This was one of the greatest interviews I've seen Jon do in awhile and it's long, but worth the read. I got most of this from a blog by Lincoln Madison.
Here's the transcript of the interview, originally aired 2007-04-24
Jon Stewart: My guest tonight, he is the senior Republican senator from the great state of Arizona. He's also running for President. Please welcome back to the program Senator John McCain — Senator! You're our most frequent guest, you realize that? (No.) You've been on the program more than anyone else, I think, nine or ten times — you're our most frequent contributor, but tonight, this is me and you tonight.
Senator John McCain: This is the last time.
Stewart: Tonight you and I go mano y somewhat-less-of-a-mano.
McCain: All right, I'm ready.
Stewart: We're gonna learn, now — are you running for President?
McCain: Yes.
Stewart: You are.
McCain: Yes.
Stewart: All right. There we are. Do you know that right now is not the pre-season: these games count.
McCain: These games count.
Stewart: What do you want to start with, the Bomb Iran song or the walk through the market in Baghdad? What do you want to start with?
McCain: Let's see: which one have I seen most on your show? I think maybe shopping in Baghdad. I had something really picked out for you. (Did you really?) Yes, it's a little I.E.D. to put on your desk.
Stewart: That's very lovely of you, thank you. That's why we have the dogs here. Listen —
McCain: By the way, the dog wasn't there, Chloe; I wanted to kick it on my way in.
Stewart: Oh, Chloe, no! Chloe is the sweetest dog in the world! Did you see Parker? Also a beautiful dog. I don't want to give Parker any complex. (Any ideas.) You go to Baghdad, to see if the surge is working, and you're walking through a market.
McCain: First time anybody's been in that market since the explosion that killed a couple hundred [in fact, seventy-one] people.
Stewart: You made some comments about the safety of it. The gentleman you were with, Mike Pence of Indiana, said this is great, it's like a summertime market in Indiana.
McCain: No! What Mike was saying, what the rest of us were saying, they take all plastic, and so that's good — and that things are safer than they were. Now, are they safe? No. Are they safer? Yes. Are they better? Yes. Have we got a long way to go? Yes. Is it long, is it hard and tough? Yes. Am I saying last throes? No. Am I saying mission accomplished? No. Am I saying a few dead-enders? No.
Stewart: These are fine distinctions. Isn't part of the insurgency, and isn't this the difficulty, that we have to win over the Iraqi people, and can we win them over when we seem to almost consistently diminish their suffering? Rumsfeld has said, "When you fly over Baghdad, the whole place isn't on fire." Condi Rice has said, you know, "This is birthing pains." Think of how we're grieving — and rightfully so —
McCain: Jon, nobody complained more than me, over the last several years, about the way the war was mismanaged. It was terribly mismanaged, I was frustrated, and the sacrifice we made was so sad. Now, you showed a thing on the program where the Majority Leader of the Senate said we lost; now, tell me who won. Who won? Al Qaeda? Sunni militia? Shia militia? Who won, if we lost?
Stewart: In fairness to Senator Reid — and god bless me, I don't believe in fairness —he was saying that militarily, even [General David] Petraeus has said you can't win it militarily. I think he said it clumsily, but what he said was, it's a political solution, not a military solution. But I agree with you —
McCain: You know, that's clever, but the fact is, you have to have a military situation where there's security before you have a political and economic solution, the same way it was in Bosnia, the same way it was in Kosovo, other places where we've faced this kind of economic —
Stewart: Can we describe this as won or lost? Even the President has said this isn't the kind of war you win and people surrender on a battleship. Shouldn't we get away from the language of "win or lose" in Iraq and get more to a descriptive kind of success, with metrics — deadlines, if you will, timetables?
McCain: If you'd prefer to set a date certain for surrender, sure. Yeah, absolutely, if that is what you want —
Stewart: That is absolutely the most unfair —
McCain: The fact is, the fact is that the most rudimentary student of warfare will tell you that —
Stewart: Hey — I play Stratego and Battleship like the next guy! You are not sinking my battleship!
McCain: I know exactly what you mean, but the fact is —
Stewart: Didn't [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates say that the idea that we would set deadlines, didn't he even say that has helped them put pressure on Maliki's government?
McCain: No, what he has said is that we need to put pressure on the government, and the government is not functioning as we want it to, and we need it to make the decisions such as oil revenues and others —
Stewart: But now who's being cute? Isn't the President saying, "I don't want to set timetables, but our patience is not unlimited." So, what he's saying is, "We're not going to pull our troops out between now and the end of time." Isn't that, you know — how do you say we have to set a deadline, but I don't want to pin it down, because that's "surrender"?
McCain: What he's saying is — because it is. I mean, you tell any enemy when you're leaving, they'll say, "Why, fine, we'll just wait until you leave, and then we'll take over."
Stewart: But that assumes we're fighting one enemy; they're fighting each other. It's not. We're there keeping them from killing each other. Surrender is not — we're not "surrendering" to an enemy that has "defeated" us, we're saying, "How do you quell a civil war when it's not your country?" [audience cheers]
McCain: We're paying a very heavy price.
Stewart: They come in, and the thing is, the tickets are free. [referring to the audience]
McCain: I think I know whose side they're on.
