Wonkette
Barack Obama’s had his big interview with Katie Couric, and we have excerpts! Somehow, he seems to let Katie Couric trap him, too, with regards to the Surge. She asks him, at one point, if, Given What We Know Now about declined violence in Iraq, he would’ve supported the Surge last year, hmm? Rather than offer his very logical strategic position on this, he tries to make it an economic issue, about how much these damn wars cost during a time when no one has a home in America. Move the debate back home, but let “The Surge Worked” live yet another day. FTW.
Ugh:
Couric: But talking microcosmically, did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops … help the situation in Iraq?
Obama: Katie, as … you’ve asked me three different times, and I have said repeatedly that there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence. There’s no doubt.
Couric: But yet you’re saying … given what you know now, you still wouldn’t support it … so I’m just trying to understand this.
Obama: Because … it’s pretty straightforward. By us putting $10 billion to $12 billion a month, $200 billion, that’s money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan. That money also could have been used to shore up a declining economic situation in the United States. That money could have been applied to having a serious energy security plan so that we were reducing our demand on oil, which is helping to fund the insurgents in many countries. So those are all factors that would be taken into consideration in my decision– to deal with a specific tactic or strategy inside of Iraq.
First, he gets pissy. He is always getting pissy at the news questions. He lets a question from Katie Couric — that he refuses to answer — get him pissy! Why can’t he say No, he would not have supported it, because much of the reduction in violence has come from (a) most people already being dead in Iraq, not many left to kill, (b) most surviving Iraqis getting the hell out of Dodge and (c) American forces giving shitloads of cash to Sunni tribe leaders to get them to, you know, stop killing everyone. And that the reduction in violence, which roughly corresponded to the implementation of the Surge time-wise but who really knows, has not altered the untenable position of the United States in Iraq, a country which will have to deal with sectarianism at some point, on its own terms, but cannot really do this while another country is playing nanny. Under the current strategy, Iraq will develop into a 46-year-old albino loser who still lives in his parents’ basement; he’s tried to escape and make a go of things for himself in the real world, but his parents have locked him in the basement, which is the point.
The loser child metaphor, it works! Yet here’s Obama, PLAYING POLITICS, saying we should leave Iraq simply because it costs money at a time when you have no home, an insulting contrast of sorts. And yelling at Katie Couric.
He is clearly worried that, by directly saying “no” to the question about rethinking his position on the Surge, McCain will claim he’s Insulting The Troops’ Sacrifice. Oh, Barry. Bad things happen to Democratic presidential candidates when that hot air starts dictating their politics. Besides, McCain will say it anyway, and no one will care.
Obama, Couric Spar Over Surge [Marc Ambinder]
I actually don’t have a problem with this. I’m actually pleased he’s getting pissy about this. I don’t think he needs to pander to the 23% of people who still think that Iraq is winnable like WWII or freaking Call of Duty on their PSP. You will never convince that crowd that we need to leave so don’t even try. Our ‘loss’ in Iraq will be tempered by a peaceful Afghanistan and also, the very public trial and execution of Osama bin Laden.
Couric: But talking microcosmically…
That Katie, she’s philosopher!
He should have pulled a Bush Sr. (vs. Rather) and said “how would you like it if I kept asking you why your ratings suck?”
“Oh yeah, knowing what you know now, would you have left the Today show?”
Hmm, that probably wouldn’t work too well for Obama.
Anyway, who is this Serge guy?
So will Katie have to face the Inquisition over getting Barry the Great pissy?
Oh please, you’re saying it’s hard to get pissy with Couric in front of your face, with her huge mouth, and man hands?
No. She’s a dog. A no good, pathetic dog. I miss when she was on before I wake up in the morning. What a cunt.
Katie got the same feeling at the end of this interview as she did when the doc shoved the endoscope up her ass.
Please, tell me again, why do you hate America? I’ve already forgotten what you just said.
shortsshortsshorts:
Agreed. She’s a waste of tits.
ManchuCandidate: I almost forgot about that. The image is horrifying.
She’s a worthless hag, obviously asking him the same question eight times to unnerve the man. I thought he started to be a real moron, rapping in jive or something.
cal: wtf. I wondered the same thing. How do you speak microcosmically about the surge? It’s as if the “surge” operates outside of our standard space/time paradigm…much like John McCain’s mother.
Sure the surge worked — insofar as anything that meets half the goals set out for it can be considered to work. Unfortunately the political situation is just as crappy as it’s always been, and if that doesn’t get fixed, no reduction in violence is likely to be permanent.
So if our options are to keep the troops there until violence springs up again (as it surely will) or to get the heck out now while the getting is good — which one makes the most sense?
I’m fine with this answer. The surge probably had a positive effect, but the opportunity cost was too high.
But Barry, a piece of advice: nuanced answers make both the left and right hate you. Simplify. Here’s a good answer: No, Katie. The U.S. is the best nation in the world. Don’t be a terrorist, Katie.
Poor Hopey, trapped in an enigma surrounded by a thin candy mystery shell dressed in a flowing Islamo-terrorist madrasa called Couric On The Run For Ratings…
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/04/11/couricandco/entry2673784.shtml
Duck, Barry! Dodge the fast ball! Shoot from the hip!
