Monday, January 07, 2008

Obama Was Against the Surge Before He Was For the Surge   [Cliff May]

Now that Barack H. Obama is the Democratic front-runner – and according to at least one poll the national front-runner — shouldn’t the media begin to give his remarks a bit more scrutiny?

For example, at the debate in New Hampshire Saturday night he said:

 

Now, I had no doubt — and I said at the time, when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in the violence.

 

But a year ago this month, on ABC’s Nightline, Obama said:

 

The problem we have is Shia and Sunni are unwilling to compromise and arrive at the sort of accommodations that would lead to stability. And in the absence of that, 20,000 troops is not gonna make a difference.

 

He said almost the same thing on Larry King’s show:

But I did not see anything in [President Bush’s] speech or anything in the run-up to the speech that provides evidence that an additional 15,000 to 20,000 more U.S. troops is going to make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that's taking place there.

 

Is it too much to expect some reporter to call Obama on this discrepancy?

01/07 04:15 PMShare