Eight Trips to Iraq... Posted by Adam Blickstein

...and McCain still has no clue what's actually happening on there. Via Nico at Huffington Post:

Speaking about Iraq at a townhall event on Thursday evening in Greensdale, Wisconsin, Sen. John McCain declared, "I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it's long and it's hard and it's tough and there will be setbacks..."

...Moreover, McCain's claim that Mosul is "quiet" was disproved earlier today in grim fashion. Three suicide bombings -- two in Mosul and another in a surrounding town -- left 30 Iraqis dead and more than two dozen injured, according to press reports.

Now it strikes me odd that if the media is going to echo McCain's challenge to Obama on the disparity in trips they've each taken to Iraq (8-1), that reporters wouldn't also challenge McCain's repeated displays of ignorance as far as what's actually occuring on the ground there.  Repeating the the claim that traveling to Iraq 8 times on sheltered CODELs equals transcendent knowledge of reality in Iraq is like me saying I've traveled to Tokyo because I ate Japanese food during a two layover at the Narita Airport while listening to the Lost in Translation soundtrack.  I agree with CNN's Michael Ware, one of the most in touch reporters in Baghdad, regarding McCain and congressional visits to Iraq (with the exception of Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed):

Well, in many ways, T.J., it's four words -- dog and pony show. I mean, you've got to give anyone credit who comes here at least trying to get the smell, the touch, the feel of this place. But you need to understand, as a visiting U.S. official, or even as a senior U.S. commander or embassy staffer, you are getting a very, very filtered version of the reality. The Green Zone and American bases are far divorced from life on the Iraqi streets.

And as genuine as U.S. commanders like to be with visiting delegations or anyone who is inquiring, they themselves don't always have a handle on what's going on.

Remember, we've had officials in this -- visiting this country before told that the insurgency is in its death throes. The American mission is turning how many corners, that there is no civil war or that you could walk the streets of Baghdad. All of which have since proven to be false.

...Well, it's still going to be, you know, a very sterilized kind of visit. But I mean, let's look at it from a different perspective. As you said yourself, T.J., what, Senator McCain has been here something like eight times. And Senator McCain gets it glaringly wrong quite often as well.

Comments

[GRJ]

NEWS 30MAY08: US TROOP DEATHS IN MAY NEAR LOWEST LEVEL OF WAR

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-05-29-iraq_N.htm

[Soldiernolongeriniraq]

" I agree with CNN's Michael Ware, one of the most in touch reporters in Baghdad"

Ha ha ha ha ha!

I'd give you the McClatchy Bureau, Nir Rosen, any number of Iraqi journos, but Michael Ware?

Oh, man. That felt good. Laughter IS the best medicine!

What made it even more precious was the sneaky feeling that Adam Blickstein has made one fewer trip to OIF than even Obama.

Tell me, what is ACTUALLY happening on the ground in Iraq? Some of us are curious?