This is clearly an issue of media bias. Since when does McCain have to directly rebut or address every issue raised by Obama? McCain was raising legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and knowledge of the situation in Iraq.
An op-ed piece is supposed to be about the person's opinions, and yet David Shipley has a problem with McCain expressing his. That means that McCain cannot get the piece published in the paper unless Shipley agrees to run it. Here is McCain's editorial:
In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.On its face, this is clearly the NYC media bias shining through.
Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.
Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.
The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.
To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.
Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.
No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.
But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.
Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”
The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.
I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
McCain is correct to point out Obama's failure to talk about victory in Iraq, and that the situation in Iraq today would not have been possible had we listened to Obama's defeat and retreat position as the surge was taking hold. That Obama's view on a timetable for US troop withdrawals seemingly coincides with that of the Iraqi government is serendipity, not skill. Obama had nothing to do with the success in Iraq, and fought against it at every turn.
Of course, this, from a paper that has run terrorist flack propaganda without a second thought (scroll down through that link for the updates). Their defense of that publication actually works against them here. As the Times itself says, it is not in its own interest to present only one side of a debate. Yet, here we are again in the same position - getting only one side of the story because it is in the interests of the editorial staff to provide only one view.
This also fits in with polling that finds many Americans believe that the media is in the tank for Obama.
UPDATE:
McCain's camp clearly leaked this to Drudge, knowing that it will achieve more media coverage than had the New York Times run the article without any fanfare. They probably figured that it would also rile up the GOP base at the same time. The Times had no reason not to print this op-ed, but that they didn't gave McCain a golden opportunity for free press and to hammer on the Times and the media bias pervasive in the industry.
UPDATE:
Hot Air has a copy of the Shipley email to the McCain camp over what Shipley considered necessary to get the McCain op-ed published:
The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.Never mind that Obama continues to shift on his position on Iraq, all while keeping to his withdrawal timetable that is unrelated to the facts on the ground. McCain iterates his own position on Iraq, outlines that Obama set forth his policy on Iraq before going to the Middle East and learning the facts on the ground, and that his position on the surge shows just how wrong he has been.
It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.
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