1) From the Los Angeles Times, “For McCain, the Surge is a Losing Strategy” by Jonah Goldberg A couple of week ago, I mentioned my depression over the way the McCain campaign was functioning. My sad mental state had driven me to beat myself over the head with a baseball bat. After a jot of relatively smooth sailing, the McCain campaign has forced me to turn to my trusty Louisville Slugger once more. The McCain campaign has been caught completely flat-footed by the Maliki pronouncement that he would like to see American troops leave a secure Iraq as rapidly as possible. Of course, the McCain camp and other surge proponents should want the identical thing. Our major beef with the Obama withdrawal plan is that Iraq’s well-being and a consolidation of our victory don’t seem to be any sort of Obama priorities. They never have been in the past. More unforgivably, the McCain campaign also has been caught flat-footed by the ongoing success of the surge. Right now, we have a bizarre dynamic in which John McCain seems to be refusing victory. Instead, as that victory’s primary architect, he should be embracing it. But with the progress of the surge having surpassed the prognostications of even its most optimistic proponents, McCain’s adherence to an endless slog seems oddly ill-fitting with the fresh facts on the ground. Senator McCain and I aren’t exactly email pals, so I’m not quite privy to his innermost thoughts. Still, I think I understand what’s going on in McCain land. McCain was the hero of the surge. Without his efforts in the Senate, it wouldn’t have happened. What’s more, he was an early not to mention lonely Republican critic of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war. McCain can make an honest claim to being the Winston Churchill of the Iraq War. And Winston Churchill lost in 1945 to a historical non-entity named Clement Atlee. For McCain and his minions, it’s probably unnerving to see Iraq fade as an issue. He was right on the surge. Obama was wrong. Yet the public will look forwards, not backwards. Still, all things considered, it’s not so bad. If someone told me six months ago that Iraq as an issue would be a wash come November, I would have taken it. Here’s Jonah Goldberg’s cogent take on things:
If Iraq recedes as an issue and the positions of the two candidates effectively blur, what does McCain do? The temptation will be to run a campaign based on biography, honor and being right about the surge. This is a temptation McCain will have to resist. You don’t get elected president as some kind of lifetime achievement award. The presidency is not a metaphorical gold watch that the electorate bestows upon its most worthy citizen. This is the part of presidential politicking that John Kerry never got. McCain will have to talk about the future. He’ll have to talk about his plans for the economy, his plans for $4 gas, and why the kind of resolve he showed in Iraq will be necessary to deal with the developing messes we have in Iran and perhaps Pakistan. Much of this stuff lies outside McCain’s comfort zone. He was so uneasy with economic matters, he outsourced them to political klutz extraordinaire Phil Gramm. And discussing grand strategy has never been a McCain forte. But as the Goldberg column points out, every election is about the future. This one will be no different. 2) From The Fix, “McCain to Meet With Jindal” by Chris Cillizza I’m glad I didn’t put my Louisville Slugger away – I need it again. Speculation has swept the intertubes that McCain will name his running mate this week, the better to steal some headlines from his globetrotting opponent. I have nothing against the possibility of Bobby Jindal being on the ticket. I am, however, appalled that Team McCain thinks it needs to go to such desperate measures to win a news cycle in July. For better or for worse, this is Obama’s week. But it’s a long way to Election Day. I can’t decide which is a more depressing prospect – whether the McCain camp will really name its running mate this week or whether this is an elaborate head fake to make sure McCain’s name stays in the papers for the next few days. What’s especially baffling is why Team McCain can’t pay attention to its own internal analyses. The McCain campaign is obviously concerned that Iraq and other issues of war and peace are receding/disappearing. If that is indeed the case (which to some extent it almost surely is), why has the McCain campaign convinced itself that an Obama trip abroad in July presents a threat that must be thwarted? The McCain campaign is blustering about making a major strategic move in response to the other guy’s day-to-day tactics. It’s undisciplined campaigning. It fairly reeks of panic. 3) From the Bourbon Room, “Obama, Reed, Hagel Note Iraq Progress, Credit More Than Surge” by Major Garret Remember back in 2004 when the left relentlessly hounded George W. Bush, demanding that he recount a time when he made an error? It looks like we on the right may have similar sport with Barack Obama, who seems congenitally unable to admit occasions when his superhuman judgment failed him. Major Garret calls our attention to this exchange Obama had with Nightline’s Terry Moran:
One thing about Obama – he just hates looking back. Unless you’re talking about looking back to the run up to the Iraq war and his righteous opposition to said war. He loves looking back at that. 4) From the Wall Street Journal, “Afghanistan Doesn’t Need a Surge” by Ann Marlowe What with the presumptive Democratic nominee showing all sorts of manliness regarding Afghanistan, longtime Afghanistan-based war correspondent Marlowe offers some contrarian counsel. And the counsel is contrarian to both nominees:
Regarding Iraq, it’s been gratifying that the Democrats have at last become cognizant of the salubrious effects that more aggressive strategies can have when it comes to warfare. Still, Obama and his surrogates seem relatively unaware of the COIN doctrine that made such a huge difference in Iraq. The extra resources helped dramatically. But the sea-change in tactics, shifting the focus from force protection to battling the enemy and protecting the population, helped even more. It shouldn’t be surprising that Obama now supports mindlessly throwing more resources at Afghanistan. Since time immemorial, that’s been the liberal solution to just about every problem. But Afghanistan gives Obama an ideal chance to use that big brain of his (or what Marc Ambinder today refers to as “a talented, incredible gift of a mind”) – the situation is a lot more nuanced than Team Barry has to date cared to acknowledge. 5) From the Boston Globe, “Is Alcohol Par For the Course?” by Richard Thompson If you want to know what it’s like to live in a state that Michael Dukakis molded in his image, take a look at this article. In Massachusetts, there is actually a law on the books that bans the sale of alcohol on golf courses. Yes, this law applies to private golf courses as well as public ones. And no, this law is not common across the land. The only other state with a similar statute is Alaska. Alaska, as you may have guessed, is not exactly a golf paradise. Mind you, consuming alcohol while on the golf course is unforgivably vulgar. One should focus on one’s game. Besides, golf is hard enough to play when sober. But why would such a matter possibly have been the concern of the Bay State legislators who crafted this idiotic law? If some hacker wants to steel his nerves with a Rum and Coke before playing the challenging 16th hole and his country club allows him to do so, what interest does the state have in preventing him from imbibing? Then again, with Al Gore plotting to take away our fossil fuels, perhaps modern liberals pose still graver threats.
