Obama's Surge: Implications for McCain

Michael Medved assesses the implications of Barack Obama's win last night in the Wisconsin primary for the electoral strategy of the Republican nominee-in-waiting, John McCain:

With his unexpectedly decisive landslide victory in Wisconsin, Barack Obama has solidified his status as the Democratic frontrunner. His success owes less to his own political strategy than it does to a fatal mistake by Hillary Clinton. At the beginning of her campaign, Clinton made a decision to avoid an ideological battle with her rival and decided to frame the race as a choice between “experience” and “charisma,” between “work” and “words.” In other words she decided to fight Obama on personality, rather than the issues, and in terms of a compelling, appealing personality, Obama obviously wins. Clinton could have won an issues election – mobilizing the broad middle of the Democratic Party and leaving Obama to run to her left. She could have criticized him for preaching surrender on the war, for minimizing the reality of the terrorist threat, for calling unequivocally for big government and higher taxes, for rejecting the free trade heritage of Clintonism. Instead, she insisted that she and her opponent hardly differed on the issues, and it was only a question of who is better “prepared to take over as commander-in-chief from day one.” By emphasizing my “thirty-five years of work fighting for change” Hillary not only made herself sound older, but high-lighted the meaningless, trivial nature of the change she sought and, allegedly, achieved: most Democrats don’t like the results of the last thirty-five years of government policy....

John McCain needs to learn the lessons of Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign. If he tries to emphasize his obviously superior experience and preparation for the job, he’ll lose in a landslide....

McCain and the GOP can win the election, but only if they draw crisp, unmistakable distinctions on the issues. Voters should face big questions: do you think America will be safer if we surrender to terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere? Do you want to pay more in taxes to pay for a bigger government? Do you want to pay for your neighbor’s health insurance, or is the nation stronger when we emphasize individual responsibility? Do we want more freedom and opportunity or do we need more government supervision and regulation?

On these issues, on these crucial choices, Republicans can win. If McCain explains those choices clearly and persuasive (and I believe he will) then his problems with movement conservatives will take care of themselves.

If, on the other hand, he tries to run a campaign based on biography and personality, he’ll meet the same fate as Hillary Clinton. Unless McCain offers bold, positive, conservative vision for the future, and draws clear distinctions on the issues, then even this admirable war hero and maverick Naval aviator is, alas, likely to go down in flames.

I would only disagree slightly.

Medved might have added that Obama's success currently is found with core Democratic Party constituencies. He's mobilized the youth vote like no candidate has done before, and his message of change is more than that - it contains the elements of a social movement.

But a youth revolution is not inevitable this year, nor is it clear that such voter activism will bridge the generation gap between young and old in the general election (the Social Security cohort remains America's most active voting consituency).

McCain's not Clinton, and the Arizona Senator's appeal will be broader than Clinton's in the wider population. Moreover, much of Clinton's probem is her husband, Bill, and the electorate's pre-buyer's remorse on the possibility of four-more years of hyper-partisan political battle in the classic co-Cintonesque model.

McCain's coming off as a Churchillian figure this year. With American forces deployed around the world - in both current, dangerous hot spots and decades-old alliance committments - qualities such as wise national security leadership offer potentially hard-to-beat political contrasts between the candidates. Add to that the fact that McCain out-campaigns opponents thirty years his junior, and the potential liabilities of the "age factor" are dramatically reduced.

(McCain lives for the hustings and he's not one to back down on issues of character, integrity, or patriotism, a style Obama may have a difficult time counteracting.)

Having said all this, McCain would be wise to follow Medved's issues-based model against Obama, but not to the point of neglecting his "Churchillian enigma," a potentially powerful source of voter appeal this election.

Anatomy of the "McCain's Soft-on-Terror" Talking Point

Joe Klein, for all the abuse he takes for his infidelities to the hard-left antiwar mob, offers up some wildly intemperate Democratic Party talking points.

Here's Klein trumpeting the "McCain's soft-on-terror" talking point:

McCain's loose, inaccurate talk continues a sad pattern he has shown on national security matters, particularly with regard to Iraq, where he is a loose cannon, firing off hot-button words like "victory" and "surrender"--words that his hero General David Petraeus has never and would never use. As it now stands, McCain believes that Iraq, where 150,000 U.S. troops are chasing after 3,500 Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia terrorists, is the "central front" in the war against terrorism--and he is on the record opposed to taking military action against the real Al Qaeda, which is actively working to destabilize Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and may be planning the next 9/11 in the mountains of Waziristan. Indeed, the election results in Pakistan this week may lead to further instability, perhaps a military coup, which could make U.S. action--action, not invasion--to root out Al Qaeda all the more necessary.

A central foreign policy discussion in the general election should be: Are our troops deployed appropriately to meet the threats we are facing? Should we have more in Afghanistan and fewer in Iraq? (McCain, like Bush, has already ceded his authority as Commander-in-Chief on that decision to Petraeus, whom, he says, should have the last word on troop levels in Iraq--an abdication of authority that raises deep questions about McCain's ability to conduct a coherent national security policy.)

