Bush And Father Do Golf Fundraiser For McCain

George W. Bush famously claimed to have given up golf out of respect for soldiers in Iraq:

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

But this great sacrifice has taken the backseat to a more urgent concern -- raising money for John McCain:

If you're a high-flying Republican, and you can afford to take next Monday off to fly to Maine, have we got a treat for you.

On that day, former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush are hosting a high-dollar fundraiser for John McCain near their home in Kennebunkport.

According to a solicitation sent by the McCain camp, for the low, low price of $5,000, you can play a round of golf at Cape Arundel Golf Course, Bush's home course.

"Both President Bush and Governor Jeb Bush will be stopping by to greet the foursomes," the missive promises. "The course is reserved for this private group, and VIPs will be visiting during your round of golf. This event is a great way to end a weekend getaway, and we would be honored if you can attend."

Why McCain Fails My Mom's Test

by Robert L. Borosage

My feisty 94-year-old mother has no patience for John McCain. "He's too old," she says bluntly, and "his ideas are out to lunch." That probably is to be expected from a woman who hasn't voted for a Republican since Eisenhower. But her opposition to McCain isn't really based on his politics. She just thinks his candidacy is an open insult to her intelligence and the intelligence of every American voter.

At 94, she doesn't claim to be an expert. She'd rather watch Wimbledon than a political debate. Her subscriptions tend towards health care and investing newsletters rather than political magazines. Her reading features schlock novels rather than the latest Bush expose. She follows fashions and styles, but isn't exactly au courant. "Is it legal to show this stuff?" she asked in a stage whisper in the midst of Sex and the City, cracking up the folks around us. But daughter of an Italian immigrant, raised in Milwaukee living above the family's corner store, she has a growing concern about the country she loves and her four great grandchildren will inherit.

That's why she thinks McCain is just insulting. He says he'll balance the budget while promising to cut everyone's taxes. "That's just nonsense," she says. "We've heard these promises before. Does he think we can't remember what Bush did and what Reagan did?" Then he says he'll stay in Iraq, increase spending on the military, and take the cuts from domestic programs. "Doesn't he look around at what is happening here? It's time to take care of this country now." She thinks his support for privatizing Social Security will just hurt the most vulnerable seniors. And his health care plan just makes her mad. "He keeps talking about more choice, and having people deal directly with the insurance companies. He's been on government health care all his life. He has no idea how complicated this is." My mother earned her PhD after raising her children and prides herself on her independence, managing her own finances, balancing her own checkbooks. But even she had to give her medical bills to my sister to manage.

After nine decades, my mother doesn't expect much from any politician. She knows strong families are the foundation of this country, and she built one with love and wisdom. But she isn't a cynic. And she wants straight talk to be more than a slogan. After a severe stroke, she left us yesterday. Her spirit lives in the hearts of the loving family and friends she touched so deeply. McCain is lucky she won't be here to cast her vote in November, because he already had lost it.

"We should leave Iraq if they want us to"

Aides to Sen. John McCain sought on Wednesday to clear up their boss' position on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's recent insistence that a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops be included in any security agreement between the two countries.

"John McCain has always been clear that American forces operate in Iraq only with the consent of that country's democratically elected government," Michael Goldfarb, a McCain spokesman, told the Huffington Post. "The Senator speaks frequently with Iraq's leaders and they have made clear that they share his belief that any timeline for withdrawal must be dictated by the facts on the ground. He met with the foreign minister and President separately within the last month...He met with Maliki on his last trip to Iraq sometime in late March."

Goldfarb's remarks represent a more pronounced effort to bring McCain's position on Iraq in line with Maliki's. McCain has forsworn deadlines for troop withdrawal -- insisting that it be tied to conditions on the ground -- and he did not, initially, express support the prime minister's position.

"Prime Minister Maliki is the leader of a country and I'm confident he will act as the President and the Foreign Minister both told me in the last several days," said the presumptive Republican nominee. "It will be directly related to the situation on the ground -- just as they have always said. And since we are succeeding, I am convinced, as I have said before, we will withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable."

On Wednesday, aides to the Senator continued to argue that Maliki's statement was public posturing designed to improve his hand during the negotiations of a status of forces agreement.

