The New York Times covers McCain's behind

On July 14, Senator Barack Obama wrote an op-ed for The New York Times titled "My Plan for Iraq." Senator Obama mentioned McCain in the article, but more or less in passing, while noting that "The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep."

Obama continued to lay out, in some detail, what he believes about Iraq and how he intends to deal with the situation in Iraq. For example, he says "...it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks."

The senator believes we should begin to redeploy our troops and "encourage the Iraqis to step up" and take responsibility "for the security and stability of their country." Obama believes that working with the Iraqi leaders we can set a timetable for the withdrawal of our troops. He affirms absolutely that his administration will not seek permanent bases in Iraq.

It's especially important to note Obama's flexibility. He is not chained down to ideology (or theology) as are our current leaders in Washington. "In carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments." Obama promises to meet with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government "to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected."

"Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. ...

"It's time to end this war."


The New York Times op-ed editor suggested to the McCain campaign that their candidate might like to write a letter "that mirrors Senator Obama's piece."

McCain wrote the letter. David Shipley, The NYT's op-ed editor, rejected McCain's efforts. "I'm not going to be able to accept the piece as currently written." The reason, it seems, is that McCain merely ranted without offering much in the way of specifics as to how he would deal with Iraq. He castigated Obama over and over again, and got many of his facts and figures wrong.

The McCain op-ed is available at the Drudge Report.

Initially, many pundits claimed The New York Times was biased against John McCain. "A top McCain source said the candidate's op-ed was tossed because the newspaper disagreed with McCain's Iraq policy.

Jason Linkins at The Huffington Post suggests, contrarily, that typical of a media that fawns over John McCain, The New York Times rejected McCain's article to save him embarrassment. "...I've read the piece, and it's pretty clear to me that the Times' decision, if anything, is in keeping with the press' traditional friendly relationship [with McCain]. The Times put bros before prose, and in so doing, spared McCain no end of embarrassment, because the op-ed is rivetingly dumb and laden with inaccuracies."

You can read Linkins' article here, but one example might suffice. McCain wrote that "Perhaps he [Obama] is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, 'Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress. ...'"

Linkins responded: "Wow. That's a mouthful of nonsense to parse. It's not the U.S. Embassy in Iraq who's made such a claim, it's 'Surge' architect and editorial-page-welfare recipient Fred Kagan who's contended that the Iraq has had benchmark success. This is a claim that CNN Reporter Michael Ware has already debunked. In truth, on benchmarks, it would be more accurate to say that McCain has it precisely backwards."

We should also note that Fred Kagan is brother to Robert Kagan. Robert is one of McCain's foreign policy advisers. Both are part of the infamous neoconservative cabal that got into this Iraq quagmire in the first place. Neither are trustworthy sources of information or advice!


I think Linkins is right on. McCain's op-ed piece is a bitter justification of the war in Iraq. The article is heavy with attacks on Obama and light on what McCain plans to do about the situation in Iraq. It is also, as Linkins said, "laden with inaccuracies."

The New York Times, in order to give McCain a break, pulled the article.