaffe about the Czech republic is one thing. With how many times the borders have changed over 50 years it can be hard to keep track. On the other hand, getting your recent history wrong on the surge is another thing.
Seeing something work and criticizing the man who supported it smacks of cynicism.
Coming from Illinois (no longer there anymore) I have only one thing to say: Nothing good has come from Chicago.
Jul 23, 2008 - 5:07 pm 12. cunning stuntman:Zing! Zing! Zing! I lost count! Another reluctant McCain voter but that was great.
Jul 23, 2008 - 5:17 pm 13. Algen:Obama has been caught in so many lies that I do not see how anyone could in honesty support him. Iam beginning to wonder if all the drugs he has admitted to taking has addled his thinking or if he is just a compulsive lire and can not help himself.
Jul 23, 2008 - 5:17 pm 14. pete dukoski:Make it $300. The first post is ludicrous, Marxist and offensive.
Jul 23, 2008 - 5:54 pm 15. Stepan:Well, at least JOHN MCCAIN doesn’t claim to have three purple hearts for laughable injuries, which was the centerpiece of John Kerry’s war hero status.
What does B.O. have other than impeccable left wing credentials (that we are being encouraged to forget) and absolutely nothing to show for his 130 “present” votes in the Illinois legislature and two years of shiftlessness in the Senate?
Great presidential timber he. Any five year old can see through that ruse. His primary qualifications are that he is black and the media fondles, er, fawns over him.
You can stick your finger through him. He’s just a Barack media hologram. There’s nothing there.
Jul 23, 2008 - 6:06 pm 16. usmcret:To LuLu Pickles
It is pathetic people such as you that I, and countless millions of others, risked their lives in war so that you may exercise your constitutional right to be stupid. What worries this retired VietNam combat Marine is that you will exercise your additional other constitutional right to vote in spite of the fact you are too ignorant and uneducated to understand what is at at stake. Our national security, that is. But again, you’re too ignorant to understand.
Semper Fi
Jul 23, 2008 - 6:17 pm 17. Joshua:There is no word or phrase that Barack Obama would not state or re-state or rephrase or refine with complete sincerity to manipulate the useful idiots like LuLu. Doesn’t LuLu also mean coockoo? Coockoo Pickled need we say more?
Barry Barry Quite Contrary is the bumper sticker every clear thinking American needs to proudly display.
Jul 23, 2008 - 6:58 pm 18. tim maguire:The LULU post has to be a joke. I know most Democrats believe some of what she said, some may believe all of it, but it’s too “talking points” silly to be real.
Mrs. C is right–Obama comes on strong, but the more I learn about him, the less I like him and I suspect the same is true generally–the only way to keep believing is to keep ignorant. McCain on the other hand, well, I’m not thrilled, but I know he’s a man of integrity who isn’t ashamed to put his country first.
It’s about time McCain started to force some of these issues.
Jul 23, 2008 - 7:39 pm 19. john from cinncinati:McCain is in America stumping for votes, Obama is in the middle east and europe, and you say McCain has his geography wrong? wait what?
Jul 24, 2008 - 1:15 am 20. Andrea Fuzzi:Praying at the Jerusalem wall is calming the Obama’s fury.
Jul 24, 2008 - 3:52 am 21. SAF:One bad choice after another!
McCain was not my first choice as the republican candidate. But I have always admired him NOT bringing up his war stories. Others do he never does. It shows a lot of character. And no one ever accuses him of seeking the presidency to reek vengeance on Vietnam.
I don’t agree with all his policies but at least I know that he does what he thinks is right without consulting a poll. Obama won’t take a leak without checking Rasmussen.
A very clear choice for president.
Jul 24, 2008 - 4:19 am 22. Mama73:SAF -
“I don’t agree with all his policies but at least I know that he does what he thinks is right without consulting a poll.”
You said it.
And as a Chicagoan…well, there is a familiar stink about Obama.
Jul 24, 2008 - 6:35 am 23. Shane:lulu pickles is the ‘little’ fat blonde girl depicted in Harvey Korman comic books.
Jul 24, 2008 - 7:24 am 24. Edward A.:From the half-filled town hall meetings, it is clear that John McCain offers only old-line politics. Most Americans see John McCain as a copy of G.W. Bush. As the war rolls on, our economy lags, oil prices increase, the stock market heads down, our American prestige suffers and the heavy hand covers our land, G. W. Bush will end up making Nixon look good. And, McCain offers more of the same.
Jul 24, 2008 - 10:55 am 25. ReCon USMC:Lulu Pickles: I wished you lived under Saddam’s bloody hand yet your kind are for human rights “I guess ? Just yours and your type pets dogs and cats !