Stewart: No, they're on America's side, because they're patriots. We'll be right back with more from Senator John McCain… Hey, welcome back. We're here with Senator John McCain. Here's what we're going to do: you and me, mano a mano; I'm just going to walk through the talking points, and you tell me why they're right. "If we don't fight and defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, they will follow us home." Now, my poisition is —
McCain: Why don't you read what Zarqawi says and what Bin Laden says? Go online, go on the Internet — they'll tell you that. I'm not saying it, they say it. Then I can refer you to their statements.
Stewart: They've also said, "Our strategy is to trap America in a war that will bleed them of treasure and lives." That's also their statement, so you can go both ways on that. But my point is, the idea that Al Qaeda —
McCain: I know one way to go, and that is Al Qaeda has declared their dedication to the destruction of everything that we stand for and believe in. I know that for a fact.
Stewart: Whether we're in Iraq or not.
McCain: You know that for a fact?
Stewart: I know it for a fact.
McCain: Good. That's the first time we've agreed on this whole program. [audience applause] Thank you!
Stewart: But here's the thing I'm trying to say: when they attack people who disagree with their policy, they attack them in that "they don't understand there's a real threat out there." I'm saying to you, the American people — or at least the ones I get on the subway with — they know there's a real threat out there; they felt like Iraq lessened our ability to fight that threat, so when they say the talking point of, "They'll follow us home" — they're trying to follow us home anyway, whether we're in Iraq or not.
McCain: I know that, and look, Bill Russell, the famous philosopher of the Boston Celtics, once said, "When things go bad, things go bad." The war was terribly mismanaged. It was terribly mismanaged.
Stewart: But let them be honest with us — why attack people that question that?
McCain: We are where we are now. We are where we are now. And the question is, Can we give this strategy a chance — and I'm emphasizing a chance to succeed with a great general? And I think we —
Stewart: Why should we? Why?
McCain: Because! Because the [inaudible] of failure are enormous.
Stewart: If the architects who built a house without any doors or windows don't admit that that's the house they've built, and continue to say, "No, it's your fault for not being able to see into it!" then I don't understand how we're supposed to move forward.
McCain: I was the most severe critic of that architect for the nearly four years that we employed a failed and flawed strategy that's caused us to sacrifice so much, and so I think now, if we can give this a chance....
Stewart: Here's my next bugaboo: supporting the troops. They say that asking for a timetable or criticizing the President is not supporting the troops. Explain to me why that is supporting the troops less than extending their tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months, putting them in stop loss, and not having Walter Reed be up to snuff. How can the President justify that? How can he have the balls to justify that?
McCain: All I can say is that, if you talk to these young men — and women — who are fighting, they'll tell you they think it's a worthwhile cause, and that they're fighting for freedom and —[audience boos] Well, all I'm saying, the overwhelming majority of them do; I hear from them all the time.
Stewart: The majority of the guys that I talk to say, "The political scene is not my thing; I'm a soldier."
McCain: The ones I talk to, and I talk to them all the time, my friend, and I hear from them all the time — they know, I know what war is like; I know what evil is like. And I'm telling you that they believe they are fighting for somebody else's freedom, and the majority of them believe that. Now, you're entitled to your views, but the view of the majority of them is that they think they are doing the right thing, and their parents, who have also had to sacrifice, generally speaking, are proud of the service of their sons and daughters, as well as their husbands and wives, and I'm proud of them, too, because they're the best.
Stewart: No one's saying that they shouldn't be proud of their service — this is a very unfair way to deal with this issue because — Let me explain it this way: what I'm saying is, it's less supportive of them — Settle down for a second!
McCain: No, you settle down. That they're fighting in a war that they lost. That's not fair to them.
Stewart: What I believe is less supportive to the good people who believe they're fighting a great cause, is to not give them a strategy that makes their success possible, and to not —
McCain: We now have a strategy. Yes, we do.
Stewart: Adding 10,000 people to Baghdad — add 350,000, and you might have a shot.
McCain: I don't know that that strategy will succeed, but we do have a new strategy. It's a fact.
Stewart: All I'm saying is, you cannot look a soldier in the eye and say, "Questioning the President is less supportive to you than extending your tour 3 months, when you should be coming home to your family." And that's not fair to put on people that criticize. (Jon —) And you know I love you, and I respect your service, and would never question any of that, and this is not about questioning the troops and their ability to fight and their ability to be supported, and that is what the administration does, and that is almost criminal.[audience cheers]
McCain: Can I say again, Jon, and I apologize for being repetitious, Americans are saddened and frustrated, and I understand that. The terrible mishandling has been chronicled in books like Fiasco, Cobra II, many others, but again, we are where we are, and I believe these young people have a new strategy and a new general; I hope you have a chance to see 'em. I believe the consequences of failure are catastrophic, and I'm aware of how unpopular this war is —
Stewart: It's not about popularity. It's not about popularity.
McCain: I'm aware of the disapproval of the war, and I understand —
Stewart: — and the way it's been prosecuted. Please also be aware that just about everybody I've ever met understands we have a problem, they just think they took the problem in the wrong direction.
McCain: Well, I understand that point of view, and in many ways there's legitimacy to that point of view, but I want to go back to say, we are where we are.
Stewart: Bless you.
McCain: Bless you. I thank you. I thank you.
Stewart: Will you come on again? Next time you come on, pure shits and giggles. Senator John McCain!