In sum, John McCain, who claims to take national security seriously, made a foolish statement to score political points last night. At the very least, I hope he retracts it and joins Obama in the effort to defeat Al Qaeda.

Klein's problem? Oversimplification and ignorance.

It's not just "3,500" al Qaeda terrorists were fighting in Iraq: Throughout the various phases of the war, Americans have battled an ex-Baathist Sunni-led insurgency, a Syrian-enabled foreign-fighter terrorist force (including deadbeat jihadis from across the region, from the Occupied Territories to Pakistan), an Iranian-backed Shiite-majoity campaign of barbarous ethnic cleansing, to today's version of a low-grade, high-variety anti-American campaign of bottom-of-the-barrel nihilist mayhem.

Klein should know better.

As for Afghanistan, it's simply false that the U.S. has neglected the Kabul regime in military/stategic planning:

Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan's Taliban government and its Al Qaeda guests, America is planning for a long stay.

Originally envisioned as a temporary home for invading U.S. forces, the sprawling American base at Bagram, a former Soviet outpost in the shadow of the towering Hindu Kush mountains, continues to expand.

Today the United States has about 25,000 troops in the country, and other NATO nations contribute another 25,000. The total is more than three times the number of international troops in the country four years ago, when the Taliban appeared defeated.

Current planning represents adjustments to missteps in U.S. strategy after initial post-conflict stabilization for Afghanistan proved inadequate to the suppression of renascent insurgent activity.

Of course, McCain's fully aware of our difficulties in Afghanistan. The Arizona Senator laid out his commitment to long-term Afghan security in a Foreign Affairs essay last year:

There has been progress in Afghanistan: over two million refugees have returned, the welfare of Afghan citizens has meaningfully improved, and historic elections took place in 2004. The Taliban's recent resurgence, however, threatens to lead Afghanistan to revert to its pre-9/11 role as a sanctuary for terrorists with global reach. Our recommitment to Afghanistan must include increasing NATO forces, suspending the debilitating restrictions on when and how those forces can fight, expanding the training and equipping of the Afghan National Army through a long-term partnership with NATO to make it more professional and multiethnic, and deploying significantly more foreign police trainers. It must also address the current political deficiencies in judicial reform, reconstruction, governance, and anticorruption efforts.

Klein's particularly off base in his silly criticism of McCain's national security credentials. It's hardly "punting" the war issue to a supreme commander in the field who's the architect of the most important strategic-military comeback since the Vietnam war.

The fact is, it's folly for the Democrats to even consider outflanking McCain on military matters:

If Democrats try to do that, they play into another campaign based on fear and military strength. And they lose, again. John Kerry's military career far out-trumped Bush's, but Republicans Swift-boated Kerry and won on a fear campaign.

The "McCain's Soft-on-Terror" talking point's not going to fly. Klein - and potential Democratic Party hangers-on - should rethink it before it bites him from behind.

Got Pride? Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain, and U.S. Democratization

I noted yesterday, in response to Michelle Obama's renunciation of her country, that her comments aren't unusual for "contemporary radical left opinion on the country, the war, and just about anything else."

Well, here's unscientific confirmation to that effect, straight from the horses mouth:

Either she's a liar or a sociopath:

“I am proud of my country. I don’t know about you? If you heard those words earlier, I am very proud of my country,” Mrs. McCain said while revving up the crowd and introducing her husband.

When asked at a media availability afterward if they were responding to Michelle Obama’s comments that this election was the “first time” she was “really proud” of the U.S., Sen. McCain deferred to his wife–who reiterated her previous words.

“I just wanted to make the statement that I have and always will be proud of my country,” McCain said.

How nice.

Given that she's lived through segregation, My Lai, and Abu Grhaib, though, that's a fairly disturbing thing to say. Always? Really? No matter what it does?

Of course this is about Michelle Obama's comments and the phony outrage machine that they inspired. To wingnuts, patriotism means loving your country like a child loves her mommy -- it can do no wrong. Ever.

(Adding, it's okay to hate the half of the country that votes Democrat, because those people aren't real Americans.)

The title of this post? "Cindy McCain Proud Of Jim Crow."

Of course she's not proud of Jim Crow. Her comments suggested nothing of the sort. No, she's being attacked for simply being patriotic, in contrast to the left's campaign of unreconstructed anti-Americanism.

Cindy McCain accepts something that the America-bashing left never will: No democracy is perfect.

Not only that, of all the great Western democracies, the United States has made the most radical committment toward the guarantees of full equality under the law and the pursuit of the unimpeachable human dignity in the history of Western civilization.

Have we always lived up to our ideals? Of course not. Thomas Jefferson himself embodies the contrast of our nation's lofty ideals and our ignominious crimes of injustice.

But we have overcome.

From Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush, the march of American democratization - while not always swift - has been unrelenting.

As the radical left demonizes our heritage and those would would cherish it, minority voters are weilding more power in the presidential selection process than any time in history.

Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House, represents the triumph of progressive politics in the 21st century, but she herself is demonized by the very left-wing forces who should be her greatest natural allies.

I have repeatedly indicated that the hard-left is devoid of pragmatism and principle. The goal of the country's nihilist detractors is to tear down and obliterate the nation's system of values, a structure repeatedly indicted as irredeemably evil.

Remember the words of Lee Harris on this:

America-bashing is anti-Americanism at its most radical and totalizing. Its goal is not to advise, but to condemn; not to fix, but to destroy. It repudiates every thought of reform in any normal sense; it sees no difference between American liberals and American conservatives; it views every American action, both present and past, as an act of deliberate oppression and systemic exploitation. It is not that America went wrong here or there; it is that it is wrong root and branch. The conviction at the heart of those who engage in it is really quite simple: that America is an unmitigated evil, an irredeemable enormity.

Defenders of Michelle Obama will deny and obstruct the real message of Cindy McCain: There's no shame in celebrating America's democratic achievements and progress.

Much of campaign '08 will be waged on this very axis.

McCain Victory Speech in Wisconsin

During our regular strategy communications, my neoconservative blogging ally Great Satan's Girlfriend pumped up John McCain's speech last night in Wisconsin. Here it is, via YouTube:

The text is here, at the New York Times:

My friends, we have traveled a great distance together already in this campaign, and overcome more than a few obstacles. But as I said last week, now comes the hard part and, for America, the bigger decision. Will we make the right changes to restore the people's trust in their government and meet the great challenges of our time with wisdom, and with faith in the values and ability of Americans for whom no challenge is greater than their resolve, courage and patriotism? Or will we heed appeals for change that ignore the lessons of history, and lack confidence in the intelligence and ideals of free people?

I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change that promises no more than a holiday from history and a return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in government more than people. Our purpose is to keep this blessed country free, safe, prosperous and proud. And the changes we offer to the institutions and policies of government will reflect and rely upon the strength, industry, aspirations and decency of the people we serve.

We live in a world of change, some of which holds great promise for us and all mankind and some of which poses great peril. Today, political change in Pakistan is occurring that might affect our relationship with a nuclear armed nation that is indispensable to our success in combating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere. An old enemy of American interests and ideals is leaving the world stage, and we can glimpse the hope that freedom might someday come to the people of Cuba. A self-important bully in Venezuela threatens to cut off oil shipments to our country at a time of sky-rocketing gas prices. Each event poses a challenge and an opportunity. Will the next President have the experience, the judgment experience informs, and the strength of purpose to respond to each of these developments in ways that strengthen our security and advance the global progress of our ideals? Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan, and sitting down without pre-conditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons?

The most important obligation of the next President is to protect Americans from the threat posed by violent extremists who despise us, our values and modernity itself. They are moral monsters, but they are also a disciplined, dedicated movement driven by an apocalyptic zeal, which celebrates murder, has access to science, technology and mass communications, and is determined to acquire and use against us weapons of mass destruction. The institutions and doctrines we relied on in the Cold War are no longer adequate to protect us in a struggle where suicide bombers might obtain the world's most terrifying weapons.

If we are to succeed, we must rethink and rebuild the structure and mission of our military; the capabilities of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies; the purposes of our alliances; the reach and scope of our diplomacy; the capacity of all branches of government to defend us. We need to marshal all elements of American power: our military, economy, investment, trade and technology and our moral credibility to win the war against Islamic extremists and help the majority of Muslims, who believe in progress and peace, win the struggle for the soul of Islam.

The challenges and opportunities of the global economy require us to change some old habits of our government as well. But we will fight for the right changes; changes that understand our strengths and rely on the common sense and values of the American people....

I'm not the youngest candidate. But I am the most experienced. I know what our military can do, what it can do better, and what it should not do. I know how Congress works, and how to make it work for the country and not just the re-election of its members. I know how the world works. I know the good and the evil in it. I know how to work with leaders who share our dreams of a freer, safer and more prosperous world, and how to stand up to those who don't. And I know who I am and what I want to do.

McCain points to the probably fall matchup when he alludes "confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate"

I don't seek the office out of a sense of entitlement. I owe America more than she has ever owed me. I have been an imperfect servant of my country for many years. I have never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I haven't been proud of the privilege. Don't tell me what we can't do. Don't tell me we can't make our country stronger and the world safer. We can. We must. And when I'm President we will.

McCain points to a likely fall matchup against Barack Obama, and warns against "the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate."

Note also McCain's clarity, for example when he says "I know how the world works. I know the good and the evil in it."

Is this "the politics of fear," the buzzphrase of left-wing ostriches who hold the United States as the biggest threat to world peace?

No, McCain speaks the temerity of truth, a Churchillian amalgam of genuine leadership and resolve.

McCain Wins Wisconsin!