Jul 24, 2008 - 11:59 am 26. ReCon USMC:Oboma and leftist hate America Jerks like you
Pacifism has never won one war since man kind existed . But many brave men and women have died to keep your Pacifism alive and well in our hard fought for many freedoms and democracies those that want us very dead pacifist there don’t survive . Pacifism in this country is awarded to Cowards like you and Oboma and is paid far too much in others bravery , American blood and tears .
Lulu Pickles: is where Move on .org and The DAILY Kos nuts , castaways and Rejects are sent when they are not Vile , hostile , demeaning and nasty enough… they are sent to hard labor at Conservative web sights.We welcome you honestly so real Americans can see the left for truly what it is .Are you in Rev WRIGHTS CHURCH TOO ? Just wondered .
Jul 24, 2008 - 12:46 pm 27. ReCon USMC:If YOUR KIND can not insult, demean ,Lie about ,distort , Military brave good Loyal AMERICANS records enough times George Soro’s Marxist paid pervert hate America friends will not welcome them back .
luLu you should retire .You spent to long in teddy kennedy’s training bars or Rev Wrights church of hate white folks .
You really are fickled and Pickled …..LuLu !
God said Brains not Trains since you run on two distance tracks to no where .
The term dances to a distance drummer had a drum and drum sticks .You have neither .
You want to play head games …. ReCon Marines like that kind of party
Let the war games begin !!!Hoo Raaa
To Edward A.:
Jul 24, 2008 - 1:08 pm 28. Believer:So McCain can get votes like Oboma does by saying America needs to be ” rebuilt” with Socialism leading to MARXISM ? B/S Polished not rebuilt Edward A . Since we have the best economy in the world ever .Silly me you Socialist don’t like Capitalism that pays for DEAD BEAT Socialism ..duh !
A terrible McCain is better that a slick talking say nothing (many things on one subject MARXIST LEAD Oboma depending on who he is trying to empress that minute or lie too like he was BEING head of the BANKING COMMITTEE HE ISN’T EVEN ON ) he is empty suit Brother and terrible for America !Hell he already insulted Gen Patraeus in a 40 minute visit and knows more about war than Patraus does ? Joke-able
Raising taxes and spending more on Social programs is what has Calif in the Toilet SO YOU WANT THAT FOR THE NATION AS WELL ? You Liberals do need a nanny even when you are Phy. grown not ever mentally GROWN sadly . Personal Resp. Individualism and Exceptionalism are words your side never uses !
THOSE FORE A NANNY STATE CAN’T …. EVER OBVIOUSLY !
It’s the Lies, Stupid.
Who would choose a liar for a spouse, friend or employee? This is an important relationship we’ll be entering into. It’s obvious to most of us this phony is not The One.
My only question for these narcissists who lie so easily – do they know they’re lying? I don’t know how they live with themselves – and aren’t they at least marginally embarassed when exposed?
It’s very reassuring to see McCain getting fired up – finally. Keep throwing the punches. BO deserves every one.
Jul 24, 2008 - 1:13 pm 29. Believer:And if you missed this: Mort Kondrake has reported Middle East experts say we’re more likely to find ourselves in a war with Iran if Obama is president.
Not good news for BO. Even worse for us if we elect him.
Jul 24, 2008 - 1:33 pm 30. Believer:And another thing: Can we please throw out every Dem that’s running this year?
Watch Jindal in Louisiana. He’ll finally get that place turned around. Too many years with Dems ruining it. So learn from that mess. Or learn from BO’s disaster in Chicago.
Don’t let our entire nation go down the tubes with more Dem control in any of the branches of government. They only know failure. Because they’ve given themselves over to evil.
Learn how the Democrat Party has been corrupted by BO’s (and Hillary’s) Saul Alinsky tactics. Yahoo “alinsky rules” — BO plays them better than most.
Jul 24, 2008 - 1:47 pm 31. Jim:Since Obama and the left have set the standard for withdrawl at around 4000 american service men killed in Aciton, I wonder if the number of dead in Afganistan gets near to 4000 what will Obama do.
We already know WITHDRAW!!!!
Jul 24, 2008 - 5:27 pm 32. John Samford:“Most Americans see John McCain as a copy of G.W. Bush. As the war rolls on, our economy lags, oil prices increase, the stock market heads down, our American prestige suffers and the heavy hand covers our land, G. W. Bush will end up making Nixon look good. And, McCain offers more of the same.”
Blatant lies! VERY few Americans see Big Mac as a copy of Dubbua. That is a propaganda bit the socialists are trying to stick on McCain. It won’t wash, since McCain has a long history of voting AGAINST President Bush. That is a FACT, one everyone with an IQ above room temperature is aware of.
Jul 24, 2008 - 8:02 pm 33. Jack Shotton:As far as the war, America has two choices, fight or surrender. The enemy won’t quit just because a few nutbags want him to. So are you in favor of surrender? If so, why not come right out and say so.
