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Thursday, February 28, 2008
McCain, Lewis agree: It’s Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A moment of silence on the Thinking Right blog, please, for “conservatism’s witty warrior,” as the morning headline describes William F. Buckley Jr. There was Buckley, then Barry Goldwater, then Ronald Reagan and now….” Be not disheartened, though. The State Capitol here and, I’m sure throughout the country, is filled with young Reagan conservatives who are now working their way up the ranks. His legacy lives, Buckley’s and Reagan’s.
To the political news of the day, John McCain signaled Wednesday that the general election campaign is underway, with Barack Obama as his opponent. (Anybody surprised? Just this week, Obama was endorsed by a former opponent, U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, and — drumroll please — Atlanta Congressman John Lewis. That settled it for me.)
McCain jumped Obama for an assertion in Tuesday’s Democratic debate that as president he will take action — though he didn’t say what that would be — “if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq” after U.S. troops leave.
“I have some news,” said McCain. “Al-Qaida is in Iraq. It’s called `al-Qaida in Iraq,’” Obama’s remark was “pretty remarkable,” he said.
“I do know that al-Qaida is in Iraq,” Obama responded, “and that’s why I have said we should continue to strike al-Qaida targets. But I have some news for John McCain. “There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq. They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11 and that would be al-Qaida in Afghanistan, that is stronger now than at any time since 2001.”
Obama said he withdraw from Iraq “so we actually start going after al-Qaida in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan like we should have been doing in the first place.”
Complete withdrawal would be “waving the white flag,” said McCain. “If we left, they (al-Qaida) wouldn’t be establishing a base,” he said Wednesday. “They’d be taking a country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al-Qaida.”
A new Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll shows McCain with a narrow lead over Obama or Hillary Clinton in the general election. While the lead is within the poll’s margin of error, it reveals that McCain beats Clinton 46 percent to 40 percent and Obama 44 percent to 42 percent.
McCain is seen by the poll’s participants as having the right experience and the ability to lead the country in handling Iraq and terrorism. Obama and Clinton as seen as more likely to bring change to Washington. On handling the economy, Clinton tops McCain and McCain tops Obama.
Democrats, talking to each other, have managed to convince themselves that the country is ready to throw in the towel on Iraq. McCain’s decision to take on his presumed opponent on the issue now is evident that he believes the country’s not. In your head, heart and gut, you know he’s right.
