Americans aren't sure Obama still knows what the surge is but I can tell you this if the dems with they're attack dogs like Olbermann (credit card chop, sniff) think Obama was more invested and understands the surge strategy better than McCain, fight on.

Americans aren't sure John McCain knows where he left his umbrella and his car keys.

Comments from Obama at a press conference in Iraq,

"Regardless of who becomes next president we are going to have to strip away ideology, strip away the politics."

Gee, I never heard that from Obama before. Breathtaking.

"The next president is going to have to make a series of very difficult judgments."

Heavy. If we all could be so smart.

can we get a debate yet?
McCain should just fly there...
hold a townhall meeting in a U.S.Army barracks.
(if Obama's advisers will even give him the okay)
no teleprompters... no liberal media... let's just see what happens.
alas... stuck counting the days until September 26th.

(hey... why is there no "John McCain News" over at MSNBOC?)

First, let's be clear that McCain got it wrong. From The Atlantic, 9/17/07:

In September 2006, AQI killed one too many, and a young, mid-ranking sheikh, Abdul Sattar, also called Abu Risha, set out to avenge his murdered relatives. Outgunned in one encounter, he was facing an unpleasant end, when an American Army unit suddenly entered the fray with guns blazing. A quick learner, Sattar proposed a partnership with his rescuers: he would provide tribesmen willing to fight if the Americans would provide firepower and government sanction. Sattar proved to be the Sunni leader we desperately needed in Anbar. Once his own tribal lands were cleared of AQI, nearby tribes joined his movement; the Americans parked a tank outside his house as a display of support and power. Over the next year, attacks in Anbar dropped from 400 to 100 per month.

If we agree that the "Sunni awakening" began with Sattar, that was in September 2006, well before the surge. One US Army paper dates contibuting events back to June 2006.

Even during the surge, GEN Petraeus seemed to suggest that the Sunni tribes' turn against al-Qaeda was more important than the surge:

Petraeus noted that the tribal backlash against al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in Anbar province "may be the most significant development of the past eight months."

Now, one can certainly argue that the surge hastened and/or reinforced that backlash, but the point is that the movement was already well underway long before the surge began.

So, McCain's statement that the surge initiated the awakening is factually incorrect. I don't think that McCain would willfully misrepresent history just to score political points. So, then, here are the questions:

1) What do we make of the fact that McCain can't keep things straight on his signature issue?
2) Why would CBS not only ignore his factual error, but go so far as to cover it up by editing the broadcast?

There's no delicate way to say this, but I have to ask this as well:

3) How many "gaffes" or "misstatements" add up to "incapable of keeping the facts straight?" We aren't talking about shifting opinions or changing policies--all politicians use fuzzy, duck-and-dodge language for that--but rather simple facts, from his Sunni/Shia confusion to his "Iran training al-Qaeda" error to the nonexistent "Iraq-Pakistan border" to this "surge kicked off the Sunni Awakening" error.

Yes. The “Anbar Awakening” was probably a crucial turning point which was largely accomplished between June 2006 and February 2007, but how can John McCain attribute its success to a “Surge” ™ that didn’t even BEGIN till months later?

And why do the networks protect McCain from himself by editing out his most blatant nonsense so the public can’t hear it?

McCain's plunked down every chip he's got on this notion the press will collaborate with him to rewrite a completely fanciful version of the war and and his support of the way the President's prosecuted it.

And so far, it has.

Silliness. Both the Sunni awakening AND the surge were major victories in this conflict. The Sunni awakening was, and is, an ongoing process, not a thing with a defined start date and end date. It continues to develop.

Equally clear is the fact that the surge emboldened the Sunni leadership to rejoin the government, establishing the political gains that the left said were impossible.

Obama, on the Sunni/Shia problem, said that it was an unwinnable civil war and that we should pull out.

Obama, on the surge, said clearly that it wouldn't work, and that he opposed it.

Obama, on finishing the job, said that he would simply leave Iraq on a timetable, regardless of facts on the grounds.

yep... those damn networks and their non-stop McCainathons!
or were you being serious?

I'm as serious as a heart attack. I didn't say the nets are running nonstop McCain-a-thons, though they certainly luuuuv Huggy Bear to death. What I DID say was they're editing the gaffes out of his interviews, and that's just undeniable.

Redbeard wrote:

The Sunni awakening was, and is, an ongoing process, not a thing with a defined start date and end date.

You should go read COL MacFarland's article, to which I linked in my earlier comment. (I think we can agree that, as the "guy on the ground" in Anbar, his perspective should be the most accurate, yes?) He not only pinpoints "summer 2006" as the beginning of his initiatives in this matter, but goes on to give us a specific start date:

On 9 September 2006 Sittar organized a tribal council, attended by over 50 sheiks and the brigade commander, at which he declared the “Anbar Awakening” officially underway.

If nothing else, there's your "start date."

