A Little Trip Down Memory Lane

Yesterday President Obama presented his budget to the members of Congress and the media and suddenly a narrative emerged. You see President Obama asserted earlier in the week that he wants to halve the deficit by the end of his first term. So some "genuises" who took a look at the budget decided to call President Obama out because they said he was counting money that will be saved in Iraq after our withdrawal as part of his spending reductions. "It was going to happen anyway" they said as if it was preordained that no matter who won the election we were going to withdraw from Iraq in the next two years. Now this is the height of revisionist history and totally dismisses everything that was said by both then President Bush and then candidate John McCain on the campaign trail about how "dangerous" it would be to withdraw from Iraq and how "naive" then Senator Obama was to even entertain the thought. So I thought we might want to take a little stroll down memory lane to refresh these idiots' memories.


John McCain June 2 2008:

"It's worth recalling that America's progress in Iraq is the direct result of the new strategy that Senator Obama opposed. It was the strategy he predicted would fail, when he voted cut off funds for our forces in Iraq," McCain said.

"He now says he intends to withdraw combat troops from Iraq -- one to two brigades per month until they are all removed. ... This course would surely result in a catastrophe."

John McCainMay 16, 2008

Earlier, McCain bowed to anti-war sentiment by setting 2013 as the date for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, in an attempt to boost his chances of winning the White House. He said he expected the war to be over by that date. The comment marked a U-turn for McCain, who had based his run for the White House on his willingness to keep US forces in Iraq for up to 100 years.

McCain's retreat came despite having berated his Democratic rivals for the last 12 months for demanding a firm withdrawal date from Iraq, saying it would lead to chaos and genocide. But his strong support for keeping US troops in Iraq has proved costly for his campaign, with feelings against the war running as high as 63% in a USA Today-Gallup poll last month.

John McCain July 23, 2008

"General Petraeus has been in charge of this incredible, incredible reversal of fortunes in Iraq has said it would be a dangerous course," McCain told Wright. "The future of young Americans who are at stake here. Because if we do what he wants to do, which is withdraw -- and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on a certain date has said that it's very dangerous, and even in Senator Obama's own admission we could have to go back -- then that's dangerous for the future of America. And he should know better if he wants to be commander in chief, and certainly behave differently as far as this, our presence and our strategy in Iraq."

President Bush April 5, 2007

Bush has said he will veto any bill that includes a timetable for withdrawal, arguing that it will make it impossible for his military plan to succeed.

“Just as the strategy is starting to make inroads, a narrow majority in the Congress passed legislation they knew all along I would not accept,” he said at Ft. Irwin. The bills pushed by the Democrats “impose an artificial deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. Their bills substitute the judgment of Washington politicians for the judgment of our military commanders.”

John McCain July 22, 2008

Yet McCain has decided to remain with a position that entails remaining in Iraq despite the expressed wishes of the Iraqi government. His campaign blogger, Michael Goldfarb, wrote on Monday that the Obama-Maliki withdrawal plan was “an unconditional timeline we reject not only as being dangerous but unfeasible.” In an interview Monday morning with Meredith Viera, McCain himself suggested that he knew what Maliki wanted better than Maliki himself did: “I have been there too many times. I’ve met too many times with him, and I know what they want.”

George Bush May 2, 2007

"I believe setting a deadline for a withdrawal would demoralise the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East, and send a signal that America will not keep its commitments," he said in a televised speech.

President Bush July 17, 2008

President George W. Bush has said Iraq wanted to include an "aspirational goal" for the departure of most foreign troops there in any agreement authorizing future U.S. operations, but he reiterated his opposition to what he called "an artificial timetable for withdrawal."

His remarks Tuesday reflected growing doubt within the administration that the United States could negotiate an agreement that would clear the way for U.S. troops to operate in Iraq for many years. Bush and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, had pledged to reach such an agreement last year.

President Bush August 27, 2008

The United States asked Iraq for permission to maintain a troop presence there to 2015, but U.S. and Iraqi negotiators agreed to limit their authorization to 2011, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said.

"It was a U.S. proposal for the date which is 2015, and an Iraqi one which is 2010, then we agreed to make it 2011. Iraq has the right, if necessary, to extend the presence of these troops," Talabani said in an interview with al-Hurra television, a transcript of which was posted on his party's website on Wednesday.

John McCain April 8, 2008

Republican John McCain, chiding his Democratic opponents for promising a hasty withdrawal from Iraq, said today that it was “imprudent and dangerous” to leave the combat zone too quickly.

John McCain March 26, 2008

In a major address in California on foreign policy, the presumptive Republican nominee said, "It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal."

Now thankfully to a certain extent the Iraqi people made this all moot when they themselves called for a timeline to be in any new Status Of Forces Agreement and would not agree to sign on until they had one. But its just not credible to believe that John McCain wouldn't have tried to find a way to usurp that agreement had he been elected. It just defies logic to make that leap. So for the people who want to play gotcha journalism and politics with this part of President Obama's budget please stop insulting the American peoples' intelligence as if we don't remember. Part of the reason why John McCain didn't get elected is because nobody trusted him to withdraw from Iraq so this isn't a small thing that you can try to sneak by us. I know its hard to give President Obama props for keeping his campaign promise but this is one time you are just going to have to grin and bear it. He is walking the walk just like he talked the talk and you people need to recognize.