The danger of McCain

John McCain has an uncanny ability to convince reporters that he is principled, rather than inconsistent. More than anyone from recent memory, McCain is, prima facia, assumed to be honorable and correct. Things he says would often be lambasted if spoken by other politicians. Case in point is the difference in perspective between Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic, (who generally has one of the most level headed, analytical, Election '08 process blogs out there) and Ezra Klein at The American Prospect regarding some statements McCain made about future troop withdraw from Iraq.

Both Ambinder and Klein quote this:

Chris Matthews pressed McCain on the issue. “You’ve heard the ideological argument to keep U.S. forces in the Middle East. I’ve heard it from the hawks. They say, keep United States military presence in the Middle East, like we have with the 7th Fleet in Asia. We have the German…the South Korean component. Do you think we could get along without it?” McCain held fast, rejecting the very policy he urges today. “I not only think we could get along without it, but I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence,” he responded. “And I don’t pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be.”

Ambinder's commentary, after adding in some more of the quote is this:

...the full context of the interview he gave in 2005 suggests that he modeled a
long-term US commitment to Iraq on South Korea, albeit with a big difference: a major corps would not necessarily have to embed itself in the country. Soldiers, euphamized as "military advisers," would maintain a presence. But McCain has never said that he favors keeping combat troops in Iraq for an indefinite period of time.

Where does Ambinder get evidence that McCain is euphamizing soldiers as military advisers rather than changing his position on whether we should have a real contingent of soldiers in Iraq? Nope, I have no idea either.

Klein, on the other hand, sees this:

The point isn't that McCain flip-flops, which he does. It's that his strategic
thinking on matters like Iraq is curiously soft and immature. He's never come
out with a statement explaining why he ceased believing that we should reduce
our footprint and lower our visibility, nor how the last few years convinced him
that the Iraqi people, far from resenting our presence, would in fact prefer to
host our troops for the next century or so.

Take a look at the full context on Ambinder's blog and judge for yourself. Ok, so how meta is this post? My point is not really to get into the weeds on McCain's statements. It seems pretty clear that he specifically rejects the South Korea model before he accepts the South Korea model (which he did even more specifically on the Charlie Rose Show, here). What I want to highlight is Ambinder's perspective. If Marc can't get this one right and feels a reflexive need to defend McCain against the scurrolous attacks of the Democrats at The Huffignton Post and the DNC, how can we expect the MSM will even come close? More evidence of why we would be in a much better position if we had a nominee to highlight these issues, rather than expecting the media to do it for us as we fight eachother.