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26 Aug 2008 11:57 am

Petraeus vs McCain

It's the difference between a sober empirical judgment and a hotheaded partisan boast. From Newsweek:

Petraeus is careful not to credit all the progress to the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. The sea change came last year from a series of movements now known as the Awakening. […] So would the Sunni Awakening have succeeded without the surge? Possibly, he concedes.

And McCain:

COURIC: Sen. Obama […] says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCAIN: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened.

Notice the accusation of a lie when Obama is actually telling the nuanced truth, exactly as Petraeus did. Do we really need another commander-in-chief who cannot see complexity in the Middle East? And who turns military facts into partisan propaganda?

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