Is McCain Inventing His Opposition To Beirut Intervention?

[Bluesplayer]

In the first debate, back on 9/26, McCain said of Lebanon:
"Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman, the one -- the person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon.

And I saw that, and I saw the situation, and I stood up, and I voted against that, because I was afraid that they couldn't make peace in a place where 300 or 400 or several hundred Marines would make a difference. Tragically, I was right: Nearly 300 Marines lost their lives in the bombing of the barracks."
http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/816036-p4.html


Last night, McCain said:
"In Lebanon, I stood up to President Reagan, my hero, and said, if we send Marines in there, how can we possibly beneficially affect this situation? And said we shouldn't. Unfortunately, almost 300 brave young Marines were killed."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/presidential.debate.transcript/

McCain seems to offer this story as proof that he's been a maverick from the beginning, but is it even true?

McCain was first elected to Congress in the election of 1982, which means that he was sworn in in January, 1983.

Reagan had already sent the Marines to Beirut on August 25, 1982.
"The French troops landed in Beirut on August 21, <1982> with the U.S. troops arriving four days later on August 25 and the Italians August 26. This initial force consisted of 800 Americans, 400 French, and 800 Italian troops."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanon


How could McCain have voted against sending troops to Lebanon in August of 1982 when he wasn't even elected until November, 1982?
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[ingac70]

1. This needs to get out...

and used against McCain.

[caduceus111]

2. Nice factchecking

Agreed, this needs to get some exposure. Send it to Rachel or Keith!

[karynnj]

3. You are completely, but there was a 1983 vote to extend the mission

that McCain voted against. It was NOT a vote to deploy the troops in the first place - so his statement is wrong.

http://middleeast.about.com/od/usmideastpolicy/a/me080819a.htm

In a way, this is even better, not only was he wrong, but he wanted to really "cut and run" - to use his own phrase. Given how often he has said that of Obama, who was speaking of staying 16 months (or Kerry with a year) and using the date to motivate Iraqis to step up, he wanted them out immediately. (I know part of the difference was the magnitude of committment.)

[Bluesplayer]

4. Also too

The vote was based on the War Powers Act, so in effect, McCain was also voting against the president's right to send troops and for the right of Congress to decide where we should intervene.

[karynnj]

5. Interesting - Isn't that a flip flop?

[Johonny]

6. I doesn't matter

voters have no clue what he's talking about. All they hear from that exchange is McCain disagrees with Reagan. That's a really bad sound bite for a republican to make.