So there you have it.
MR. BROKAW: All right. We--I'm going to end on two notes here if I can, very quickly. We have a crowded agenda this morning. Let's go back to this business about winning in Iraq, if we can. In fact, a number of people on the Republican have--side have said that we're winning. But in an interview with the BBC, General David Petraeus said he did not know that he would ever use the word victory about Iraq. "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant a flag and go home to a victory parade. ... it's not" a "war with a simple slogan." So isn't it misleading in many ways for Senator McCain to say we are winning and we'll come home when we have declared victory?
MR. SCHMIDT: Well, absolutely not. Here is what victory means in Iraq. It means an Iraqi government that is able to protect its borders, and it means an Iraqi government that is able to protect its people, then moves forward on its path to democracy. This country was losing this war. Senator McCain stood up to the Bush administration, called for the firing of Don Rumsfeld, risked his political career to advocate a strategy almost by himself that has led us to the edge of victory there. Senator Obama opposed that strategy. In the debate you heard not one time from Senator Obama the words victory. We must win this war. This country doesn't have a choice. Senator Obama's judgment on issues of security to this country, whether it's on Iraq or calling Iran a tiny threat or saying that...
For the Republicans, this election is a farce. A sham. Because we don't have a choice. Just fight this war forever and keep reaching for 'victory,' whatever the hell that means.
The McCain Camp's comeback for Obama pointing out that he never said 'middle-class' during the whole debate was that Obama never said 'victory' in regards to Iraq.
How about McCain almost never mentioning our 4,000 dead troops? Compared to how much he mentions his traumatic POW experience, how about the thousands of men and women suffering through arguably worse fates than his? I'm not just talking about the amputees, PTSD cases and other terribly-afflicted victims. There are the families of the wounded and killed. Wounded and killed for a war that was, in the words of Barry O: "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong."
Anyway, according to Steve Schmidt, "this country doesn't have a choice." Follow the W/McSame doctrine of war without end. And don't question. What a crock of shit. Please, when are we allowed to send the faux-army hawks back to the barracks and run a civilian-led form of government again?
I'll try to upload the video, unless somebody throws up a link, which I promise to embed.