Kerry: McCain "out of step with history and facts"

[Mass]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Kerry_McCain_out_of_step_with_history_and_facts.html

Kerry: McCain "out of step with history and facts"

Criticized by McCain for not going to Iraq, Obama's camp holds a conference call this morning listing McCain misstatements on Iraq, and focusing on the claim in a McCain fundraising email that troop levels are down to those before the surge.

“That’s just not true and everybody knows that’s just not true," said Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle. "The fact is that we are not down to pre-surge levels."

John Kerry listed past McCain mistakes on Iraq, including confusing Sunni and Shiite.

"John McCain is out of step with history and facts," he said, saying McCain's mistakes raise "serious questions about his comprehension of this challenge."

[blm]

1. Heh - exactly - McCain has shown total lack of comprehension of simple facts, just like Bush.

This line of attack is really going to piss off McCain....heh...he deserves it....Lieberman and Graham aren't going to be around 24/7 to whisper in his ear when he screws up and the media will be a little too redfaced to allow him off the hook after McClellan's book.

[beachmom]

2. Kerry is going to be the best surrogate against McCain. Because he knows McCain

better than anyone else. Watch him get underneath McCain's skin time and time again.

[ProSense]

3. Kerry sums it up perfectly:

"out of step with history and facts"

[Mass]

4. More on the conference call

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_camp_accuses_McCain_of_politicizing_0530.html

Obama camp accuses McCain of 'politicizing' troops while being uninformed on Iraq


Obama camp accuses McCain of 'politicizing' troops while being uninformed on Iraq


Sen. Barack Obama's campaign is charging that John McCain does not fully comprehend the situation in Iraq and would not be competent enough to be commander in chief, citing the presumptive GOP nominee's incorrect assessment of troop levels and several other gaffes regarding the conflict that has raged for the last five years.

At a town hall meeting in Wisconsin Thursday, McCain said the US troop presence has "drawn down to pre-surge levels." That is untrue; there are still about 20,000 more troops serving in Iraq than there were before President Bush began increasing deployments as part of the troop surge last year.
...
The Obama surrogates panned McCain's invitation to Obama for a joint trip to Iraq as a "political stunt," and they sharply criticized McCain for distributing a fundraising appeal that displayed a picture of the candidate shaking hands with Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of US troops in Iraq.

"Republicans have grown very skilled at using our troops for props in political ads, but not providing a policy that is up to scale" with their needs, Kerry said.
...

[NatBurner]

5. they'll ignore all of that, and jump on the word "comprehension"

then they'll claim "ageism"
then they'll release some long-winded non-sequitur about patriotism
then grampy will do some one-armed pushups

[karynnj]

7. I doubt it - because given the constant need

to tell him who the Shiites and the Sunnis are, it would be a risk to them to bring up the issue. This goes beyond an accidental saying one when you mean the other - He actually linked Al Qaeta with Iran, where the former is Sunni and the latter Shiite. It's not age - it's lack of interest in the cultural, religious, historical forces at play here. No one says McCain should have the comprehensive knowledge Kerry has on these issues, but there are some basics that need to be understood.

This is a strong counter to McCain's comment that Obama hasn't gone to Iraq enough. It questions whether McCain actually learned much about Iraq in his many trips there.

[FrenchieCat]

6. That's what I like to read about.

Go John! :patriot:

[ProSense]

8. McCain's camp responds and Obama's campaign hits back

McCain wants to debate the meaning of the phrase ‘pre-surge’

[zulchzulu]

9. K&R

McCain is slowly but surely being called out. He has a horrible record supporting veterans and have put the Iraq War around his neck. These key elements chisel away at his "brand" of being a maverick...

I fully expect McCain to get hot-headed and stumble more.

[ProSense]

10. Obviously the McCain camp is no match

Obama Campaign Winning Today's Spin War With McCain Over Iraq?

The McCain campaign is battling aggressively to limit media pickup of McCain's mistake, telling reporters that they shouldn't be nit-picking about what was merely a "verb tense" mistake. But judging by the first round of coverage in The Washington Post, the Obama team is getting the story told its way...

McCain Asserts Return to Pre-Surge Iraq Troop Levels

Sen. John McCain has attacked Sen. Barack Obama for not traveling to Iraq to see the "facts on the ground." But a recent statement by McCain about troop levels has his opponents raising questions about his own knowledge.

That's exactly the coverage the McCain camp doesn't want, and that the Obama camp does want. Will the rest of the coverage follow suit? It seems like flubbing a fact about troop levels is a bit of a gaffe for someone who regularly attack his opponent's experience and fitness to be commander in chief.

[politicasista]

11. K&R

:kick:

[jillan]

12. John Kerry is a great advocate to take on McCain.

K & R for Kerry.

[blm]

13. Kerry and Biden will wipe the floor with EVERYONE McCain puts up this election cycle.

It's just still sad that there was no strong Dem team willing to take on BushInc for 2004 cycle for Kerry. The best known Dems at the time, especially Clintons and Lieberman, were solidly supporting Bush and defending his Iraq position for him publicly.

[jillan]

14. Biden took on the press in 2004 about the swiftboat liars.

That's when I started following him.

[politicasista]

15. So did General Clark, Dean, Cleland, etc n/t

[blm]

16. Unfortunately, Bush in 2003 got Biden and other Dems to promise that Iraq war would NOT

be used as a political point during the 2004 campaign.

I don't know what they were thinking at that point - I imagine they believed in the mission as presented and didn't expect BushInc was lying as much as they were then.

[ProSense]

17. Kerry Criticizes McCain’s Use of Petraeus Photo

May 30, 2008, 5:21 pm

Kerry Criticizes McCain’s Use of Petraeus Photo

By Sarah Wheaton



Senator John McCain said it was wrong for his campaign to send out the above e-mail message, which
featured a picture of him and Gen. David Petraeus with a fund-raising pitch.

On the heels of a directive to soldiers from America’s top military official to stay out of politics, Senator John McCain acknowledged that his use of Gen. David H. Petraeus’s picture in a fund-raising pitch was not appropriate.

“It won’t happen again,” he vowed at a news conference this afternoon.

This morning, the Obama camp dispatched a statement from Senator John Kerry criticizing Mr. McCain’s use of a photo of the top commander in Iraq in a fund-raising pitch that went out to supporters via e-mail on Thursday.

“It’s deeply disappointing that Sen. McCain is using a picture of General Petraeus in uniform to raise money and launch negative attacks,” Mr. Kerry said in the statement.

<...>

In the fund-raising appeal, Mr. McCain repeats a recent critique of Mr. Obama: “Something is wrong with your judgment when you want to sit down unconditionally with Raul Castro and Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but you don’t take the opportunity to sit down with General Petraeus and learn about the situation in Iraq firsthand.” Included in the e-mail message is a picture of Mr. McCain shaking hands with General Petraeus, which was taken in April as the commander of American forces in Iraq arrived to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

As Mr. Kerry points out, the appeal less than a week after Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued an open letter to people in uniform, saying that “The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times and in all ways.”

“The McCain campaign did not ask for permission to use the photo,” said a spokesman for General Petraeus, Lt. Col. Joseph M. Yoswa. “General Petraeus is aware of the photo being used. By no means does the use of his photo mean he has endorsed anybody. He has not. He won’t. He remains apolitical.”

more

[politicasista]

18. Kick n/t