Barack Obama and John McCain are tonight's big winners in Wisconsin, the New York Times reports:

Senator Barack Obama won the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday by a comfortable margin, extending his victory streak to nine states and forcing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton into a must-win scenario on March 4 as the nominating fight heads to the crucial states of Ohio and Texas.

The victory reinforces Mr. Obama’s position as the front-runner in the Democratic race, even as the Clinton campaign hopes the New York senator can stage a comeback next month when a large haul of delegates are up for grabs in Ohio and Texas.

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain solidly defeated former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. Mr. McCain, the presumptive nominee, is hoping a commanding victory in Wisconsin will help quash the rebellion within the party.

Freezing conditions did not stop thousands of Wisconsin residents from voting in the presidential primaries, and the votes were just beginning to be counted.

Mr. Obama’s victory was helped in part by support from groups that have traditionally tilted toward Mrs. Clinton, including female and middle-aged voters. Mr. Obama received more than half of the votes cast by white residents and he split the female vote with Mrs. Clinton, according to exit polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool.

“The change we seek is still months and miles away and we need the good people of Texas to help us get there,” Mr. Obama said in a speech in Houston. “We’re here because we believe that change is possible and that we have never needed it more than we do right now!”

In Ohio, Mrs. Clinton appeared to reference Mr. Obama in her remarks. The election, she said, “is about picking a president who relies not just on words, but on work, on hard work to get America back to work.”

“We can’t just have speeches, we’ve got to have solutions, and we need those solutions for America,” she said. “Because while words matter, the best words in the world aren’t enough, unless you match them with action.” Mrs. Clinton added, “I will restore our leadership and moral authority in the world without delays, without on the job training, from day one.”

Mr. McCain, appearing before supporters in Ohio, claimed the Republican nomination and immediately launched into what seemed to be an aggressive broadside against Mr. Obama, dismissing “the peals of change that ignore the lessons of history and lack confidence in the intelligence and ideals of free people.”

“I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change,” Mr. McCain said.

Eloquent and empty?

Not that empty. Obama's been clear in his victory speeches that he'd ratify the antiwar left's surrender agenda. Indeed, Obama's been one of the biggest Democratic retreatists in the Senate majority over the last year, often denouncing the "failed" mission in Iraq.

There's increased attention to a likely McCain-Obama matchup in the fall, which is looking more and more likely given Hillary's complete collapse. Tonight's results clarify matters a bit - and I'm getting a kick out of McCain going after Obama's audacity of retreat!

Michelle Obama's Anti-Americanism

Here's the video of Michelle Obama's recent statement that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country":

Captain Ed's got a good discussion of Mrs. Obama's anti-Americanism, citing John Podhoretz's essay at Commentary, suggesting the "pseudo-messianic nature of the Obama candidacy":

This problem occurs with Michelle Obama much more than with her husband. He has focused on positive themes of hope and change. Mrs. Obama has focused on how great Mr. Obama really is and how fortunate we are to have him. If she left it at that, it would be unremarkable; the job of spouses on the stump are to convince people that they have married the smartest and most reliable husbands or wives possible, and if we knew Hubby/Wife like they knew Hubby/Wife, etc.

Unfortunately, Michelle Obama has a habit of going much too far in promoting what is becoming a personality cult. First she explicitly says that only she and Barack can diagnose the condition of our souls, a highly arrogant claim and one that casts Obama as some sort of secular Messiah. Next, she informs us that we cannot take pride in America unless Obama wins the election. The purpose of the entire country, it seems, is to hoist Obama on our shoulders, and anything else would be what -- shameful?

America has done plenty over the last 26 years to make its citizens proud, as well as much open to criticism. Podhoretz notes some of the accomplishments in which all of us can take pride. Our relentless opposition to the oppression of Communism freed half of Europe from its forty years of darkness. We liberated Kuwait from the depredations of Saddam Hussein's regime. Both as a government and as a people, we responded to the tsunami in 2005 and helped rescue millions of people from disease, famine, and death.

But we've done more than that. We've raised the standard of living so that even the poor in this nation own their own homes and live better than the average person in many European cities. We have freed information so that everyone can access it on the Internet, which has become a means to fight oppression around the world. America has plenty of accomplishments in which our citizens can take pride, if one bothers to look.

Perhaps Michelle Obama might want to take a look at the country she wants to help lead before staking a claim for her husband as President.

Of course, Michelle Obama's sentiments aren't really all that out of line with contemporary radical left opinion on the country, the war, and just about anything else.

See also Cindy McCain's response to Michelle Obama's anti-Americanism (at CNN).

Hat Tip: Memeorandum

Conservatism: Old, Gloomy, and Dead?