Oscar Folsom Cleveland: After reading that, I pray that Couric gets Colon cancer.
I want to yell at Katie Couric, please.
“Senator, now that you’ve seen first-hand the unquestionable success of The Glorious Surge, would you still support invading Iraq?”
oppose
If the surge has worked, we should be pulling our troops out. Remember? That was the reason for the surge. Now, “success” of the surge somehow let’s us keep our troops there forever…
I have always respected her as a journalist: http://www.madisonavenuejournal.com/images/katie1.jpg
Barry could have mooned the camera and it wouldn’t have mattered since only 7 “humans” watch that twat with teeth anyway.
Katie Couric needs to be fired and replaced by Scott Pelley immediately. God, she sucks.
My Obamalove might be getting the best of me, but I didn’t mind that answer. And I’d like to get Andrea Mitchell and Katie Couric together and throw shit at them for being such worthless twits.
loquaciousmusic: Maybe this was her Fox news Audition?
Obama is way off base!
Didn’t you hear - McCain is going to offer FREE homesteads in Iraq to Americans!
When they build the railroad, Iraqi property is gonna go THRU THE ROOF!
If the surge had worked, we would have won, or something, but if it’s only working, with an ing and not an ed, then that means we’re still there, and people are still getting killed, which is how these kinds of things work, and will work, for the next hundred years, or maybe a million.
Hopey could and should state categorically that the surge has allowed greater self-defense capability than was previously the case. However, paying portions of the “former” enemy to kill each other instead of US troops has also yielded a dividend that mustn’t be ignored. So, the surge isn’t the only reason for fewer US deaths.
Barry might also have added that, while the surge is one of the factors in a reduced US troop casualty rate [30 in June '08 vs. 111 in June '07], there nevertheless remains the small item of more than 500 Iraqis being killed in June ‘08. More than 200 of those casualties were in Baghdad, which - this many years into the war - really ought to be a safer place than it is.
Hopey might also rhetorically ask “Is one US military death per day cause for celebration? Is this what victory looks like; planting the bones of 365 servicemen and women each year? For a war that has no foreseeable end under a John McCain administration? If that is success, how is it distinguishable from failure?”
It is well past time to reclaim the moral high ground by declaring “Those who support the troops don’t put them in harm’s way except as the very last recourse. Those who put the troops in harm’s way for anything less don’t support the troops.”
Let McCain finesse his way out of that fuckin’ conundrum.
Hopey needs to keep up with Juan Cole:
“The last time Barack visited Iraq (Jan. 2006), there were 537 civilian and ISF casualties.”
“In June this year, 2008, there were 554 casualties.
The Iraq death toll is actually worse now than before the surge. Why a return to the bad situation in late ‘05 and early ‘06 should be greeted by the GOP as the veritable coming of the Messiah is beyond me. You have people like Lieberman saying silly things like if it weren’t for the troop escalation, Obama wouldn’t be able to visit Iraq. Uh, he visited it before the troop escalation just fine.”
Cole makes two funny jokes here, one, his use of the word Messiah (does he not know that is an exclusive GOP or Hilz slam name for Obama? And then he calls Lieberman “silly”. hahah!
Johnny Zhivago: Brilliant — we have to drown them in subprime mortgages over there so we don’t have to — oh, wait.
The Tet Offensive was an effective surge too.
That’s a good call, Jim. It’s a legitimate question, and Barry should be able to bat this one out of the part since his position is solid and defensible. Instead he’s trying to waive Afghanistan and energy dependence like rhetorical magic wands like some mediocre politician, or Hillary Clinton, would.
It would be a fail except that no one on the planet actually listens to Katie Couric says.
Notice what he says he WOULD have done —
Looking at this article, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-08-26-sunday_N.htm it seems like the ones applying reconciliation pressure were Levin, John Warner, and some gal from New Yawk named Clinton.
ABC’s Jake Tapper asked Obama if he had learned anything on the trip that would change his mind, and the answer basically was “no.”
But listen to this stunner:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/so-what-did-he.html
My gawd, he didn’t know the border was porous?
And how does he know the “x amount” of troops he’ll send will solve that.
Political Addict: It’s called framing the issue. It’s how he’s shifting the debate from “how do we win Iraq” to “what are we going to do about Afghanistan and Pakistan”. He’s been talking about the problem with Afghanistan/Pakistan for a long time now. This is also true regarding the political reconciliation pressure stance referred to in your earlier post. Whatevs.
I’m guessing you don’t like Barry much, given the tone of your post (my gawd!). It might be a bit harder to concern troll here because the primary point of this site is humor, rather than debate.
Katie Couric! What a cunt! She’s just a huge horrible vagina and she’s just a bitch, both in the sense that she’s the worst thing to ever happen to journalism and the FACT that she, Katie Couric, is no better than a DOG. Damn, I hope that slutty bag of tits makes 75 cents to every dollar Brian Williams makes!
Political Addict:
Yeah, I agree with Cicada. Make an ass joke, dude.
