A ‘senior moment’?

A few weeks ago in response to a question about the Iraq surge from Katie Couric, John McCain said: “Col. MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.” Except it’s not. The same Col. Sean MacFarland cited by McCain described the Anbar awakening in September 2006, four months before the surge was even announced. McCain’s statement received very little coverage in the media.

Perhaps it was considered just another misstatement, like his reference to the Iraq-Pakistan border, or calling the chancellor of Germany Putin, or repeated references to the now nonexistent country of Czechoslovakia. This was no simple misstatement or senior moment. This was a deliberate rewriting of history concocted to give credence to the claim that the surge was the sole reason for the decrease of violence in Iraq.

Now we have Kathleen Parker in her July 30 column implying the same causal relationship between the Anbar awakening and the surge. Where could she have gotten this idea? It had to come from the McCain campaign. That’s the only place in the universe this alternative history of the surge exists. Eight years of truth trashing by the Bush administration and now more from John McCain.

Norman Mrozicki

Surry