Is conservatism out of touch with today's needs to the point of anachronism? Fareed Zakaria thinks so in his piece, "The End of Conservatism":

Conservatism grew powerful in the 1970s and 1980s because it proposed solutions appropriate to the problems of the age—a time when socialism was still a serious economic idea, when marginal tax rates reached 70 percent, and when the government regulated the price of oil and natural gas, interest rates on checking accounts and the number of television channels. The culture seemed under attack by a radical fringe. It was an age of stagflation and crime at home, as well as defeat and retreat abroad. Into this landscape came Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, bearing a set of ideas about how to fix the world. Over the next three decades, most of their policies were tried. Many worked. Others didn't, but in any event, time passed and the world changed profoundly. Today, as [David] Frum writes, "after three decades of tax cutting, most Americans no longer pay very much income tax." Inflation has been tamed, the economy does not seem overregulated to most, and crime is not at the forefront of people's consciousness. The culture has proved robust, and has in fact been enriched and broadened by its diversity. Abroad, the cold war is won and America sits atop an increasingly capitalist world. Whatever our problems, an even bigger military and more unilateralism are not seen as the solution.

Today's world has a different set of problems. A robust economy has not lifted the median wages of Americans by much. Most workers are insecure about health care, and most corporations are unnerved by its rising costs. Globalization is seen as a threat, bringing fierce competition from dozens of countries. The danger of Islamic militancy remains real and lasting, but few Americans believe they understand the phenomenon or know how best to combat it. They see our addiction to oil and the degradation of the environment as real dangers to a stable and successful future. Most crucially, Americans' views of the state are shifting. They don't want bigger government—a poll last year found that a majority (57 percent) still believe that government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life—but they do want a smarter government, one that can help them be safe, secure and well prepared for political and economic challenges. In this context, conservative slogans sound weirdly anachronistic, like watching an old TV show from ... well, from the 1970s.

"The Emerging Democratic Majority," written in 2002, makes the case that perhaps for these broad reasons, the conservative tilt in U.S. politics is fast diminishing. It gained a brief respite after 9/11, when raised fears and heightened nationalism played to Republican advantages. But the trends are clear. Authors John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira note that several large groups have begun to vote Democratic consistently—women, college-educated professionals, youth and minorities. With the recent furor over immigration, the battle for Latinos and Asian-Americans is probably lost for the Republicans. Both groups voted solidly Democratic in 2006.

Political ideologies do not exist in a vacuum. They need to meet the problems of the world as it exists. Ordinary conservatives understand this, which may be why—despite the urgings of their ideological gurus—they have voted for [John] McCain. He seems to understand that a new world requires new thinking.

So McCain's not that conservative after all, eh? He'll be the one to revive a fading, flailing movement, if need be.

But, first, I'm not so pessimistic on conservativism, especially if it means the opposite, the comeback of big-government liberalism. We've tried that approach as well, and the resulting social paternalism and welfare handouts have been expensive and counterproductive.

We do need competent government, but Michael Dukakis can tell you what it's like running on that platform. A little time away from the Bush administration, and we'll hear less attacks on incompetence and more demands for programmatic clarity, especially under a Democratic administration.

In foreign policy, Zakaria's area of expertise? We've never really been "conservative" in the Burkean sense, certainly not in the 20th century. Wilsonianism under both Democratic and Republican administrations has prevailed, and this strain will continue to some degree after Bush.

Hopefully, for American security, we'll have a more muscular national security neoconservative Wilsonianism under a McCain administration. The Democratic version will be truly like Wilson's foreign policy, relying on international institutions, and unable to get support to commit American muscle for the demands of world politics.

Conservatism's not dead, just in need of a half-time.

Large Majority Opposes Immediate Iraq Withdrawal

Americans oppose a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, a new Gallup survey finds.

And while the public continues to back some form of timetable to begin the redeployment of American troops, public opinion is at odds with the war proposals of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination:

Roughly one year after the United States began increasing the number of troops it has in Iraq, Americans give the "surge" their most positive assessment to date.

Nevertheless, basic attitudes about the war are largely unchanged, including views about setting a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal. The majority of Americans continue to favor a timetable for withdrawal, though relatively few favor a rapid withdrawal, similar to what Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is advocating. Six in 10 express opposition to the war effort more generally.

The Feb. 8-10 USA Today/Gallup poll was conducted just before Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced his probable support for a "pause" in U.S. troop withdrawals this summer after several brigades are removed as planned, which would result in the United States at least temporarily maintaining a troop force larger than pre-surge levels. Gates argues that a pause may be needed to evaluate whether the security gains made in Iraq can be maintained with smaller forces.

According to the poll, 43% of Americans say the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq is making the situation there better, a slight increase from 40% in late November, but up more substantially from 34% in early November. This is the most positive review of the surge Gallup has measured since it began. Thirty-five percent now say the surge is not making much difference, and just 21% say it is making things worse.

Republicans, Democrats, and independents have divergent views of the surge. Seventy-five percent of Republicans say it is making things better in Iraq, compared with 40% of independents and 21% of Democrats. Democrats are most likely to believe the surge is "not making much difference"....

The poll finds a large majority favoring gradual withdrawal, rather than an unconditional draw-down:

Those who favor a timetable are more than twice as likely to favor a schedule of gradual troop withdrawal (67%) as they are to prefer a more immediate removal of troops (32%). All told, 18% of Americans favor removing troops from Iraq as rapidly as possible.