Nonetheless, your "no defined start date" is irrelevant to McCain's mauling of the history. COL MacFarland achieved all that he did (and deserves an incredible amount of credit for his strategic thinking in this regard), saw his model replicated elsewhere in Iraq, and left the theatre in February 2007, less than one month after the first surge troops arrived in Iraq.

Now, here's McCain's comment once more:

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel [MacFarland] was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.

So, his correction of the "false depiction of history" is utterly wrong, contradicted by the US Army's own review by the commander on the ground in Anbar.

You can come back with, "Yeah, but Obama...," but the plain reading is that McCain either intentionally misstated history (and compounded it by calling an accurate question a "false depiction") or has problems remembering the facts. Which is it?

Redbeard also wrote:

Equally clear is the fact that the surge emboldened the Sunni leadership to rejoin the government, establishing the political gains that the left said were impossible.

Interestingly enough, COL MacFarland also addresses this point in his article. His "Why We Succeeded" conclusions read, in part (emphasis added):

Clearly, a combination of factors, some of which we may not yet fully understand, contributed to this pivotal success. As mentioned before, the enemy overplayed its hand and the people were tired of Al-Qaeda. A series of assassinations had elevated younger, more aggressive tribal leaders to positions of influence. A growing concern that the U.S. would leave Iraq and leave the Sunnis defenseless against Al-Qaeda and Iranian-supported militias made these younger leaders open to our overtures. Our willingness to adapt our plans based on the advice of the sheiks, our staunch and timely support for them in times of danger and need, and our ability to deliver on our promises convinced them that they could do business with us. Our forward presence kept them reassured.

Now, remember, these events took place before the surge. It would seem, then, that the thought of US withdrawal was a significant factor in spurring the sheiks to action. I think it safe to say that the surge played a major part in "staunch and timely support" as well, but I don't think that either gets exclusive credit.

Wes, the less advertised statistic would be drop in deaths since the surge... being as few as 19 in a month. compare that to before the troops surge when the media was counting the losses like it was Times Square on New Years.

So much for it being Bush's "Vietnam"

It's also fun to poke at Obama's many fumblemouthed utterances, but the serious part of the whole Iraq deal is that Obama is wrong on strategy, and McCain is right.

Oh, and let's be sure to note that McCain got it right when he was arguing for the surge in the first place. From his January 2007 remarks:

"Too often the light at the tunnel has turned out to be a train, but I really believe -- I really believe that there's a strong possibility that you may see a very substantial change in Anbar province due to this new changes in our relationships with the sheiks in the region. ... But it's important, as I said in my opening remarks, that this troop surge be significant and sustained. Otherwise, don't do it."

So, he knew the correct history at one point...draw your own conclusions.

Wes, the less advertised statistic would be drop in deaths since the surge...

I wouldn't argue that for a moment, but that isn't what you said at first, now, is it? I'll stipulate that the surge eventually led to a drop in causalties; would you care to respond to my comments about your "the surge emboldened the Sunni leadership" statement?

It's also fun to poke at Obama's many fumblemouthed utterances, but the serious part of the whole Iraq deal is that Obama is wrong on strategy, and McCain is right.

The serious part of electing a President is that we want to choose someone who can keep the facts straight. From "Iran is training al-Qaeda" to "I never said that" to "I'm certainly not going to discuss that" to "the Iraq-Pakistan border" to the current "it [the surge] began the Anbar awakening," McCain is showing us that he may not be that person. The fact that he makes so many factual errors on his signature issue makes it even worse.

Facts straight? I wonder if McCain knows what Senate committees he is on, unlike Obama, who seems to think he serves on the banking committee:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjzb61wfyN0

OK, Redbeard, I'll give you "my bill" vs. "my committee." I'll take "Iraq-Pakistan border" vs....oh, wait, there IS nothing to (even remotely) justify that one.

Clicky

” devaluing facts is a key element of conservative strategy, given that those pesky facts have a well-known liberal bias”

“The Surge Began in March 1867”

If the arch-lefties at The New York Times can get this right, why is this topic even here?

Clicky

And here is Obama, making a real timeline screwup:

Clicky

Here's all you need to see:

REPORTER: So when you say 'surge' then, you're not referring to just the one that President Bush initiated, you're saying it goes back several months before that?

McCAIN: Yes.

Now, where's that quote? Ah, here it is:

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
-- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"

As far as Obama's comment about the 2006 elections are concerned, it's ludicrous to suggest, in criticism, that an electoral season has no effect until Election Day. The war was the subject of intense public debate from its very beginning, and the 2006 campaigns were well underway during the summer of that year. I refer you again to then-COL MacFarland's analysis:

A growing concern that the U.S. would leave Iraq and leave the Sunnis defenseless against Al-Qaeda and Iranian-supported militias made these younger leaders open to our overtures.

That was in the summer of 2006. Are you suggesting that the shieks were political ostriches, completely ignorant of the "writing on the wall" during the 2006 election season, or that they didn't see a greater "concern" after the results of that election were known?