From a Q&A with McCain:
QUESTION: U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, one of the front runners for the Democratic nomination, said that if he’s president, he would send troops into Pakistan to pursue terrorists even if the Pakistani government didn’t approve of the move. What do you make of that?ANSWER: It’s kind of typical of his naivete. If we go in, and maybe we should depending on the assessment, we would want to do it covertly and we would want to do it in coordination with Pakistanis covertly as well.
It wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do to announce to the world we’re attacking another country.
Given McCain's full answer, could someone please explain to me what he means by "naive"? McCain says he would want to go in covertly, but that he would do it in coordination with the Pakistanis. In other words, he would, like Obama, try to secure Pakistani cooperation before acting. So unless McCain is saying that he would give Pakistan a veto over our actions - something I know McCain of all people is most definitely not saying - how is that different from what Obama said he would do?
I've gone back over this thing on multiple occasions, but I'm still at a total loss when trying to explain what everyone is upset about. So far as I can tell, it isn't that anyone actually disagrees with Obama's policy statement. The problem, apparently, is that he stated it in public.
To which I'd ask: When did we decide to make secret our country's desire to capture or kill Osama bin Laden? We invaded Afghanistan to do it, right? Isn't one of the liberal critiques of Bush that he has failed in that task, a task that should have been his primary mission following 9/11?
I don't get it.
UPDATE: Whew. I'm in good company. Really good company.
So my original interpretation of this was correct. The problem isn't Obama's announced policy. The problem is Obama's announced policy.
This is so stupid it makes my head hurt.
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