John McCain Takes Kerry and Russert to School

On today's Meet the Press, Iraq was the topic of a debate between '08 Republican presidential candidate John McCain and '04 Democrat presidential nominee loser John Kerry.

Actually, McCain was also debating Democrat hack Tim Russert. No surprise there.

It's worth watching the segment. Here.

Talking heads like to write off McCain as looking too old to be viable as a presidential candidate. I didn't see that.

McCain certainly was sharp this morning, and he looked dramatically better than the frighteningly, freakishly Botoxed Kerry.

Where to begin?

Here's the transcript.

There were a number of lively exchanges. On a number of occasions, McCain put Kerry to shame.

McCain kept Kerry on defense throughout the segment.

Example:

SEN. KERRY: Let me, let me speak to that also. I read and listened to the testimony of John McCain questioning General Petraeus. And John McCain...

SEN. McCAIN: Good.

SEN. KERRY: ...asked him about—John McCain asked him about being a central front. And he said, “How do you know it’s a central front?” And he said, “Because I talked to the head of the national intelligence and another general, and they tell me al-Qaeda says it is their central front.” Now, al-Qaeda can choose to make it their central front, but we’re not leaving al-Qaeda to that front. Everything in the Democratic proposal that has 52 votes, a majority of the Senate, says we will leave troops to continue to chase al-Qaeda. That’s number one.

Number two, Tim, al-Qaeda views Shia as apostates. They are not legitimate Muslims. The fact is you’re better off as a Christian or as a Jew than as a Shia in the eyes of al-Qaeda. And Iran, linked as it is already to Maliki, who was in Iran a month ago, holding hands with the leader of Iraq, they’re already linked. The Shia will never allow al-Qaeda to take over Iraq. The Kurds will never allow al-Qaeda to take over Iraq. That’s 80 to 85 percent of the country. And the Sunni in Anbar have now decided they don’t want al-Qaeda. We are the attraction for al-Qaeda. And if we begin to reduce our footprint, as the Iraq Study Group has said we should do, as General Jones said we should do, as those seven soldiers of the 82nd Airborne, two of whom were just recently killed, wrote in The New York Times the other day, as we should do, then al-Qaeda, believe me, will be driven out by the Iraqis themselves.

SEN. McCAIN: Surely you don’t believe that General Petraeus reaches his conclusions by talking to somebody. He lives and works there.

SEN. KERRY: I’m quoting what General Petraeus said.

SEN. McCAIN: Gen-oh please.

SEN. KERRY: I’m quoting what he said to you, John.

SEN. McCAIN: General Petraeus, General Petraeus has said hundreds of times that it is the central front in the war against terror in al-Qaeda...

SEN. KERRY: I’m just quoting what he said to you.

SEN. McCAIN: ...because of the conditions, because of the conditions on the ground and you are quoting him incorrectly, and...

SEN. KERRY: No, I’m quoting him absolutely correctly.

SEN. McCAIN: ...selectively. No.

SEN. KERRY: And moreover, you’re not answering the fundamental issue.

SEN. McCAIN: But the fact is, but the fact is when, when, when Senator Kerry says that we will just take care of al-Qaeda, then you go into a place where they’re fighting. “Excuse me, sir. Are you al-Qaeda or Sunni or Shia?” Please. We’ve got to have sufficient—and General Jones did say if we set a date for withdrawal, and it’s on the record, if we set a date of—for withdrawal...

SEN. KERRY: Yes it is.

SEN. McCAIN: ...then the United States security interests will be negatively impacted and harmed in the area, as well as Iraq.

SEN. KERRY: Once again, you use the words withdrawal.

SEN. McCAIN: So please don’t misquote General Jones again, please.

SEN. KERRY: We will have troops in Iraq.

SEN. McCAIN: You are setting a date for withdrawal.

SEN. KERRY: We have all acknowledged that there will be some troops there to finish the training, finish standing them up.

MR. RUSSERT: How many?

SEN. KERRY: To chase al-Qaeda.

In this follow-up exchange, Russert couldn't keep from staying out of the mix. He switched from his moderator role to one of advocate. He probably saw that Kerry was being humiliated and he instinctively went after McCain, even using a Ross Perot "Can I finish?" line.

MR. RUSSERT: What’s wrong with that?
SEN. McCAIN: I hope, I hope that next week you’ll take 60 seconds and get the quotes from General Jones, who said if we set a date for withdrawal, it will harm the United States’ national security...

SEN. KERRY: I’m not arguing that. He did say that.

SEN. McCAIN: ...interest in the region; and General Petraeus, his comments as to why he believes that al-Qaeda is now the central Iraqi...

MR. RUSSERT: General Jones did say that, but he said something else, and let me start with that...

