McCain Gets One Right

I am not a fan of McCain, and I suspect that his recent comments are stongly influenced by his bid to receive the Republican nomination, but on the following issue, McCain gets it right.

Today Senator McCain visited Baghdad and said some things I have been saying for several months:

“I believe that we have a new strategy that is making progress and it’s not to say that things are well everywhere in Iraq; far from it,” McCain said. “We have a long way to go.”

“We read everyday about suicide bombings, kidnappings, rocket attacks and other terrible attacks,” McCain said. “What we don’t read about everyday and what is news since the surge began is a lot of the good news.”

The good news the senator spoke of included the drop in murders in Baghdad, the establishment of joint security stations throughout the city, the deal among al-Anbar province sheiks to fight back against al-Qaeda, the deployment of additional Iraqi brigades to Baghdad from across Iraq and the increase in locals providing tips to U.S. and Iraqi forces.

“These and other indicators are reasons for very cautious optimism about the effects of the new strategy,” McCain said. “I believe just as we read about all the negative events in Iraq, the American people must be aware of the positive development under this new plan.”
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McCain is 100% correct on this... and it is kind of hard to not to like the guy when you see that he is capable of telling the truth, if only for political points with the Republican base. If McCain acted like this all of the time, I might even like him.