All Wrong But All Good

Joe Klein, chatting with Hugh Hewitt, has a moment of candor about the Dem candidates:

HH: All right. I’ll look for that. That would surprise me. But Barack Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq, correct?

JK: No. I think that he wants to have a staged withdrawal. I don’t think his position on Iraq is tenable, but I don’t think any of the three of them have tenable positions on Iraq. 

HH: What is his position on Iraq?

JK: His position on Iraq is that you can pull out a brigade a month every month for sixteen months. I don’t think that that’s reasonable. I think that’s wrong. I think that his advisor, Samantha Power, who said that it was a best case scenario, was telling the truth. We don’t know how quickly or how easily we’ll be able to get out of Iraq. 

HH: So do you think he’s just saying that to appease the left, that he doesn’t mean it?

JK: I think that both he and Hillary Clinton are both saying that in order to appeal to Democrats.

HH: And do you think they mean it?

JK: I think it’s a big mistake. I think their policy on trade also wrong and a big mistake. 

HH: But what I’m getting at is do you…

JK: But I also think John McCain is wrong when he says that we’re winning, number one, or number two, that if we leave, al Qaeda in Iraq will take over the country. I mean, they’re a tiny Shiite group, yeah, a tiny Sunni group, and it’s a Shiite country.

The audio might clarify whether Klein had his own moment of Shiite/Sunni confusion or was mocking McCain, but regardless - he disagrees with McCain on Iraq but does not think McCain is deliberately misleading anyone as to his view.  Klein ducks the question of whether Hillary and Barack are simply engaged in desperate pandering to survive and thrive in the Dem primaries, but his meaning seems clear.

 

Comments

[Schornick]

The Sunni are a minority too and yet they managed to run Iraq for many years. And if I remember correctly Saddam said he was too scared of Zarqawi to go get him, so I guess that means that even the Butcher of Baghdad was afraid of Islamic terrorists.

So if McCain is wrong and Clinton is wrong and Obama is wrong, who is right?

[Americaneocon]

Klein's all messed up! Peter Wehner took him down good at Commentary yesterday - and I mean real good!

[DebinNC]

Peter Wehner: The Klein and the Fury

[Cecil Turner]

Peter Wehner took him down good at Commentary yesterday - and I mean real good!

Yeah, that says it pretty well. Not sure why anyone would ask Klein's opinion about operations or strategy, anyway . . . he has about as much expertise as Obama in the area (i.e., zero). But Klein's opinion about whether or not a candidate's position is straight-up pandering might be considered expert. And there, his silence speaks volumes.

[megapotumus]

Klein refuses to say what every adult on the Dem side knows but refuses to say whether it is on trade, Wright, Iraq, guns... what have you, is that the positions we need to win the primary are guaranteed DEATH in the general. Where McCain deviates from the base he mostly does it openly, one might even say, honorably. At least in comparison. Why anyone can take any syllable from either of these two lie-factories after our recent history with them is mysterious.

Nah, it ain't.

[MayBee]

I would have LOVED to have seen Obama ask Petraeus and Crocker about his own plans for withdrawl yesterday. Wouldn't that have been a great opportunity?

Obama wants to be CinC. He shouldn't waste his time asking about George Bush's idea of victory. He'll be the one defining victory.

Someone should also ask Obama if he wins the election,would he keep Petraeus.

[Forbes]

HH: So do you think he’s just saying that to appease the left, that he doesn’t mean it?

JK: I think that both he and Hillary Clinton are both saying that in order to appeal to Democrats.

HH: And do you think they mean it?

JK: I think it’s a big mistake. [...]

I always defer to CT on strategy and operations...but the only silence in that Q & A is the word "yes" in the last response.

In fact, the meaning is so clear, to wit: "big mistake", that to duck the question, Klein would have to change the subject.

[kim]

Victor Davis Hanson has a nice article about the Democrats not acting very liberal; available through RCP.
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[DebinNC]

VDH: Where Have All The Liberbals Gone?

[DebinNC]

..oops, make that "Liberals"...

[kim]

Have I told you lately how much I appreciate you, D?
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