McCain Supports Troops - Obama Does Not

Taking John McCain's advice, Barack Obama spent last week touring Afghanistan and Iraq. The he made a little trip through "old Europe". Seems the "old Europeans" like Barack Obama. McCain has had nothing good to say about the trip he advised Obama to take. He did point out that Obama short-changed injured troops in Germany. Whether Obama had a good reason for canceling his visit with the wounded troops or not might be argued. But let's argue about the times John McCain refused to support the troops.

August 2001: McCain voted against increasing the amount available for medical care for veterans by $650,000,000.

April 2003: McCain urged other Senate members to table a vote (which never passed) to provide more than $1 billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq related to a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests.

October 2003: McCain voted to table an amendment by Senator Dodd that called for an additional $322,000,000 for safety equipment for United States forces in Iraq and to reduce the amount provided for reconstruction in Iraq by $322,000,000.

March 2004: McCain once again voted for abusive tax loopholes over veterans when he voted against creating a reserve fund to allow for an increase in Veterans' medical care by $1.8 billion by eliminating abusive tax loopholes.

March 2006: McCain voted against increasing Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes.

April 2006: McCain was one of only 13 Senators to vote against $430,000,000 for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans.

May 2006: McCain voted against an amendment that would provide $20 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care facilities.

September 2007: McCain voted against the Webb amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments. At the time, nearly 65% of people polled in a CNN poll indicted that "things are going either moderately badly or very badly in Iraq.

John McCain - Supports our troops and Barack Obama does not?

Busy Week

It's been a busy week. Family get togethers have put me way behind in my Anatomy and Physiology lectures. It takes me 6-7 hours to make a 60 slide powerpoint presentation for each lecture. It didn't help that we were doing the nervous system last week which has 5 chapters in the textbook. Students (and me too) are quite sick of the nervous system by now.

Why the picture above? I just found out that my Human Biology class this Fall has 73 students. That should be interesting.

The Iraq-Pakistan Border

Huh? The Iraq-Pakistan border? I don't think so.
The poor old guy sure does "misspeak" alot doesn't he?

Iraqi's Are Simple

Not that you could read it in US newspapers, but Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki said he was in favor of the US pulling troops out of Iraq in the near future.

SPIEGEL: How short-term? Are you hoping for a new agreement before the end of the Bush administration?

Maliki: So far the Americans have had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat. But that isn't the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaida and the militias.

The Bush administration immediately said this was probably a mistranslation. But der Spiegle says no, they stand by their story and, in fact, the interpreter was al Maliki's, not Der Spiegel's.

But then, al Maliki stepped back from his comments about wanting the USA to pull troops out of his country. It seems he got a phone call from the White House explaining that he (Maliki) got his talking points wrong. The White House explained to al Maliki how his comments were being interpreted in the USA. Dumb 'Mericans thought al Maliki actually wanted the US to pull troops out of Iraq.

Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., said that embassy officials explained to the Iraqis how the interview in Der Spiegel was being interpreted, given that it came just a day after the two governments announced an agreement over American troops.

“The Iraqis were not aware and wanted to correct it,” he said.

al Maliki doesn't seem to understand that the Bush administration does not believe in timetables. Rather, GW believes in "time horizons".

The latest is this:

Al-Dabbagh said the government did not endorse a fixed date, but hoped American combat units could be out of Iraq sometime in 2010. That timeframe falls within the 16-month withdrawal plan proposed by Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day as part of a congressional fact-finding team.

OK, so no fixed date, as long as you are out in 16 months or so, like Barack Obama proposes.

I wonder if al Maliki understands what his latest statement means? Will he get another phone call from GW explaining how Maliki's comment is being interpreted?