At long last, a call to drill

A thumbs-up, thumbs-down assessment of newsmakers here and beyond:
Here comes John McCain staggering backward (or forward, depending on one’s political tilt) on the subject of drilling for oil in the Gulf. An idea which he had opposed before he was for it rings truer to the ears of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who suddenly must distinguish himself from Democratic opponent Barack Obama. So far, McCain’s differences from the latter have been more detectable on the subject of charisma and persona than on issues. Obama looks and plays the part of political Beatle, replete with swooning women, while McCain has settled into the part of crotchety codger barking at the neighbor kids to get off his lawn. McCain, like Obama, had been opposed to oil exploration, but softened his position this week with regard to the Gulf. McCain continues to resist drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is too bad, at least for those of us who chafe at the idea of the price for a gallon of gas creeping toward $5. Drilling in a tiny section of the refuge need not translate to the extinction of polar bears and muskoxen, which might be more readily persuaded than environmentalists and the politicians who pander to them. Not so everyday Americans. A Rasmussen poll conducted before McCain’s announcement found that two-thirds of voters support offshore drilling. Perhaps continued stirring among the electorate over fuel costs will nudge another flip from McCain. We will celebrate his first while hoping for a second on oil.
Heads thicken with age and turn to granite when the aging process happens inside the Beltway. Take 76-year-old John Murtha away, please. The broken-down Democratic warhorse from Pennsylvania is in a quagmire over Iraq, but not the sort about which he frequently has fretted. Speaking with loafers planted firmly between molars, Murtha leaped into presumption in 2006 over allegations that Marines mercilessly gunned down Iraqi civilians in Haditha. Eight Marines were charged over a Nov. 19, 2005, incident in which 24 Iraqi men, women and children were killed. When reports of a massacre broke, Murtha, a former Marine and Bronze Star winner who appears to have forgotten from whence he came, declared to reporters that he’d learned from high-ranking military officials that Marines had “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” For Thick John, the rub came in due process. Seven of seven Marines tried so far have been exonerated in military courts where guilt, rather than innocence, is presumed. Defendants successfully have argued that insurgents used civilians as shields – imagine! – and that reports of a massacre were the product of enemy propaganda. Now there are rumblings of libel suits against Murtha and Time magazine, which broke the story. We won’t hold our breath awaiting those. Too bad Murtha didn’t hold his before accusing Marines, with whom he now claims fellowship in name only.
The CIA long has been considered an agency whose name contains a misnomer. The concept of government intelligence is the quintessential oxymoron. As if we needed further proof, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee – again with that term – has produced a report sharply critical of the CIA for overstating the threat posed by Iraq in advance of the 2003 invasion. “Before the war, the U.S. intelligence community told the president as well as the Congress and the public that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and if left unchecked would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade,” committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., told reporters earlier this month when the report was released. The Senate report should sound a bell of caution on Iran, another place, where if the Bush administration is to be believed, threats loom. While we hope for victory in Iraq and are encouraged by reports that the tide there has turned in America’s favor, we urge restraint amid neoconservative calls for action on another front. U.S. history before Bush has been mostly marked by prudent use of force. Forays since Vietnam have pulled America from that course to a destination foreign to the principles on which this country was founded.