Obama is not a blank slate. 11 years in elected office provides a long track record that everyone chooses to ignore.
Link me three significant pieces of successful legislation that he has passed. Please.
Just because he didn't literally vote against the war doesn't mean it was not an extremely important demonstration of judgment considering he laid out exactly why the war was a bad idea and how it was distracting us from the real threat.
1) The fact that he advocated against the war, thus pandering to his traditionally pacifist base without having to risk actual political status that members of congress would have risked does not make him "right" on the war. It makes him a shameless panderer.
2) The fact that he ignored contemporaneous CIA intelligence (which proved to be wrong, but was actionable enough for even pacifists like Colon Powell to take seriously), and advocated against action tells me that he is irresponsibly pacifistic.
The fact is that if Obama is right on foreign policy every time an issue comes up, it's likely he'll be right when it comes to getting us out of Iraq and preventing a war with Iran.
Pulling out of Iraq with the risk of ethnic cleansing, and the loss of control of the Middle East while China, India, and Russia are clamoring for oil is a disaterously bad idea. Not only is this "policy" wrong, but it is a blatant lie. There will be troops in Iraq long after Obama leaves office.
McCain's record is not stellar, it's just good enough.
You just praised his domestic policy, and said that the only thing he is wrong on is the war. That's pretty stellar.
Despite all of the supposed successes of the surge, Iraq is still a mess.
Indeed. Let's blame the President who lied to Congress about the actionable intelligence about WMD's. Or let's build a time machine. But if we can't, let's vote for the guy who has been advocating a successful strategy all along rather than the guy who is lying to you about pulling out the troops.
How many years are we going to stay there and let Americans die and Americans blow tax money on this war before we withdraw anyway?
How about until our obligations under UN Resolution 1483 are fulfilled? Leaving Iraq in the state it's in would not only be tactically foolhardy (we would lose significant interests in the middle east), immoral (we would be leaving the nation in shambles), but it would also be
illegal under international law.
There is no chance that Al Qaeda is going to take over Iraq.
But there is an excellent chance that Turkey will take over the Kurdish regions. There is an absolute certainty that Iran will take over massive regions. There is a certainty that internecine warfare will end in genocide.
There may be some problems there, but there's no reason to believe that those problems will be any better if we stay for a while and then leave.
Staying a while will do nothing but buy time for the Iraqi government to recruit, train, and arm it's own troops, so that when we do leave, they have a backbone to support themselves. Leaving right now will ensure that this will never happen.
As long as we continue the McCain foreign policy philosophy, terrorists will, to borrow a phrase from lunatic Congressman Steve King, be dancing in the streets because they know what a boon it is for suicide bomber recruiting.
We will continue to remain in Iraq regardless of who is president. The difference between McCain and Obama is that McCain isn't lying to you. Obama is.
We are not leaving Iraq: We cannot leave Iraq for strategic, ethical, and legal reasons - Obama knows this very well, but it sure makes him sound electable if he promises you the world.
McCain is an incremental boost over George W. Bush. The country can't afford any more incrementally better Presidents, there needs to be a fundamental change in the leadership.
Obama is the same as George Bush. A young, charismatic guy who runs on an idealistic ticket of being a "uniter, not a divider", and promising you the world. Starry-eyed idealists on the right ate this up in 2000, and now, starry-eyed idealists on the left are eating it up. The end result will be more charisma-driven cult of personality politics that will dig America into an even greater pit.
One last time - Mark my words: Obama is lying to you about Iraq. We will have at least some level of troops in Iraq in 2012.