The first stage of "We're f**ked" is Denial
Even though McCain was given an extra 24-hour news cycle -- the delay in coverage by the NYT and WaPo was, as Steve Benen remarked, journalistic malpractice -- he and his campaign are running around like ham-handed headless chickens. They seem to be stuck in the Denial Stage even though the evidence was clear from the outset that Maliki was serious.
The focus in the media and in the McCain campaign's (various) responses has been on whether Maliki really gave a quasi-endorsement of Obama's "sixteen months" -- the whole walkback nonsense. However, the interview has been on Spiegel's site since Saturday, and in the interview Maliki expresses several times the need for an end-date, the sooner the "more realistic". There could have been no confusion on McCain's staff about the overall thrust of Maliki's position if they read the interview. The "mistranslation" excuse was transparently feeble from the outset.
For all McCain's vaunted international experience, this episode is displaying him as someone who isn't what we might call "agile" at handling an unexpected international curveball. Joe Klein hit exactly what I've been thinking:
I suppose that McCain's stubborn brittleness on this subject isn't news. But his inability to respond to a major change in policy from our Iraqi allies -- the announcement that they can take it from here -- certainly is newsworthy. There are three possibilities:
- McCain doesn't believe the Iraqis can take it from here. (In the most benign reading, he may see this new position as mere domestic political posturing on Maliki's part, which is no doubt part of the truth.)
- McCain doesn't want the Iraqis to take it from here. He still wants long-term, 100 year, military bases.
- McCain doesn't move very quickly to adapt to changing facts on the ground. None of them speak very well of the guy. [emph. added]
I think it's "all of the above" -- but especially the last factor. McCain is so wedded to a particular view of the Iraq War, the GWOT, and the US role in the Middle East, that he can't adapt. If he had had a more realistic understanding of the situation, Maliki's remarks wouldn't have -- or more accurately, shouldn't have -- come as such a bombshell.
The second stage of "We're f**ked" is Anger
Some of McCain's supporters are ahead of their candidate and acknowledging that Maliki appears to mean what he says. But that's not to suggest they're to the Acceptance stage yet. They're getting mad that "our guy" isn't following the script. Rob Farley's been tracking the emergence of the Anger crowd at the Corner.
At 11:38 AM EDT, Rob remarked (echoing a constant refrain of our own Eric Martin):
The conservative media and Right Blogistan have been undertaken to steadfastly ignore any hint that Prime Minister Maliki might and his political allies might have connections with Iran, preferring instead to assert that Iran influences events in Iraq through Sadrist militia and Sunni tribes (!). Given Maliki's statements on withdrawal, I wonder this: How long it will take for an anti-Maliki trope to develop on the American right that concentrates on his Iranian connections?
Ask and ye shall receive! Less than two hours later, Rob noted:
Andrew McCarthy answers my question:As I've mentioned before, Maliki, of the Shiite Dawa Party which opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place, has long-standing ties to Iran and Syria -- and has expressed support for Hezbollah. The only thing that surprises me about this story is that anyone is surprised.McCarthy also chides Maliki for being insufficiently grateful for the awesomeness of the Surge. Look for more of this as Maliki fails to walk back his statements...
But as Daniel Larison points out, maybe John McCain is simply too confused to be angry.
McCarthy is entirely right in what he says here, but that raises a couple questions. First, there is the obvious question of why the U.S. is attempting to pursue a strategy premised on limiting Iranian influence in Iraq and the region while actively backing a government that has no intention of limiting Iranian influence in Iraq and very clearly is led by a sectarian party.
[snip]
Even more than creating a political problem for McCain back home, Maliki’s recent statements have revealed both the untenability of a continued U.S. presence in Iraq and the complete incoherence of U.S. strategy in that country.
Serious ouch! And then John Derbyshire added his two cents. Again from Rob:
Shorter Derb:All of your country are belong to us now.
Verbatim Derb:
We should tell Maliki, loudly and in public, that he owes his job to us, and that further prosecution of our military operations in his country will be conducted with regard only to U.S. interests, as determined in consensus by our established domestic political processes. And if he doesn't like that, he can go to hell.
God, I am so glad that this incident has caused the right to discard its phony interest in democracy promotion...
To be fair to Derb, he's always been a "To Hell With Them" Hawk, so his sentiments should come as no surprise. As he remarked today: "This absurd and insane desire to be loved and admired by foreigners will be the death of this republic." Derb doesn't have to do Denial -- he starts (and finishes) with Anger.
Those "Listening to Commanders on the Ground" C-i-C Credentials
If there was one piece of Conventional Wisdom we've heard for the last week about Obama's Grand Tour it was that the trip was risky but necessary. Obama had to show voters he would be "acceptable" as Commander-in-Chief. Obviously, he wouldn't be better at foreign relations than the tough, seasoned veteran, John McCain, but Obama had to somehow find his way across the "acceptability barrier."
So here's the Photo of the Day (photo released by US Army via Mark Halperin).
As Michael Crowley notes: "Hmmm, Petraeus doesn't look like he's been telling Obama he's a defeatmonger. "
Worse yet for McCain image-wise are these photos paired together by Ben Smith of Politico: "It's not really close," says Ben. Heh, indeed!
And what would be a Circus without Coverage of the Coverage of the Coverage...
Jesse Taylor is back!
Despite the fact that his foreign policy vision has been largely validated in the past week - McCain caught up to Obama on Afghanistan and the aforementioned endorsement by Maliki - the main discussion today and over the past few days has been whether or not the press is covering Obama’s trip too much and whether or not the coverage of them talking about the coverage results in too much (and too favorable) coverage for Obama. It’s a tesseract of inanity - a new fourth dimension of coverage about the coverage of the coverage will soon emerge, with Jessica Yellin invited on to discuss how she talked about her in-depth discussion of the impact of Obama’s trip on the race...without ever mentioning what Obama did, how he did it or who he did it with.
Call it the Fafblogging of the media: CNN is the whole world’s only source for CNN! [emph added]
Now if we only still had Billmon!
The first afoe European weblog awards