Using the word "timetable" was indeed a disastrously egregious mistake, but I think he misspoke more than anything. Mccain's been taking a "wait until positions improve" stance since way back when, and I think people are just capitalizing on his gaffe, just like they do with Obama's goofy remarks.

Politics as usual: embarassing and degrading to those voting.

It's a clever trick he's doing. First the media gives him a free ride on everything. Ridiculous daily gaffes, blatant flip-flopping, acting angry and senile, calling his wife a cunt, etc.

Then, his surrogates bitch about how Obama is getting unfairly favorable press coverage because the media decided that him giving a historic speech in Berlin was more interesting than McCain talking to two old ladies at a supermarket.

The media, scared of appearing biased, thus never reports on McCain's further gaffes, lies, flipflops, etc. And then when they report on anything whatsoever concerning Obama, even if it's bad ("BREAKING NEWS: BLACK MAN HAS FUNNY NAME, ONCE WORE A TURBAN") McCain's surrogates bitch even louder about bias, thus ensuring that the media never gives their guy anything close to real scrutiny.

The media has basically been goaded into proving it's not biased toward Obama by being biased toward McCain.

And that's how he can get away with this.

McCain changed his position when it served him politically, meaning as soon as he hit 2004, he started hitting Bush. He is a fraud and an opportunist. Too bad people are dying over it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIrSNf0m7Q

http://realitycheck08.org/2007/08/19/mccain-the-greatest-criti c-of-the-iraq-war/

McCain had the choice to either turn invisible or become a maverick for being the stronger hand on Iraq. Politically, he had absolutely nothing to lose. He has basically been waiting for a perceived lull in violence to step forward and take the credit. As I've said, this lull in violence is temporary, as while the surge helped contain Baghdad, it was the workings under the table that really helped. These "benchmarks," themselves set by Democrats as an act of political grandstanding (since Republicans didn't seem to feel the need to ask any questions of Herr Bush) and they should not be perceived as satisfied any more than the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 led to a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine.

The Iraqis I've talked to were happy that we came and got rid of Hussein. They also would have liked for us to have left after a year. They'd also like to have our government cease in its attempt to force oil contracts down its throat. Most Iraqis would like to have a state run oil corporation similar to Iran's, worked on by Iraqis, with the money going to Iraq, not us.

I think the point is not so much that no Iraqis greeted the troops as liberators - it's that the ones who DID were proven wrong.

A state run oil corporation? With money being reinvested in dilapidated infrastructure, schools, hospitals and other necessities of life, in a country which has been torn apart by war and sectarian violence? NOT IN MY FREE MARKET

Polls? You dumb fuck.

They didn't even attempt to stop the looting of everything, you think they went around doing polls?

Well in a war there's only two possibilities: win or lose. It's basically a big football game, but America gets to decide when it's over, what winning means, and what we have to do to win. In this case, leaving before we have all of Iraq's oil, and before they're our new best friend is losing. Losing another war would probably make everyone in the country die. It's not rocket science, man.

victory in iraq = the whole middle east becomes like the southern united states, but less white and less poor.

and we can't leave before that happens.

Well put SolRo! Just kidding.