Stock markets head down, stock markets head up. When PRESIDENT Bush took office the Dow had closed at 11722.98 on January 14, 2000.
It set a new high of 14,198.10 during Bush’s term. If Congress gets off it’s lame, dead arse and allows drilling in the USA, it will set a new high before the end of the year.
There is NO evidence that American Prestige has been harmed by this administration. That is all a figment of a deranged socialist’s imagination.
The current crop of despots and dictators that don’t ‘like’ America NEVER ‘liked’ America and never will ‘like’ the USA. SO WHAT? If you think being disliked by dictators that murder and rob their own citizens is a bad thing, then you have the problem, NOT America.
What heavy hand? Are you as ignorant of history as you are of politics? You want heavy hands? Lincoln HANGED war protesters. FDR locked them in insane asylums and the Japs in concentration camps. Of ALL the war time Presidents, Bush has by far the lightest touch and shows the most respect for American liberties.
Man, you need to get into a rehab program. Dry you out, get a few brain cells back on line and you could almost be a normal person.
The audacity of hopelessness. No, we can’t. Can’t win in Iraq. Can’t drill offshore. Can’t drill in Alaska. Can’t exploit oil in shale. Can’t drive our SUVs. Can’t put our thermostats at 72. Can’t live the same wasteful, sinful, earth-molesting lives we’ve so selfishly become used to. Gotta get used to making do with less, because no, we can’t. Spoiled Americans, repent!
Jul 25, 2008 - 3:21 pm 34. Stepan:Jack, you’ve got something there.
We’re the greatest nation on earth, but we can’t be proud of that. Nooooo! Instead, we must be ashamed of it. And the guilt-meisters du jour are, who else, the Dems and their erstwhile exculpator, Sen. B.O.
It’s time for us all to move to the great nation-state of Alaska.
Let us secede from this pathetic union and enjoy freedom as it was meant to be enjoyed–free of power-hungry lawyers, free of blood-sucking bureaucrats, free of the leftist press, free of the IRS, and awash in oil, gas, and natural resources.
Jul 25, 2008 - 6:42 pm 35. Believer:I hope everyone reads of the Stealth Bailout at:
americanthinker.com/2008/07/post_19.html
See what the Dems are up to. It’s even got the Daily Kos upset. DanthePainter in the comments section has the link to it.
Vote the Dems out of office!!
Jul 25, 2008 - 8:39 pm 36. Rachel Peepers:The good senator Barack Obama has more courage in his little finger than John McCain has in his entire body.
For it takes great courage to make the changes that Barack and the beautiful Michelle have pledged to make. Changes we can all believe in.
l. Creating a new world order where the United States is a trusted player, not the dominant force. Resulting in the U.S. becoming once again a nation loved and respected by Germany France and other freedom-loving nations of the world.
2. Bringing our troops home to a country that knows the surge was an abject political failure, while improving care for the wounded.
3. Destroying the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons as a “good will” gesture demonstrating that this country desires to live in peace and not spend billions on nation-building. In concert with this action, secure addidavits signed by all known terrorist that they will cease and desist all terrorist activities forthwith. And pledge not to use rogue nuclear weapons on a unilaterally unarmed United States. Which, of course would be enforceable though world court and United Nations sanctions.
3. Dramatically increase all manner of taxes from capital gains to homeowners exemptions which now prevents the government from getting its fair share of monies from private home sales. These initiatives will refill the nation’s Bush-drained coffers. With modest cost of government tax increases on the middle and lower classes.
4.Ending social security as we know it. And with the freed up billions, Obama, will create a system of democratized medical and dental care, available to both legal and legal-by- desire immigants. At the same time, constructing governmentally financed long term care facilities for the elderly and infirmed.
5. Taxing oil company windfall profits while resisting any initiatives involving drilling, nuclear energy or clean coal.
Let the markets determine the price of gasoline while encouraging the production of highly fuel efficient vehicles, providing huge tax incentives to minority owned transportation companies.
5. Provide free satellite radio and TV service to minorities who can least afford it.
Does McCain have the vision to enact these measures? No. A John McCain presidency would simply be a rehash of Bush’s incompetent administration.
The Obama Presidency will be based on a foundation of trust, honesty and integrity, not a series of lies and deceptions.
John McCain may have served in the military, but Barack Obama has been a community organizer, and soon will be serving his country as commander in chief of the greatest nation on earth: The United States of America.
Jul 30, 2008 - 12:24 pm 37. carlito:Just because a bunch of over-priviledged, liberal scum bag journalists who run America down with every breadth, and also by the way, found it totally beneath their dignity to serve in the military, say that this country just can’t do without Barack Hussein Obama doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Oct 10, 2008 - 8:55 pm