This is real simple. I am not a journalist nor have I ever claimed to be one. But, in just a few minutes of Googling John McCain's own words, I was able to throughly repudiate an argument made by a columnist in Time Magazine. That columnists name is Mark Halperin. And that man, is truly a hack.
His piece is entitled "HALPERIN’S TAKE: Things McCain Can Do to Try to Beat Obama That Clinton Cannot". And his patently false argument is that McCain can "Talk about the Iraq War without apologies or perceived contradiction.
So lets use John McCain's own words to thoroughly repudiate Mark's totally absurd argument.
Lets start with the lack of "perceived contradiction". I would say the McCain that said this
I Believe that success will be fairly easy.
9/24/02
and this
We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.
1/22/03
is in complete contradiction with the John McCain that said this
The American people ... were led to believe that this would be some kind of a day at the beach which many of us, uh, fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking.
8/22/06
Now it may be my lack of fine journalistic training that leads me to believe you couldn't find a bigger contradiction. Not only is at a perceived contradiction, but an actual 180 degree factually complete contradiction. But, then I thought. Maybe, it's cause I don't drink the same kind of kool aid he gets over at Time magazine. I mean Priscilla Painton let Joe Klein write a factually false FISA Op Ed. And then refused to run a proper correction. So maybe this is their new norm. You know a new section in TIME called "The Weekly Factually False OP-ED".
But, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and looked at the other part of the argument. You know the part where he says McCain can "Talk about the Iraq war without apologies...". And you know what else I found that John McCain said
We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we're not going to have a blodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies
9/29/02
And All I can say to that is damn right John McCain owes an apology! John McCain owes an apology to every soldier that died or was injured going "house-to-house fighting in Bagdad". He owes an apology to every one of their family members for the grief they feel for their dead an injured. He owes an apology to the American people for lying to us about the risks of going into war. And he owes us an even bigger apology for lying to us now about what he said before the war. How much more can that man debase himself in a quest for power?
That is absolutely outrageous behavior for a sitting U.S. Senator and presidential candidate. Outrageous!!!But, it's even more outrageous that Mark Halperin considers himself a journalist after writing
that McCain can "Talk about the Iraq War without apologies or perceived contradiction."
I think it's time for Mark Halperin to go back to crayons. It's all he can handle right now.
Jim Coffey