"Nobody Died In Watergate"

Some are bound to say this is needless hyperbole by Sen. McCain for election season.  But let's hear him out...

Sen. John McCain issued one of the harshest critiques of the White House response to the September attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, saying it “exposed the failures” of President Obama’s foreign policy.

...McCain said that the worst part of the response to Libya were the “gross, gross, outrageous statements” made by officials, including the president, after the attack. And he went as far as to compare it to Watergate. “Somebody the other day said to me, ‘this is as bad as Watergate,’” McCain said. “Nobody died in Watergate.”

The Libya issue is officially a mess at this point, with the latest reports effectively leaving the President running away from providing details while the CIA looks like it's going to toss the President under the bus in response to being the potential scapegoat. A few thoughts:

1. Let's not forget that four Americans died here serving their country, and that at least two of them (the Seals, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods) appear to have done so after rushing to help others. Their sacrifice should not be forgotten as people strive to make political points.

2. At the same time, their sacrifice should not be forgotten as people try to avoid culpability for their mistakes. Woods, Doherty, Sean Smith, and Ambassador Chris Stevens presumably did not serve their country because they saw it as a perfect nation; they probably knew that people within their chain of command might make mistakes, and that such errors might even cost them their lives. But it's beyond a disgrace to lie about those errors or cover them up.

3. I'm not sure why you cover this up, or lie about this so blatantly. In Watergate, the coverup involved an actual crime. In this case, the decisions made by people in the command chain may be negligent, and may well have been made for reasons of political expedience. But they're not criminal. And if you can't handle the heat of making such decisions, go find another job.

4. The mainstream media's handling of this story has been disgraceful. But the good news is that they are only accelerating their march to irrelevance.  And before people talk about waiting for all the facts to come in, it's the media's job to ferret out those facts.  Some have done so, with great professional integrity.  It's too bad they share a profession with so many transparently biased hacks.

Just When You Thought Politicians Couldn't Be More Shallow and Self-Serving

Game Change is promising to be the political book of the year. Of course, 60 Minutes focused its segment on Sarah Palin's alleged lack of knowledge regarding anything, as related by McCain campaign chief Steve Schmidt. But what's really hilarious is that Schmidt, after mocking Palin as an idiot, thinks she helped McCain...

And Schmidt says, on balance, Palin helped the ticket.

"I believe, had she not been on the ticket our margin of defeat would’ve been greater than it would’ve been otherwise," he said.

(hat tip: Tom Maguire) This is ridiculous. I don't believe Palin is an idiot, but I also didn't nominate her to Veep. If you did believe her to be one, then putting her in position to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency is a bad idea, even if you learn it after the fact. And before the Democrats get gleeful about that, keep in mind that they wanted to put John friggin' Edwards in the same spot four years earlier. As David Frum notes, the Dems kept their mouth shut about Edwards when he was running for President and under consideration for Veep/AG in 2008.

No wonder politics makes people cynical.