The "Steady Hand" Of "That One"

(Still trying to fathom what could have been in McBush’s mind to refer to Obama in that fashion – I’m sure I’ll never know.)

Returning to the debate last night, John W. McBush offered this (from here)…

He said the nation needs "a cool hand at the tiller" and, later, "a steady hand at the tiller."

Fortunately, Ilan Goldenberg of Democracy Arsenal gives us the following examples of the “steady hand” in action here, in which McBush proclaims that “a major war with North Korea is inevitable unless America finds a way to deter Kim Il Sung, (from) crashing the nuclear club and unleashing weapons of mass destruction around the world.” He also falsely accused Iraq of sending the Anthrax letters, falsely linked Iraq and al Qaeda (of course), urged a ground invasion by our troops in Kosovo in the ‘90s instead of the bombing campaign authorized by President Clinton, and also blamed Russia exclusively for the recent Georgia conflict, departing with other Western leaders in doing so.

My friends, this “steady hand” would leave me “shakin’ all over” in fear and dread if he were to ascend to the White House, which, fortunately, looks less and less likely (though we still have much work to do to prevent that).

And speaking of Iraq, Goldenberg also presented this analysis of a recent article on Iraq by Michael Gordon of the New York Times (Democracy Arsenal is a great site that I should visit more often)…

Gordon presents Obama’s timeline (for withdrawal of our forces) as being very different than that of the Iraqis and the U.S. military and also presents it as an “ironclad deadline.”

The “time goal” in the draft accord calls for the withdrawal of American forces by the end of 2011, more than twice as long as Mr. Obama’s 16-month deadline. And in the view of American negotiators, a “time goal” is more flexible than an ironclad deadline.

In reality, Obama’s plan – not McCain’s – is much closer to what the Iraqis are looking for and to what appears to be in the draft agreement. In July Prime Minister Maliki himself argued for an agreement along Obama’s timeline. Additionally, the draft agreement calls for all American combat forces to be removed from Iraqi cities by the middle of 2009. That is more aggressive than anything Obama has said. And according to Maliki’s own statements and interpretation of the agreement it looks like he may view 2011 as the date for the final withdrawal of all American forces – not just combat forces.

It has also been reported that the Iraqis originally took the position that they wanted American forces out by the end of 2010 and the Bush administration had to negotiate for an extra year. There has even been speculation that the Bush administration pushed for 2011 to provide political cover for John McCain. So how is it that Obama’s timeline is so problematic while McCain’s lack of any timeline makes any sense?

Moreover, Obama has never said that he has an “ironclad deadline”. Obama has been pretty clear throughout the campaign that he is flexible and that, like any sane person, he would be willing to reexamine the exact details of the timeline if circumstance change. In fact, earlier in the summer when he made this point very clearly people tried to call him out as being a “flip flopper.”

Such is how our media feeds into the notion of McBush’s supposed strength on foreign policy matters (and speaking of Iraq, this Murdoch Street Journal story tells us of “house bombs,” the latest threat faced by our troops, and this hints at the latest NIE that, of course, we won’t find out about officially until after the election – nothing wrong with the Journal’s “hard news” reporting in my estimation, only their editorial commentary, notwithstanding Thomas Frank).