Nasty Little Man

Coffee with Tim

A few months ago, I intended to start a new series of posts called "Coffee with Tim," which would be a reaction to Meet the Press each week, or as many weeks as I could. I never got around to it but am hoping to start now. MTP is the one Sunday morning show that I watch.

And this week is a great week to start. MTP featured Senator John McCain, a key supporter of the Bush-McCain-Lieberman escalation, and Senator Edward Kennedy, who voted against the Iraq war at the start and now opposes the escalation.

Senator McCain's arguments in favor of the escalation are based on a few assumptions that I just don't buy. First, he believes that more troops means more security. I don't buy it. We've been at 150,000 troops before, and we all saw how well that worked. More troops might actually make things worse.

Bush's friend McCain also believes that a U.S. withdrawal will lead to chaos. That is a distinct possibility. But it's not guaranteed. It's important to remember that a U.S. withdrawal does not mean that one day there are 130,000 troops in Iraq and the next day there are zero. President Bush has long said that as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. In fact, we can turn that around. We stand down, and the Iraqis will then recognize that it is time to stand up.

It seemed that Senator McCain has picked up the Rove-Limbaugh-Hannity tactic of spreading a flat-out lie. McCain stated several times that the American people did not support the Gulf War at the start. That is just flat wrong.

Most Americans agreed with the President's decision to go to war. For example, the Washington Post/ABC News Poll on January 16, 1991, found that 76 percent of Americans approved of the U.S. going to war with Iraq and 22 percent disapproved.

I'm considering going to Washington on Saturday for the march against the war. I hope those of you who come across this post will consider doing the same.

Labels: George W. Bush, Iraq, John McCain

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 10:43 AM