Bill Kristol on FOX and Friends pushes McCain, war in Iraq
Reported by Chrish - July 16, 2008 -
Bill Kristol had a segment to himself this morning 7/16/08 on FOX and Friends, responding to a "new" ad from Vets for Freedom that looks exactly like the "old" ad - people saying the surge is working and beseeching the next president to not ruin their progress. It is widely taken as supportive of McCain, who has no intention of getting US out of Iraq anytime soon.
With video
After the ad was played in full, (Martha McCallum identified it as an ad for McCain) Kristol repeated the usual talking points (drip, drip, drip): Obama will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, to withdraw while we're winning endangers the victory, Afghanistan is important but Iraq is the center of the war on terror, McCain will finish and win the war and Obama will fritter away the hard-earned efforts of service men and women, losing in Iraq would debilitate our efforts against Al Qaeda and radical jihadism everywhere.
Kristol reinforced the notion that Obama "flip-flopped" and flipped again on his Iraq war position, although he hasn't, as MediaMatters has extensively documented. Kristol hijacked Obama's claim to better judgment (for not supporting the war in the first place) and gave it to McCain, who judged the surge to be the path to victory/success.
Dave Briggs was watching the "liberal media" last night, and from them got the notion that McCain is following Obama on proposals to redeploy troops to Afghanistan; Kristol assured him there's been talk of that in both parties for some time and Obama wis just trying to shift the debate from Iraq.
Kristol acknowledged that polls put McCain slightly ahead of Obama on the Iraq topic, and Obama is 20 points ahead of McCain on the economy, so making the election about Iraq - again! - will be good for McCain.
