http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003611110Sen. McCain Hits 'NYT' Iraq Withdrawal Editorial
By E&P Staff
Published: July 12, 2007 3:20 PM ET
NEW YORK Sen. John McCain, on the floor of the U.S. Senate today, offered a lengthy point-by-point critique of The New York Times' editorial on Sunday that called for the beginning of a U.S. pullout in Iraq.
McCain often took a mocking or exasperated tone, quoting from passages in the editorial.
He said that the soldiers in Iraq he has visited "understand the purpose" of the war. "I wish I could say the same of our journalist friends in New York," he added.
McCain belittled the paper's claims that the U.S. presence was only making matters worse and denounced its call for talking to Iran, which wants to fill any "power vacuum." He said things could get "far, far worse" in Iraq, and pointed to what happened in Cambodia in the 1970s.
He said at one point that "according to the New York Times, it is not worth fighting to present genocide." He quickly corrected that to "to prevent genocide."
McCain after another visit to Iraq several days ago announced that he still backs the "surge" and a continued U.S. presence there, despite calls by growing numbers of those in his party for a change of course.