Either CBS's Katie Couric, CBS's failed news anchor, has gotten marching orders, or she is an unapologetic McCain supporter. On Monday, Couric again parroted here John McCain's lines and frame. In covering Obama's trip, she quoted nothing of Obama's (voiceless tightly clipped and framed viedo), except a previous speech saying we should "never have gotten into this war." Then she let McCain frame Obama's visit. "The surge is working," said McCain. And, Obama was wrong about the "surge." (Obama opposed it.) And then Couric pushed the myth that "the surge is working," again. Here's Katie bringing John McCain into the story about Obama's trip.
He said on Face The Nation in January of 2007: "We can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops. I don't know any ... expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground."John McCain is now citing this as a major error in judgment.
"He was wrong when he said the surge wouldn't succeed," McCain said. "He was wrong when he said an increase in troops would do no good."
But the success of the surge - it has brought violence in Iraq way down - has paved the way for Obama to propose sending in as many as 10,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
Violence there is on the rise. Terrorist attacks are up 40 percent this year. More U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan in May and June than in Iraq. The Taliban are back - and al Qaeda is making its presence known across the border in Pakistan, launching attacks virtually unchallenged.
Often called The Forgotten War, Sen. Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan the focus of the war on terror.
So much for counting the sheer number of stories. Doing that would lead you to believe this was a pro-Obama story. It's wasn't. But worse, the "surge" (aka escalation) is not working. It has accomplished, well, nothing.
Note the huge difference in coverage Obama got here (ABC--not known for giving Dems a break). And now you see what network moguls at CBS and NBC don't want you to see, the troops love Barack Obama:
Also note that in true partisan (and I don't mean Democratic leaning) fashion, Couric tries to lend legitimacy to McSame "surge is working" myth. (It's hard to believe her sister was a Democratic state senator from Virginia.)
First, as we all know, there is no such thing as a "surge." There is only escalation. But several factors made the situation quieter at present. First, there was sectarian cleansing in which insurgents were, among other things, dragged from their homes. Then there was the stand-down order by Muqtada al Sadr. But perhaps the primary reason things are quiet now is that the escalation was a ruse to mask what was really going on-bribery. More on this in a moment. And then there is the small issue that we should not be in Iraq in the first place. It wouldn't matter if "the surge" were "working" if we weren't there in the first place. All of it, every last day we are there is just plain wrong.
McCain cannot shift blame on this. He has been wrong all along. On just about everything. And Barack Obama was right. Here's what Britain's Sunday Times Online said lat year about the payoffs (also essentially welfare by any other name):
The Sunday Times has witnessed at first hand the enormous sums of cash changing hands. One sheikh in a town south of Baghdad was given $38,000 (-ú19,000) and promised a further $189,000 over three months to drive Al-Qaeda fighters from a nearby camp.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t...
Launched last year, the "surge" was the extra 20,000-30,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq. These few extra troops, Americans were told, would finally supply the necessary forces to pacify Iraq.
This claim never made any sense. The extra troops didn't raise the total number of U.S. soldiers to more than one-third the number every expert has said is necessary in order to successfully occupy Iraq.
The real purpose of the "surge" was to hide another deception. The Bush regime is paying Sunni insurgents $800,000 a day not to attack U.S. forces. That's right, 80,000 members of an "Awakening group," the "Sons of Iraq," a newly formed "U.S.-allied security force" consisting of Sunni insurgents, are being paid $10 a day each not to attack U.S. troops. Allegedly, the Sons of Iraq are now at work fighting al-Qaeda.
Then she added this distorted, exaggerated scare tactic:
Officials in Israel estimates Iran will be able to build a bomb as early as 2009, and worldwide concerns over a preemptive Israeli military strike are rising.
And you can see exactly what she is up to--fearmongering us into the next war based on another set of lies.
Couric tried to undercut Obama's very excellent few days, thus far, even refusing to note that even Britains' Gordon Brown endorsed Obama's proposal for downsizing, and ultimately ending, the war. Yesterdayy, amazingly, CNN (The Situation Room) was unusually balanced. Couric interviews Obama tomorrow. Don't hold your breath. When CBS embarked on this trip, the in-house talking heads gave the warning: That Obama had better not slip up. And this: He better not act like he is the president. Here's the media-imposed double bind: Obama's "damned if he does (act presidential) and damned if he doesn't." (Tow which I call BS.) The reviews thus far show that far from media-dog banter and badmouthing, Obama is the leader we told Americans he is. But you won't hear that on CBS.
[Update: John McSame is now working the refs and trying to create the impression that the media love Barack Obama (he's got a 3-minute video using just a few clips to "prove" that) and cheats poor John McSame out of coverage. This is the same McSame whose purported base is the media itself. Aside from ROTFL, I am still waiting for the media (collectively) to adequately cover the many flip-flops (and serious deviation in policy) of one John McCain. But I won't hold my breath]
Unfortunately, neither the Obama campaign itself nor its politician surrogates can afford to counter McCain's baloney, aided and abetted by the establishment media, about the surge.
Thankfully, Obama's strategy of sticking with his original sound judgement about not invading Iraq in the first place and training his focus on the real priorities (the actual terrorists who were behind the attacks on 9/11, nuclear proliferation, energy policy, and human rights) seems to be working. Obama's also a shrewd campaigner who will let McCain trumpet endlessly the only "achievement" he's proud of - the surge - while Obama will sensibly demonstrate he has what it takes to be Commander-in-Chief by saying that he would expect his commanders responsible for Iraq to call for staying the course there, and he would listen to their reasonable arguments, then he would make his decisions based on what's best for the country both in and out of Iraq.
While Obama is busy succeeding doing what he's doing, it would be great if we could do more in the blogosphere to elaborate on the actual "conditions on the ground." Below is a quote from from Prof. Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment yesterday. It demonstrates that at least in one important respect the surge has hardly mattered at all and may explain why Maliki, a politician himself who'd like to remain in power, insisted over the objections of Bush that a timetable should be established for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
"[T]he month just before the last visit Barack Obama made to Iraq (he went in January, 2006), there were 537 civilian and ISF Iraqi casualties. In June of this year, 2008, there were 554 according to AP."
I do think McCain has made himself look ridiculous. Also, his whining about Obama coverage ignores the fact that the lapdog press has followed McCain everywhere. It did not look further into whether there was coordination between McCain, the US and the Columbian government on the very curiously timed rescue (which allowed McCain to grandstand). He just happened to be there? It all looked carefully staged and organized to get McCain points and Columbia its trade deal.
But he also has fairly successfully worked the refs yesterday and today. On the other hand, even Bob Bennett (on Blitzer's Situation Room) seemed to agree things weren't going that well for McCain. He did say the "surge" is working, however.