Both Democratic presidential candidates, Obama and Hillary Clinton, favor a timetable, while the GOP's likely nominee, John McCain, strongly opposes one. Obama is advocating a fairly rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, which would have all troops out within 16 months of his taking office. Clinton favors a slower withdrawal, which would be complete by 2013. Thus, no candidate's position really represents the views of most Americans, but the poll suggests that currently McCain's and Clinton's positions are closest to the largest number of Americans. This is not to suggest that Americans would necessarily oppose any of the candidates' Iraq policies should they be elected president.

Antiwar activists (often unhinged in their fervor) repeatedly call the war a failure, demanding a complete and immediate surrender of Iraq to the forces of terrorist mayhem. The Democratic candidates are not far behind.

Such views are not supported by current public opinion trends.

Evangelicals in Exile

Remember how I've noted on occasion that base conservatives have become increasingly marginalized this election. Well, here's an early post-mortem on the far-right evangelical movement's failure to elect its nominee of choice this year.

From Dan Gilgoff, over at USA Today:

As co-founder of the blog Evangelicals for Mitt, Nancy French spent the better part of the past two years trying to persuade fellow born-again Christians to back a Mormon for president. A Tennessee-based author whose main job is raising two kids while her Army reservist husband serves in Iraq, French knew she had her work cut out when she launched the blog in 2006. After all, it wasn't so long ago that French herself considered the idea of voting for a Mormon more or less sacrilegious.

But after learning of what she calls Mitt Romney's "heroic effort" to combat gay marriage as the governor of Massachusetts, where the state supreme court had legalized it in 2003, about his opposition to abortion rights and federally funded embryonic stem cell research — the product of an admittedly recent ideological conversion — and his stances on issues such as terrorism, French was won over.

"My heart changed," she says....

Romney's withdrawal from the presidential race this month testified to French's failure to persuade enough evangelicals to see things her way. In the Super Tuesday primaries, a handful of evangelical-rich Southern states that Romney was banking on went instead to Mike Huckabee, an ordained evangelical preacher, while John McCain's victories elsewhere established him as the national front-runner.

But as Huck's not looking to be the nominee, French is dejected:

"We got used to having one of our own in the White House for eight years" — George W. Bush — "when in reality, that's not the way the Christian right usually operates," says French. "That's why we haven't had Alan Keyes in the White House."

Or Pat Robertson. Or Gary Bauer. As presidential candidates, evangelical religious leaders have always found it difficult to break out of their born-again base. So French and millions of other evangelicals are now forced to decide whether they'll hold their noses and vote for McCain in November. If Romney runs again in four years, French says, she might resurrect Evangelicals for Mitt. Until then, she's thinking about changing its name to Evangelicals in Exile.

Captain Ed put some of this in perspective:

The problem the Religious Right had in this primary was the hang-up over religion, which their movement had avoided for most of its period of influence. In the end, their leaders couldn't see past religion to policy, and that left Romney twisting in the wind....

They got used to having an evangelical in the White House and didn't want to consider supporting any other kind of candidate. Dobson and Tony Perkins announced last year that they might form a third party for evangelicals because of their dissatisfaction with the slate of Republican candidates -- even though the first primaries were months out and they could have found Republicans to support around the country.

When they finally engaged with Romney, they liked his agenda and his ability to organize. Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani, but most evangelical leaders lined up behind Romney, but refused to support Romney rather than just attack everyone else. They could not bring themselves to explain why Romney's Mormonism shouldn't matter, and indeed emphasized their analysis of it as a non-Christian religion, something Mormons hotly dispute. They lost sight of the political agenda and instead got tripped by their doctrinal agenda.

Their constituents simply didn't follow them at the polls. Instead, they voted for Mike Huckabee in Iowa and in the South. The voters followed the leadership's obvious desire to see an evangelical in the White House rather than the focus on policy -- and then discovered that evangelicals still represent only a portion of the Republican vote. Huckabee couldn't convince non-evangelicals to turn out in large numbers, and that left the field to John McCain.

Now Dobson wants to compound his error and that of his movement by petulantly sitting out the 2008 election. He's free to do so, of course, but he's losing credibility by the day. We're not electing a Pope or a Minister-in-Chief. James Dobson and the evangelical movement used to understand that, and their failure to remember it makes them an unreliable coalition partner for Republicans.

Unreliable coalition partners?

Evangelicals aren't the only ones. The conservative talk radio constituency - whose members are fired up about McCain's alleged apostasies on global warming, immigration and coercive interrogations - are also becoming increasingly marginalized.

You can still see some kicking and screaming, but at some point most on the right - who aren't afficted by MDS - will be hopping on the Straight Talk Express to high-tail it out of the political wilderness.

Left-Wing McCain Phobia: Early Indications

John McCain's the left's deepest general election nightmare.

