by Jill Zuckman
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, lands in Iraq today, set to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Gen. David Petraeus and, of course, U.S. troops as part of a fact-finding trip by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Meanwhile, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still battling for the Democratic nomination for president, questioning each other's experience, judgment and ability to lead the nation in increasingly heated tones.
As the Democratic primary season drags on, McCain is seeking to position himself as a world leader, allowing him to show off his knowledge of foreign and military affairs.
"That's what presidents do. That is, by definition, presidential," said Stephen Hess, an expert on presidential politics at the Brookings Institution. "The more he can remind people from whence he comes in terms of his resume, background and credentials, the better off he is."
McCain's travels this week will include Israel, Jordan, England and France for meetings with two prime ministers, a king and a president, in addition to other high-ranking government officials.
Following this weeklong foray into foreign affairs, McCain is set to launch his general election campaign with a major address on foreign policy and national security in Southern California, a biographical tour of places around the country that were important in shaping his worldview, and campaign stops in areas Republican candidates rarely visit.
See the rest of the story in today's Tribune:
"McCain has a fabulous opportunity to reintroduce himself while the Democrats are in this vicious knife fight that is tearing apart the base of their party and the African-American community," said Scott Reed, the campaign manager for Republican nominee Bob Dole in 1996. "He has gotten a gift due to the Democrat process that will be dragged on through August."
Not everyone believes McCain will benefit from clinching the GOP nomination well ahead of the Democrats.
"Sen. McCain's going to have his hands full to bring attention and focus to his campaign," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who is supporting Obama. "You can go to Europe, but you can only go one time."
Still, other Democrats wonder whether the race for their party's nomination has gone on too long.
"I do think, at some point, we are harmed by the fact that we're not organizing and raising money in order to get ready for the general election," said David Wilhelm, campaign manager for Bill Clinton in 1992 who is now supporting Obama. "The question is, have we reached that point yet? You are starting to see Democratic voters in public opinion polls that say we are starting to be hurt."
But there is no end in sight for the Democrats, leaving McCain to define himself for the public.
That will begin with a "Service to America" tour the first week in April, designed to introduce McCain to the public in a highly personal way, advisers said.
McCain will revisit places like McCain Field in Meridian, Miss., a naval facility named for his grandfather, a legendary admiral. He will return to Alexandria Episcopal High School in Virginia and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., as well as Jacksonville, Fla., where he lived after returning from 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
"He will be talking a lot about national service, calling for people to serve a cause greater than their own self-interest, which fits into his own background," said Charles Black, a senior adviser to McCain.
After that, McCain will begin campaigning in places where few Republicans have gone: inner city neighborhoods, Appalachia, Alabama's Black Belt, which includes some of the poorest counties in the country, and states that voted Democratic in the last election.
Despite McCain's ability to set his agenda while the Democrats continue to brawl, his advisers say they don't believe it will necessarily give him an advantage in the fall.
"We're still in a political environment where the Republican brand is damaged and some of the trends appear to favor the Democratic label," said Black. "Even if their nominee emerges wounded, it will still be a very close race and we'll have to fight hard."
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune
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Comments
We can see that we are in for more non-negotiating with our ememies foriegn policy. I'm tired of the photo ops, let's get to the root of the problems. The problems lay with both sides, not just our friends. Do we want 4 more years of this?
Posted by: bill "hussein" r. | March 16, 2008 9:18 AM
Clear the marketplaces! McCain's coming in his flack jacket and rose colored glasses to buy some rugs!!
Posted by: DD | March 16, 2008 11:06 AM
Lefties, bottle up your hate for a moment and read this passage from the story:
"It was unclear who he met with; no media opportunities or news conferences were planned."
This is NOT a photo op. This is about Senator McCain doing the important work of supporting our troops. As he said, he'd rather lose a campaign than a war.
He should be praised for going to Iraq so many times unlike someone like Senator Obama who won't even visit our troops.
Posted by: Jeff | March 16, 2008 11:38 AM
There are some who post here that still deny this event took place.
And then you have John McNut who is advocating another 100 years of this. Strange, very strange.
My Lai marks massacre's 40th anniversary
Former helicopter gunner reunited with the young life he saved
The Associated Press
updated 6:49 a.m. CT, Sun., March. 16, 2008
MY LAI, Vietnam - Lawrence Colburn returned to My Lai on Saturday and found hope at the site of one of the most notorious chapters of the Vietnam War.
On the 40th anniversary of the massacre of up to 500 unarmed Vietnamese villagers, the former helicopter gunner was reunited with a young man he rescued from rampaging U.S. soldiers.
On March 16, 1968, Colburn found 8-year-old Do Ba clinging to his mother's corpse in a ditch full of blood and the bodies of more than 100 people who had been mowed down. Nearly all the victims were unarmed women, children and elderly.
"Today I see Do Ba with a wife and a baby," said Colburn, a member of a three-man Army helicopter crew that landed in the midst of the massacre and intervened to stop the killing. "He's transformed himself from being a broken, lonely man. Now he's complete. He's a perfect example of the human spirit, of the will to survive."
Colburn, 58, now runs a medical supplies business north of Atlanta. He, Ba and hundreds of others are gathering this weekend to remember the My Lai massacre, a grim milestone that shocked Americans and undermined support for the war, which ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon to communist troops.
Buddhist monks in saffron robes led the mourners in prayer Saturday outside a museum that has been erected to remember the dead. An official memorial program will be held on Sunday.
Among those coming to pray was Ha Thi Quy, 83, a My Lai survivor who suffers from anger and depression four decades after the slaughter. Soldiers from the Army's Charlie Company shot her in the leg and killed her mother, her 16-year-old daughter and her 6-year-old son.
