Prometheus 6

Having harangued over a carefully selected 30 seconds of someone else's 30 year career, David Brooks tries to use similar logic to support John McCain.

Barack Obama says: “John McCain is determined to carry out four more years of George Bush’s failed policies.”...But before people buy that argument, I’d ask them to read three speeches.

The first was delivered by McCain on Sept. 28, 1983....The second speech was delivered on Nov. 5, 2003....The third McCain speech was delivered on Wednesday.

Problem is, he also said this:

And his qualification, "as long as no American is getting hurt" is obvious nonsense.

American-trained Iraqi security forces failed for a third straight day to oust Shiite militias from the southern city of Basra on Thursday, even as President Bush hailed the operation as a sign of the growing strength of Iraq’s federal government.

Here's an even better example.

U.S. Armor Forces Join Offensive In Baghdad Against Sadr Militia
Americans Appear To Take the Lead As Iraqi Units Wait
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 28, 2008; A01

BAGHDAD, March 27 -- U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting....

The clashes suggested that American forces were being drawn more deeply into a broad offensive that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, launched in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, saying death squads, criminal gangs and rogue militias were the targets. The Mahdi Army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite rival of Maliki, appeared to have taken the brunt of the attacks; fighting spread to many southern cities and parts of Baghdad.

You should spend some time watching Frontline's Bush's War. The whole documentary, both episodes, is online. Then ask John McCain if he would have invaded Iraq. In fact, since Mrs. Bill Clinton is all, "Me and John McCain are like this while Bartack Obama is like that, and since she doesn't think authorizing the was was a mistake we can ask her, too.