One Utah

Here’s the story:

During a CBS interview on Tuesday, John McCain made a stone cold error on a subject about which he claims expert knowledge: the “surge” strategy in Iraq. In an interview with anchor Katie Couric, the Arizona Republican said, inaccurately, that the surge strategy was responsible for the much-touted “Anbar Awakening,” in which Sunni sheiks turned against Al Qaeda, helping in turn to reduce violence in the country.

As Keith Olbermann showed last night on MSNBC, Senator John McCain’s answer displayed an appalling ignorance of what has happened. It wasn’t just a “senior moment” where he talks about the Iraq-Pakistan border or makes a bogus claim about “surge” troops coming back from Iraq. McCain attributed the Anbar Awakening to the so-called “surge,” either forgetting or not knowing that the Awakening began a year earlier– before President Bush even announced the “surge.”

Yet CBS edited out McCain’s erroneous statement before broadcasting the interview:

“CBS curiously, to say the least, left it on the edit room floor. It aired Katie Couric’s question, but in response, it aired part of McCain’s answer to the other question instead.”

CBS appears to have posted their entire interview with McCain online.

Ilan Goldenberg has more on HuffPo.

This comes in the wake of McCain’s error-filled Iraq op-ed that was rejected by The New York Times. It was published by right-wing media outlets, which tend to be less reality-oriented.

UPDATE: Sam Stein on HuffPo points out that the Sunni sheik McCain cited in the interview was Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, who was assassinated September 13, 2007 during the surge, despite U.S. efforts to protect him.

UPDATE: Compounding the absurdity, Joe Scarborough tries to defend McCain’s fact-free approach to Iraq strategy by blaming the controversy on bloggers eating Cheetos in their underwear.

This entry was posted Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am and is filed under 2008 Election, 4th Estate (Media), Disaster, George W. Bush, Iraq, John McCain, Keith Olbermann, National Politics, This Blog, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.