Kos' earlier call to vote Romney in Michigan -"Democrats for Mitt" - was more than a round of crossover shenanigans, but a not-so-subliminal indication of the hard-left's quaking at a McCain Straight Talk steamroller.

Many hard-lefties resort to comic relief, lamely attacking the Arizona Senator as "old man" McCain, or he's ridiculed as hoplessly out of touch with antiwar public opinion.

But Arianna Huffington's put out the call to lift the blinders on McCain, alleging softball treatment of "The Maverick" by a spineless media corps:

What is it going to take for the media to snap out of its starry-eyed -- stuck in 2000 -- view of John McCain?

Despite an avalanche of evidence showing that McCain the Maverick has long ago been replaced by McCain the Pandering Pawn of the Party's Right Wing, the press refuses to believe its own eyes.

The latest demonstration of the enormous lag time between the presentation of a new reality and the media's willingness to update the conventional wisdom comes via those bastions of the traditional media, The New Yorker and the New York Times.

The latest New Yorker features a loving 7,000+ word profile of McCain by Ryan Lizza that portrays him as a moderate who has "the rare opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a Republican."

Let's see, McCain has bowed to the party's lunatic fringe on tax cuts, immigration, the intolerance of religious bigots, and torture... so exactly how is he reinventing what it means to be a Republican? By shortening the amount of time it takes before a candidate is hijacked by the Right, perhaps?

Don't forget, George W. Bush, circa 1999, was presented as something of a maverick -- a Republican who espoused "compassionate conservatism," got along with Democrats in Texas, was going to win over Latinos, end his party's longstanding hostility toward minorities, and govern from the center.

"My friends, this is going to be a different kind of convention for a different kind of Republican," said 2000 RNC chairman Jim Nicholson at that year's convention. "Gov. Bush has shown time and time again that he is a different kind of Republican," echoed Bush spokesman Ray Sullivan on the campaign trail.

That different kind of Republican evaporated the moment W's hand hit the Bible on inauguration day. McCain hasn't waited that long. He's already offered his proof of fidelity to the Right.

But Lizza doesn't want to buy it. Even as he lists all the examples of McCain's "brazen pandering," he insists that McCain is "principled" and "has a record of sticking to a position even when it puts his political future at risk." Other than all the times he's shifted his position in order to advance his political future, I suppose.

The media are so reluctant to give up their entrenched view of McCain that "principled" and "pandering" are no longer seen as mutually exclusive terms. Indeed, that was the animating premise of Nicholas Kristof's head-scratching column in Sunday's New York Times: that McCain has become the world's most principled panderer....

In the New Yorker piece, Newt Gingrich, in full stand up comedy mode, claims that McCain's looming nomination "is the victory of the moderate wing" of the GOP -- of which he now counts himself a member! -- and that with McCain, "for the first time since Eisenhower, you have someone who has clearly not accommodated the conservative wing winning the nomination. That is a remarkable achievement."

It says everything you need to know about how strong the Right's stranglehold on the Republican Party has become that Newt Gingrich, the original barbarian at the GOP gate leading the 1994 right wing revolution, is now considered a voice of moderation. And that capitulating on torture and tax cuts and immigration and intolerance and out-Bushing Bush on Iraq can be seen as "not accommodating" the right. Memo to Newt: making that claim while maintaining a straight face is the true "remarkable achievement."

Despite the disastrous failures of the Right on everything from Iraq to the economy to health care to the environment to global warming to civil liberties to national security, the lunatics running the Republican asylum are stronger than ever.

That's why Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Ann Coulter have felt so comfortable taking on the role of rhetorical dominatrixes, forcing McCain to bow down and lick their boots, and why McCain -- "with distaste," of course -- has so thoroughly obliged. Even after all-but-locking-up the nomination, he still felt compelled to jettison his most deeply held belief and vote against the torture ban.

McCain hasn't even won the nomination yet - nor has he yet "bowed down" sufficiently to the far right - and Huffington's already attacking him as if he's the second coming of Attila the Hun!

Yep, the more vehemently the hard-left attacks McCain, the more obvious McCain's formidable November threat has become.

See more lefty phobia at Memeorandum.

Joseph Lieberman: Neoconservative Apostate

Joseph Lieberman's a real tough guy. His reelection to the Senate in 2006 defeated antiwar netroots-backed insurgent Ned Lamont, discrediting the notion of anti-Bush online revolution in politics that year.

It turns out the experience was liberating for the Connecticut Senator, a big backer of assumed GOP nominee John McCain. The New York Times has the story (via Memeorandum):

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, not so long back the Democratic nominee for vice president, has become chief endorser, campaign companion and all-around champion for his buddy Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential standard-bearer.

So inseparable are these men lately that the question often arises: Would Mr. Lieberman consider another tilt at the vice presidential lists, this time on the Republican ticket?

A smile crossed his face like a cloud, and the white-haired senator began waving his hands.

“Oh, no, no,” Mr. Lieberman insisted in an interview in his Capitol hideaway, a nook that he occupies between votes and that once belonged to none other than Mr. McCain. “Been there, done that”....