McCain's allies also were forced to make concessions today in rationalizing how the U.S. could keep troops in Iraq against that country's wishes. Peter Hegseth, the head of the non-partisan Vets For Freedom (an advocacy group that supports McCain's Iraq War plan), acknowledged during a conference on Wednesday that the next president would ultimately have to listen to Maliki's directives.

"I think the Iraqi prime minister's prerogative is obviously important," he said. "They are a sovereign country. Their wishes, I think, are going to be granted by our government. And we've created an opportunity for them to make these kinds of statements and I think that is a good thing."

Critics of the war have jumped on Maliki's remark as evidence that criticism of Obama's Iraq policy (which calls for a responsible drawdown of U.S. troops) is entirely unfounded. They noted that Iraq's National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie restated his government's desire to see a decrease in U.S. presence, on Tuesday. And pointed to a 2004 remark given by John McCain in front of the Council of Foreign Relations, in which the Senator said the U.S. "would have to leave," if the Iraqi government asked it to.

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports (as emailed out by the Obama campaign) on another instance that seemed like collaboration between Vets for Freedom and the McCain camp.

Today... there appears to be another, similar coincidence in the way Vets for Freedom's ads are going up, just as McCain's ads are going down. According to a Democratic media firm, Vets for Freedom purchased advertising time in three Michigan television markets, Flint, Grand Rapids and Traverse City, covering July 10 to July 16. At the same time, the McCain campaign decreased its advertising in those three markets for the period from July 8 to July 14.

Coordination between the group and the campaign would be illegal.

Should McCain be asked how his experience in Vietnam qualifies him to be President?

We're told he "recoiled" in "distaste" when asked. Jon Stolz says:

The fact of the matter is that General Clark was absolutely right. McCain's service, while heroic and honorable, is not very relevant when it comes to preparing him to be the military's ultimate commander. His experience didn't involve executive decision making in the military, or global strategy. Very few candidates for the presidency have had the experience in life that prepares them for that role. In fact, McCain said it himself in 2003, that some of our best Commanders in Chief had no military experience at all.

Jac says:

[I]s it true that McCain is "reluctant to talk about" his heroism in Vietnam? I don't know. But he hasn't been reluctant to say "I'm John McCain and I approve this message" in an ad showing footage of him as a POW, intercut with a closeup of McCain with the word "hero" emblazoned on his forehead:

No matter what your opinion is of Barack Obama, I think you have to give him this: he'd never approve an ad that was based on highlighting a specific argument for why he's qualified to be president, but then later try to shut down any rational discussion of that precise point.

I think there are some things that Barack Obama has tried to place beyond debate, such as the things his wife has said in political speeches on his behalf.

Recoiling, disgust, and outrage — it's a response of a kind. A gesture. An expression. It's a move in the debate. The question is whether it works as a good enough statement. You can ask someone a question to which they will respond with an icy "How dare you ask me that?" When are you going to feel chastened and apologize, and when are you going to call their bluff?

I think in the case of McCain's experience in Vietnam, he really is best off not attempting to articulate how it might be a qualification. It's something that he did, something that happened to him, and it is what it is. We all know it and can rely on it to the extent we see fit. There is nothing more for him to say about it. If he were to begin to talk about what it was like and how it has formed him as a man, it would seem immodest and extreme. He would have to put us all in our place, and he might seem like an angry old man of the past. The silence is eloquence enough.

"If Barack Obama wants to question John McCain's service... he should have the guts to do it himself and not hide behind his campaign surrogates."

Said retired Admiral Leighton "Snuffy" Smith... speaking as a surrogate for the McCain campaign.

Questions:

1. Is it really so bad to use surrogates to articulate the arguments that wouldn't sound too pretty coming from the candidate's mouth?

2. Is every supporter who makes an argument a "surrogate" for the candidate? I think that "surrogate" implies that the campaign authorized the person to say something on behalf of the candidate and that it should not cover supporters who happen to say things, even when they say things that make you want to ask the candidate whether he would adopt the supporter's statement as his own.

3. Was Wesley Clark sent by the Obama campaign to say that John McCain's military experience — "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" — is not the kind of executive decisionmaking that a President needs to do and is therefore not much of a qualification for President? Clark was responding to a question about Barack Obama's lack of equivalent experience, and the point was to minimize McCain's service — which would be stupid — but to defend Obama's qualifications.

