For John McCain, Baghdad Is a Walk in the Park
After John McCain's bizarre idiocy on CNN a few days ago, in which he claimed that Americans can "walk freely" in certain areas of Baghdad, only to be roundly destroyed by Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware moments later, the good senator took a trip to the Iraqi capital. Indeed, he strolled through a Baghdad marketplace ... with 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships. If that's not walking around freely, I don't know what is. Oh, by the way, while McCain strolled through Baghdad, six American soldiers died southwest of the city.
Sen. John McCain, walking freely in Baghdad
Senator, please don't patronize us. How many more American arms and legs have to be scattered over Iraqi streets? The blood is neverending now, like that horrific scene in The Shining. Terrible, terrible ...
No, not that horrific scene...
No, not that one either ... (but, yeah, Christ that's horrific)
Yeah, that's the one.
But McCain's apparent decision to spend the rest of the campaign season in some idyllic Republican Shangri-La where Baghdad is as safe as suburbia isn't the man's biggest problem. No, that would be fundraising. Most of the big GOP and Dem presidential candidates annoucned their first-quarter fundraising today. The results for the Dems were pretty standard, as far as who was in the lead, but the amounts were staggering. Hillary destroyed the previous record for first-quarter fundraising, posting an unbelievable $26 million. Those are some staggering numbers, ace. There's nothing to compare it to, it dwarfs everyththing that has come before, we are through the looking glass, etc. However, if rumor is to be believed, the Obama campaign has almost as much cash. The link at "rumor" doesn't have an exact number, but I've heard it will be somewhere in the $21 million range. That definitely keeps Obama in the swing of things, and with Edwards at $14 million, he can't be discounted.
Meanwhile, things were more shocking on the GOP side. John McCain came in a distant third at $12 million, Giuliani barely got ahead of him with $15 million and Mitt Romney hauled in $23 million. That is truly bizarre. Romney, considered a distant third up to this point, has blown away the competitors. To those who have been watching closely, though, this shouldn't come as any great surprise. I've pointed out recently that most of the big-money GOP people here in Florida have gotten behind Romney, and I can only assume that similar things have happened in a lot of the other states.
Mitt and Hillary, so money
In closing, let me just point out that today is Emmylou Harris' 60th birthday. She's still the prettiest gray-haired lady in the world, and her voice will still steal your soul.
Comments
If it requires 100 soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, and 2 Apaches for one person to walk freely in Iraq, perhaps some back of the envelope arithmetic will help us arrive at a solution for the Iraq mess.
Population Estimate for Iraq: 22,219,289
multiplied by:
100 soldiers
3 UH-60's
2 AH-64's
Equals optimal force level of:
2,221,928,900 soldiers
66,657,867 UH-60's
44,438,578 AH-64's
A small price to pay for a freely walking Iraqi populace, wouldn't you say?
On a more serious note, I find the tasking of troops for the purpose of defending a presidential candidate's photo-op appalling. They're plenty overworked as it is, I'm sure they didn't need this crap detail.
Posted by: NicFitKid | April 3, 2007 12:07 PM