February 8, 2007 -- 10:42 AM EST // //
WHY IS JOE BIDEN HELPING JOHN MCCAIN DISSEMBLE ON ESCALATION?
Okay, at this point there's little doubt that John McCain has succeeded in pulling off his latest ruse: He's managed to change the official narrative from "President Bush gave me my surge and now the Iraq war is all mine" to "I always wanted more troops than Bush is sending, so if the surge fails it's not entirely my fault."
So fine -- McCain's managed to fool the compliant media into rewriting the story his way. But here's a question: Why the heck is Democrat Joe Biden helping him do it, too? Check out what Biden said in an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:
Arenât Americans going to be angry at a Senate thatâs bending itself into a procedural pretzel, rather than seriously tackling the future of Iraq?âThey are going to be angry,â [Biden] agreed. âRepublicans are trying to avoid embarrassing the president. If you took a secret ballot, Iâd be dumfounded if 20 senators thought sending 21,500 troops made any sense.â He said John McCain wouldnât think it made sense either âbecause he has called for sending many more.â
Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe! Come on! Assuming you're quoted accurately here, you're helping McCain dissemble. The notion that McCain doesn't think it makes "sense" to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq because "he has called for sending many more" is completely bogus. This is the storyline that McCain has been pushing since President Bush unveiled his escalation plan, in order to distance himself from it in case it fails.
Apologies for repeating myself here, but here's proof: Before Bush revealed his plan, McCain himself said unequivocally that a lower number than Bush subsequently proposed -- 20,000 -- would be enough. Back in October, McCain said: "Roughly, you need another 20,000 troops in Iraq." The important point here is that McCain volunteered this number as the right amount well before Bush unveiled his plan. McCain did roughly the same thing on another occasion, again volunteering a similar sum as the right amount before Bush revealed his proposal.
But now McCain wants you to believe that he always wanted many more sent. And Biden's out there actually saying that McCain doesn't think it makes sense to send 21,500 troops when he himself originally proposed a lower number. It's horsecrap. Look, there's literally nothing that will get many of our commentators to stop obediently telling the story McCain's way and start showing some basic skepticism about the man. But why should Biden -- a Democrat who actually hopes to be running against him, or at least will presumably back the Democratic nominee against him -- let himself be taken by McCain's ruse, and worse, help him push it, too, even casually? It's just dopey.