Her husband later died of injuries from the massacre and another son had to have an arm and a leg amputated after suffering gunshot wounds that day.
Quy only survived because she was shielded beneath a pile of dead bodies.
"The American government should stop waging wars like they waged in Vietnam," Quy said. "My children were innocent, but those American soldiers killed them."
Outrage over My Lai
Seymour Hersh, the journalist who exposed the massacre, said he sees parallels between My Lai and a more recent story that he has he reported on, the 2005 images of torture from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But he says the public furor unleashed by My Lai was far greater.
"It's stunning how much impact My Lai had and how little impact Abu Ghraib had," Hersh said by telephone from Washington. "We'll have to leave it to historians to figure out why."
On that morning 40 years ago, Colburn flew over My Lai on a reconnaissance mission with pilot Hugh Thompson and crew chief Glenn Andreotta. After several runs over the area, they realized that unarmed civilians were being slaughtered by U.S. troops on the ground.
The members of Charlie Company were a "search and destroy" mission, trying to track down elusive Vietcong guerrillas, whose tactics had depleted the company's ranks.
The company's soldiers began shooting in My Lai that day even though they hadn't come under attack. It quickly escalated into an orgy of killing.
Thompson landed the helicopter between the villagers and the marauding troops. While Colburn and Andreotta covered him, Thompson persuaded the members of Charlie Company to stop shooting.
The angry and frustrated troops had found themselves in a bewildering war where it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe, said Stanley Karnow, an American historian who wrote "Vietnam: A History."
Their actions shocked the American public, who had preferred to think of U.S. troops as heroes making the world safe for democracy, Karnow said.
Do Ba discovered
Colburn and Andreotta, who died later in the war, found Do Ba after the shooting stopped.
"He was still clinging to his mother," Colburn said.
Ba's aunt raised him in My Lai. When he turned 18, he moved to the former Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, where he is married with a 14-month-old daughter and works at an electronics factory.
He and Colburn were first reunited at the 2001 dedication of a new school in the village. At that time, Ba was single, haunted by memories of My Lai and eager to start a family.
So much has changed since the day they first met, Ba said. The United States and Vietnam, former enemies, have become allies and developed a booming trade relationship.
"I'm glad the United States and Vietnam have become friends," Ba said. "But I still feel hatred for the soldiers who killed my mother, my brother and my sister."
C
Posted by: Raving "Hussein" Loon | March 16, 2008 12:37 PM
Sure Jeff...wink wink. Thats our dollar..by the way. Nice use of our money.
Posted by: bill "hussein" r. | March 16, 2008 1:14 PM
Jeff,
I'm glad McCain isn't using the troops for a cheap photo op.
Because, that would have been like what Dubya did when Rove arranged to have an aircraft carrier slowed down returning to its San Diego port so a an-ex AWOL air guard member, drunk driving, coke head, chickenhawk could fly in wearing a flight suit to give a speech under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished."
And we can't have that.
Posted by: Doug "Hussein" Zook | March 16, 2008 1:45 PM
Typical of the left, anything to undermine and attack the troops who are putting their lives on the line for us.
Posted by: Jeff | March 16, 2008 1:49 PM
What a joke!
I'll bet John W McCain doesn't tell the troops about his insane plan to keep them in Iraq for the next 100 years.
Crazy McCain has less support from the military than he likes to think he does, Ron Paul and Barack Obama have received the most money from members of the military and there's a very good reason for that.
The troops are smart enough to know that Iraq was a pre-emptive clusterfreak from the get go and if there really is such a thing as the "war on terror" it's in AFGANISTAN and Pakistan....not Iraq.
Posted by: John E | March 16, 2008 2:19 PM
Yes, getting an actual assessment of the situation on the ground IS a good use of our tax dollars.
Unlike, say, taking a trip to Africa to "find your roots" while continuing snubbing our troops and undermining their mission while refusing to visit Iraq, like Obama.
Posted by: Jeff | March 16, 2008 2:55 PM
Typical of the left, anything to undermine and attack the troops who are putting their lives on the line for us.
Posted by: Jeff | March 16, 2008 1:49 PM
What horse manure. Jeff McCarthy the "great" American. If your against what I think...then you're against the troops. What a child.
Posted by: bill "hussein" r. | March 16, 2008 3:06 PM
More drivel from the sludge that is John E's "brain."
McCain's 100 years comment is more figurative than literal. Also the point is was making is that we are still inGermany 60 years later, Japan 60 years later, Korea 50 years later.
Posted by: John D | March 16, 2008 3:17 PM
McCain = LOSER
Posted by: Billy Bob | March 16, 2008 3:19 PM
More drivel from the sludge that is John E's "brain."
McCain's 100 years comment is more figurative than literal. Also the point is was making is that we are still inGermany 60 years later, Japan 60 years later, Korea 50 years later.
Posted by: John D | March 16, 2008 3:17 PM
Yeah, Iraq is going to turn into Korea or Germany....I mean they've only been fighting each other for over 1300 years, but hey anyday now we can pull out most of our troops and peace will shine through because John W McCain says so.
Thanks for raising your hand and volunteering to be todays brainless Wingnut of the day, Lil Johnny Cakes.
Here's your prize:
http://amishdonkey.com/whatever.php
Posted by: John E | March 16, 2008 3:28 PM
So the economy is getting messed up and the best McCain can do is run away from it and do sightseeing? Is he serious?????
How about you deal with the problems we have at home and hear how people are scared of losing their jobs & homes???
Posted by: Weiss | March 16, 2008 6:05 PM