Goldfarb: McCain’s Just Discreet

Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush all agree — if we have actionable intelligence against high-level al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and can’t get cooperation from the Pakistani government in going after them, we may need to act unilaterally. John McCain, absurdly, attacked this position as “naive” and has been backpedaling ever since. Most recently, Palin told Charlie Gibson that she thinks we should strike. Michael Goldfarb writes the defense for the McCain campaign:

As this particularly mindless line of attack goes, because Senator McCain (and Senator Clinton) denounced Obama’s reckless threat to strike inside Pakistan with or without the approval of that country’s sovereign government, Governor Palin’s comments would also be at odds with McCain’s repeated insistence that we “must not telegraph our punches.” In fact, Senator McCain has always been clear that he would strike at terrorists wherever they were to be found–even if he would not go around making counterproductive statements, as Senator Obama did, merely to appear tough on the issue. But then no one seriously questions whether John McCain is tough enough to serve as commander in chief.

Ah, John “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran” McCain, opponent of counterproductive rhetoric:

Meanwhile in addition to being hypocritical, this is totally non-responsive. If McCain thinks that Obama’s willingness to talk about this demonstrate that he’s unfit for the White House, then he must think the fact that Palin is also willing to talk about this demonstrates that she’s unfit for the White House. And now he’s got Goldfarb, writing on behalf of his campaign, also talking about striking Pakistan — the very think that allegedly made Obama unfit!