4. Wasn't Clark correct on the precise point that he made about executive experience?

5. Wasn't Clark a fool not to see how the other side would be able to use his remark?

6. How should Obama respond now? He has to say something today, and I feel as though I could type out the appropriately Obaman professorial distinctions and explanations that I expect to here, but this post is too long already.

7. Wesley Clark can't be the VP pick now, right? Or does the uproar over his remarks show that McCain supporters think Clark is a formidable opponent?

Genuinely Clueless

Let me follow up on this McCain gaffe in which he got confused and claimed that al Qaeda was getting trained and equipped by Iran before doing mischief in Iraq, before being corrected by his senate colleague Joe Lieberman.

Let's start by stipulating that if Barack Obama had had this slip up it would be everywhere on the news for the next week. Pretty much the same if it had been Hillary Clinton.

But this is really just the tip of the iceberg with McCain. In almost every discussion of foreign policy, not just today but in previous years, what stands out is McCain's inability to see beyond the immediate issues of military tactics to any firm grasp of strategy or America's real vital interests. His free willingness to commit to a decades long occupation of Iraq is an example, his push for ground troops to be introduced during the Kosovo War is another. His refusal, almost inability, to grapple with the political failure of the surge is the most telling one if people will sift through its deeper implications.

It is very difficult to draw practical lessons from history. But one of the closest things to a law is that military power is almost always built on economic might. Indeed, countries with sound finances have routinely been able to punch over their weight -- great Britain and the Netherlands during different periods are key examples. So fiscal soundness even over the medium term is much more important than any particular weapon system or basing right.

Then you step back and see the huge number of dollars we're pouring into Iraq, the vast mountains of capital being piled up in China, the oil-fueled resurgence of Russia, the weakness of the dollar (not only in exchange rate but in its future as a reserve currency), the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. I don't think I've ever heard anything from John McCain that suggests he's given serious consideration to any of these issues, except as possible near term military challenges -- i.e., is China building a blue water navy to challenge the US, Russian weapons systems, etc.

Hillary Clinton has stipulated to McCain's qualifications as Commander-in-Chief; and Obama, implicitly, does the same. But his record actually shows he's one of the most dangerous people we could have in the Oval Office in coming years -- not just because he's a hothead in using the military, but more because he seems genuinely clueless about the real challenges and dangers the country is facing. He's too busy living in the fantasy world where our future as a great power and our very safety are all bound up in Iraq.

No Market for McCain

On April 1, 2007, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) strolled through the open-air Shorja market in Baghdad in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what’s going on in Iraq. In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market was proof that people could “walk freely” in parts of Baghdad.

What McCain failed to mention was that he was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.” He also appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit.

Since that trip, McCain has claimed that the situation in Iraq has improved even more. A few months ago, McCain claimed that “we’ve succeeded militarily” in Iraq. Things, of course, are going so well, that he wants to keep U.S. troops there for at least 100 years.

McCain is now back in Iraq for a “surprise visit with Iraqi and American diplomatic and military leaders.” He is joined by fellow Iraq war defenders Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). But it’s unlikely they will be visiting the Shorja market again. Today, CNN reported that they tried to visit the Shorja market, but it was too unsafe and they were unable to go:

We got close to that marketplace today, Jim, but our own security advisers here in Iraq did not want us to go there. They didn’t believe it was safe for an American to be in that area. We were in a thriving marketplace nearby.

But when you show up, the local Iraqis, while it is clear security is better on the street — it is clear there are more markets open, just the traffic jams alone tell you that things are better on the streets of Baghdad — it’s also a very sensitive potential neighborhoods.

That one marketplace, as a matter of fact, you do see Iraqi police, you do see the Iraqi army, but in truth, that area is controlled by the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi army.

Watch it:

Civilian deaths per day in Iraq are up to 39 from a low of 20 last January, while at the same time, there has been “a sharp increase in attacks resulting in the deaths of U.S. soldiers.” Twelve Americans were killed last week over a period of four days, “bringing the overall U.S. military death toll since the start of the war near 4,000.”

The Associated Press recently interviewed Iraqis who “said they were not necessarily changing their daily routines,” but “the growing bloodshed was present in their minds, clouding what had until recently been a more hopeful time.”