Straight Talk Express Derails
After claiming teh Surge, which was announced in January 2007 and implemented beginning in March 2007 was responsible for the Anbar Awakening which was already a marked success 7 months earlier, John McCain explains that “he knew that” the surge didn’t really take place until months after the Awakening, but claimed that “components” of teh Surge were implemented before its architect was assigned command, and before the surge itself was conceived, announced or implemented, and that these precocious “components” were still somehow responsible for the Awakening:
McCain asserted he knew that and didn’t commit a gaffe. “A surge is really a counterinsurgency made up of a number of components. … I’m not sure people understand that `surge’ is part of a counterinsurgency.”
Actually, the “Surge” is short for “Troop Surge,” the decision to send additional combat brigades to Iraq in 2007. And the Penatagon just announced, with the withdrawal of the last additional combat brigade, that “the Surge is over,” making it clear that the surge refers to increased troop levels implemented in 2007, not any “counterinsurgency” strategy implemented in 2006, as McCain tries to dissemble. Unless, of course, McCain contends that we are no longer conducting a counterinsurgency in Iraq. In which case, our troops can leave now.
One of the least appealing and most ruinous facets of Bush’s Presidency is his inability to admit any mistake, no matter how obvious the mistake or unavoidable the admission. McCain seems to share this mania for claiming perfection, bristling at any suggestion that he is in error or out of touch, no matter how erroneous or out of touch he is. Four more years of errors unaccompanied by any capacity for self-reflection or acknowledgment of mistakes is hardly a blueprint for repairing the damage done by Bush, or the errors of his policies.
McCain, of course, apparently doesn’t recognize those errors or the damage caused by them, which is hardly a comfort either.
I don’t doubt that this is terribly embarrassing for him — the surge is his signature issue; presumably he should know what the surge is — but by trying to retroactively redefine the meaning of unambiguous words, he makes an embarrassing mistake a humiliating scandal. The smart move would be to admit the error and move on. But not this guy — he’s fallen in a hole and keeps on digging.
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And where does that leave us? McCain’s argument effectively boils down to this: “The surge is whatever I say it is, on any given day.”
Indeed, McCain’s quibbling attempts to deny his mistake seems curiouser and curiouser the more one delves into it.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all.”
– Through the Looking Glass
MORE: Obisidian Wings also greets its readers with Carrollian analogies — great minds and all that. (via Balloon Juice)