SEN. McCAIN: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: ...Senator McCain. “Although the administration has said repeatedly that security improvements will create ‘breathing space’ for Iraqi sectarian and political forces to move” towards “national reconciliation, the Jones commission turns that equation on its head, saying that long-term security advances are impossible without political progress. Despite all that remains to be done on the military front,” the Jones commission “says, ‘the single most important event that could immediately and favorably affect Iraq’s direction and security is political reconciliation. Sustained progress within the Iraqi Security Forces depends on such’” an “‘agreement.’” So the president’s strategy has been...

SEN. McCAIN: Now, now wait a minute. First of all, that’s a Washington Post story interpretation of General Jones’ report.

MR. RUSSERT: He was on this program last week and acknowledged that’s exactly...

SEN. McCAIN: Yes. And he acknowledged exactly that. And he also acknowledged that without the, the military security situation, it was also impossible for...

MR. RUSSERT: But...

SEN. McCAIN: ...the political situation...

MR. RUSSERT: But what he said was...

SEN. McCAIN: ...to move forward.

MR. RUSSERT: ...the current administration...

SEN. McCAIN: And he also said that...

MR. RUSSERT: Let me just finish, because he said the current administration’s thinking is that you cannot have political reconciliation without first having security. He says it’s the opposite, that you cannot have security...

SEN. McCAIN: He doesn’t say it’s the opposite.

MR. RUSSERT: ...unless you have political reconciliation.

SEN. McCAIN: Tim, I’ve known Jim Jones for 30 years. It’s not what he’s saying. What he’s saying is we have to have now political progress; and he, like all of us, are very frustrated by the lack of political progress, that the Maliki government has not done the things we want them to do. And we have every right to expect it and, unless there is political progress, that we are not going to succeed in Iraq. We all understand that. We all comprehend that. But you—any counterinsurgency expert will tell you that you have to have a military security environment on the ground, and then the other aspects of it move forward. And I think it is moving forward, but it’s hard, and it’s tough, and it’s long, and it’s full of disappointments. And to say that somehow with a few troops that we can handle this situation of Iranian further incursion into southern Iraq, the—of the Syrians continuing their dislocation in the region in support of Hezbollah and Hamas, I think is a basic misreading of the security situation we face when we, “withdraw,” as is what the Democrats and John Kerry wants us to do.

Another example of Kerry looking foolish:

SEN. McCAIN: I’m telling you right now that Iraqi and American soldiers and Marines are fighting together in neighborhoods in Baghdad and Anbar and other places, and we are proud of the work that the Iraqi military is doing, and they’re getting better every day. And I’m convinced that, in a relatively short period of time, they will take over more and more of those responsibilities as they were. And I think it’s wrong to denigrate the sacrifices that Iraqi soldiers are making right now on behalf of their country...

SEN. KERRY: Nobody denigrated them.

SEN. McCAIN: That—you’re saying they’re ineffective. They are effective, and they’re fighting alongside of Americans, and I’m proud of them.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator McCain...

SEN. KERRY: I never used the word “ineffective.”

SEN. McCAIN: And I’m proud of them.

SEN. KERRY: What I said is they are not standing up at the levels that they should be...

SEN. McCAIN: They are standing up well. They are standing up well.

Kerry made yet another error when he pulled out something from the New York Times and began reading.

SEN. KERRY:You know, let me read you—these are seven troops. They wrote it in The New York Times, 82nd Airborne. They’ve been there the whole tour. And they wrote, “To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is farfetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent past coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable.” And they go on to say it, two of them, Sergeant Mora and Sergeant Gray were killed the other day, one wounded—and another one wounded. These, you know, you got to listen to these people.

It was an uncomfortable moment. It felt exploitative.

McCain countered with strength and sincerity.

SEN. McCAIN: On this issue of bringing up men and women who are serving and how they feel about the war, look, I hear from them all the time. I lament the loss of those brave, young—two young Americans who wrote that piece. I hear from hundreds of them every day, just like in Vietnam, despite what the, the—what was accepted, Americans wanted to win in Vietnam, they want to win here. I hear from these men and women, hundreds of them, all the time. They want us to win. And to go back to the same failed strategy of before and somehow say that everything’s going to be fine in the Middle East if we draw—if we announce that we’re leaving, I think does not comport with the reality or history. And we’ve been through these fights before as to whether the United States should direct its influence throughout the world, and I believe that this is some way a repeat of that. But the fact is that we are succeeding militarily. We are succeeding in a new tactic, and that is succeeding. And in Anbar province,by the way, I asked General Petraeus, he said the reason why we had that success in Anbar province is we had the extra 4,000 Marines to send there. And that was—solidified that position. We all want to see progress. We are seeing progress. To pull the plug at this particular time, I believe, would be disastrous for the future of this country.

I listen to McCain.

I listen to Kerry and his sidekick Russert.

I agree with McCain.