Given what we know now, shouldn’t Dubya have been impeached 7 1/2 years ago?
eatsshootsleaves: Thats 78 cents now. Wimmens got a raise!
boo-hoo Political Addict, Hillary lost. It proves Barry was 22 cents better!
AxmxZ: Given what we know now, shouldn’t Dubya have been impeached 7 1/2 years ago?
Win.
gosh guys, you sound like Walnuts!
Yes it was a good answer and yes she’s a lightweight asking the same non question four times, but please! don’t call her a cunt. Unless of course, you married her.
Jim Newell is right about how Barry should have answered Katie. Or, more simply, Barry could have just said, “That’s a fallacy, Katie: post hoc ergo propter hoc.” This would have left her speechless with incomprehension.
Asking the same question repeatedly to try to get a different answer, BTW, is, like, a well-known journalistic tactic that she appears to have used to some effect here, not a sign of stupidity. I mean, fuck, I don’t think the surge is the greatest foreign policy strategy ever like John McCain seems to believe (courageously), but I think her questions were getting at a valid point — if he believes that the surge has resulted in a reduction in violence, why would he still have opposed it? His answer is kind of bullshit.
Aurelio: me too. speechless.
but still it would have been an awesome answer.
Couric: But talking microcosmically, did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops … help the situation in Iraq?
Obama: No. Nothing we do will help the situation in Iraq. The Bush/McCain policy means that United States of America is screwed in the Middle East for years to come. There is nothing we can do to “win” in Iraq–it is a failed state with no hope of governing itself until the occupiers leave and most likely will never be able to do so.
The surge is just more of the same collapsed Bush/McCain strategy that has already cost the lives of over 4,000 American servicemen and women and untold thousands of Iraqi civilians while doing nothing to help our own security situation.
The surge has failed, the Bush/McCain foreign policy has created enemies for us around the world and pouring more American lives and treasure into the bottomless pit of Iraq will only make things worse.
And, Katie, I heard that when your husband was diagnosed with colon cancer he said “It really isn’t so bad–at least I won’t be married to that harridan for much longer.”
Actually, his only answer wasn’t just about the economic aspect of it, but about the fact that, strategically, it was not the best option because of our vulnerability in Afghanistan. So Katie was asking the same question in three different ways, but just not accepting his answer because (i’m guessing) it a) didn’t fall in line with what she wanted to hear, or b) she didn’t understand it. I think everyone believed that putting more troops on the ground would reduce violence. Barry has said this numerous times before (but I guess the media continues to have a short term memory). What people have taken issue with is the fact that we don’t have any real strategy when it comes to Iraq and we are going to pay for it. A la now, where we have an overstretched military and things in Afghanistan are getting hairy again. But yes, because Barry is the neophyte and McCain has foreign policy “expertise” lets always conclude that Barry is wrong and McCain is right, and the surge has worked and we have won.
No matter what Barry says, people aren’t going to give him the benefit of the doubt even though he basically predicted what would happened if we went to war in Iraq to a T.
Sheesh. I need a freakin’ drink.
lawchic: You are completely right, but he wouldn’t answer it in that way. He can’t.
He is obliged to stay in the strategy of most votes. This makes Barry, well, not as sexy, but still admirable. The neophyte issue won’t be around any longer, because his opponent has the opposite problem. From here on out, it’s clear sailing for the whitey-blackey mutant guy, unless the “October Surprise” ends up proving worse than it could possibly be at this point. *AND NO JINX TO TEH BARRY,* me hopes.
HILLARY 2916!!!!!!!!!!!!1!
lawchic: It’s just not that easy. The Afghanistan aspect is certainly a factor. But he said, repeatedly, at the time of the surge, that it wouldn’t reduce violence. A lot of people said this. Now, you can argue whether the reduction in violence is a result of the surge or not. But Katie Couric asked, “If you knew that this would reduce violence, would you have still been against it?” and he does not answer the question. He does not say “no, because it hasn’t really reduced violence and it is a distraction from other policy questions.” People here have lots of things to say about Katie Couric, but she asked him a question and he didn’t answer it. There was a correct answer, but he doesn’t want to even appear that he’s not supporting the troops.
The question of whether or not we should leave Iraq is not, primarily, based on the needs in other countries. If he thought it would be better for long-term stability to keep these troop levels in Iraq — despite concerns in Afghanistan or wherever — then it would be appropriate to do so. But it’s not, and it’s unfortunate that he has to temper this position.
Jim Newell: But if this is Katie Couric, does it really kill the morale around Barry? It’s not as if he’s giving away protocol in a way that makes him a whore. He’s just playing it out, preparing for his August Wiesel. If you remember his early days of “hope hope change GIVE ME your change,” then you remember he’s still a lawyer. Fuck Couric. The young man gives into pressure. He is still a Junior Senator from the South side.
Fortunately, the old ladies and leg fetish perverts who make up Katie’s entire audience were too otherwise occupied by bingo and/or shoes-n-pantyhose fapping to listen.
Let’s see… “c**t t**t get colon cancer and die”
This is certainly a fine audience you’ve garnered, Wonkette.