Everyone knows that Arizona Senator John McCain wants to have George Bush’s job in the Oval Office but it sounds as if he is also in danger of developing a credibility gap problem of his own, if this New York Times piece is correct:
A day after members of an American Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain pointed to their brief visit to Baghdad’s central market as evidence that the new security plan for the city was working, the merchants there were incredulous about the Americans’ conclusions.
“What are they talking about?� Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market, said Monday. “The security procedures were abnormal!�
This isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. And the Times’ is doing what any journalists and editors would do: if an assertion is made by a politico about a situation, a reporter will then go out and seek confirmation of the assertion. In this case, there does not seem to be a resounding confirmation:
The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.
“They paralyzed the market when they came,� Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. “This was only for the media.�He added, “This will not change anything.�
At a news conference shortly after their outing, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and his three Congressional colleagues described Shorja as a safe, bustling place full of hopeful and warmly welcoming Iraqis — “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,� offered Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who was a member of the delegation.
But the market that the congressmen said they saw is fundamentally different from the market Iraqis know.
And it gets worse:
Merchants and customers say that a campaign by insurgents to attack Baghdad’s markets has put many shop owners out of business and forced radical changes in the way people shop. Shorja, the city’s oldest and largest market, set in a sprawling labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, has been bombed at least a half-dozen times since last summer.
At least 61 people were killed and many more wounded in a three-pronged attack there on Feb. 12 involving two vehicle bombs and a roadside bomb.
American and Iraqi security forces have tried to protect Shorja and other markets against car bombs by restricting vehicular traffic in some shopping areas and erecting blast walls around the markets’ perimeters. But those measures, while making the markets safer, have not made them safe.
McCain’s problem is that assertions that are shown to be at variance with conditions may score him points among the voters who he is wooing for the GOP nomination. But he could face a real problem in a general election, particularly with independent voters, because more and more it seems as if The Straight Talk Express is in danger of becoming The Spin Shuttle.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.