For the longest time, Mr. Lieberman was a regular Democratic Joe. He clambered up the party ladder, serving as state attorney general before taking a Senate seat in 1988. Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham volunteered in an early campaign while at Yale Law School.

He flapped like a hawk on foreign politics and sang like a moderate bird on domestic affairs. He annoyed the White House when he denounced Mr. Clinton’s conduct in the Monica Lewinsky affair, but he voted against impeachment.

In 2000, Al Gore tapped him for the No. 2 slot. Mr. Lieberman did not flash the dirk as often as Gore aides preferred, and he went curiously passive in Florida, when the election hung in the balance. But he worked the trail as if plying the tables at Grossingers, the Catskill resort hotel. “Have you heard our campaign slogan?” he would tell the crowds. “Gore-Lieberman: No Bull, No Pork.”

Later he become a mentor to Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, sharing lunches with the freshman. Their offices are 148 feet apart.

In 2004, Mr. Lieberman alighted in New Hampshire as the presidential candidate with the broadest name recognition. But voters criticized his support for the war in Iraq, and he lectured them, and this did not go well. He finished fifth and soon folded his tent.

Mr. Curry had lunch with Mr. Lieberman in December 2005 and warned about the antiwar sentiment sweeping Connecticut. “This is not an argument over the capital gains tax,” Mr. [Clinton advisor Bill] Curry recalled telling him. “This is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the history of the country.”

Mr. Lieberman, who often praised the defense secretary at the time, Donald Rumseld, shrugged off this advice. He saw the war as an epic struggle against Islamic terrorism; bombing Iran might not be a bad idea, either.

This is the latest steeply graded curve in the long, strange trip that is Mr. Lieberman’s career. Eight years ago he exhorted sweaty ironworkers in Boynton Beach, Fla., to join the Democratic cause. Four years ago he told voters in New Hampshire that President Bush was “a divisive leader.”

But four weeks ago, he returned to Boynton Beach to address 250 Republicans at a country club. This time, he deplored the Democrats’ “visceral” anger at Mr. Bush. He is skipping the Democratic National Convention in Denver, but may turn up at the rostrum of the Republicans’ conclave in Minneapolis.

“I suppose if Senator McCain is going to be nominated, and he asks me, I will go,” Mr. Lieberman said.

I can see Lieberman as secretary of defense in a McCain administration, which would help cement the "Maverick's" neoconservative foreign policy direction.

Still, McCain might not want to campaign too much with Lieberman, who's traditionally liberal on many hot-button issues, like global warming; and don't even think about a McCain-Lieberman ticket...

McCain's had enough problems with the GOP base as it is!

McCain in Wisconsin: Will Follow Bin Laden to Gates of Hell

John McCain, campaigning in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, says he'll go to the "Gates of Hell" in tracking down Osama bin Laden (via YouTube):

Frankly, that's an extremely lofty campaign pledge, considering President Bush has repeatedly said he'd track down bin Laden and bring him to justice (with no luck).

McCain's commitment in pursuing bin Laden is admirable, and he's certainly playing to the crowd.

I have no doubt that the Arizona Senator's genuine in his rhetoric, although political science reasearch has demonstrated that capturing bin Laden's hardly the central element in a campaign of victory over the forces of global terrorism (recall that we will never completely defeat the generalized terrorist threat, although al Qaeda itself can be defeated).

Conservatives are divided over McCain's commitment to defeating the jihadis.

While some say McCain strikes fear in the hearts of the world's most implacable state sponsors of terror, McCain's suggestion to close Guantanamo's causing considerable discomfort (if not fits of rage) among some on the right.

Hat Tip: Blogs for McCain

Progress in Iraq: Our Continued Responsibility

It's no surprise that hard left bloggers have yet to hail progress in Iraq. Indeed, many continue to hammer away with all their pre-surge venality on the administration and the military, adamant on calling the war a failure.

One change for the better we are seeing - halting as it may be - is the recognition among major left-wing media outlets that Iraq's political progress is a complete game-changer, to the point where folks now agree on de facto victory in the conflict.

This morning's Los Angeles Times offers a noteworthy lead editorial on victory in Iraq, although the editors see increasing political accomodation as the signal to roll-up the deployment and bring the troops home:

It has taken nine bloody and difficult months, but the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. troops appears at last to have brought not just a lull in the sectarian fighting in Iraq, but the first tangible steps toward genuine political reconciliation.

Last week, the parliament passed a crucial package of legislation that reflects real compromise among the many factions on three of the thorniest issues that have bedeviled Iraq....

Ironically, all this good news might make it harder to get American military personnel out of the country. The better things go in Iraq, the less likely it is that U.S. generals (or politicians) will want to risk jeopardizing their hard-won gains by drawing down. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to a request by Gen. David H. Petraeus to return to the pre-surge level of about 130,000 troops by August, and then allow a "strategic pause" to evaluate whether more can come home.

Battlefield commanders know best how many troops are needed to keep the country stable, but as a political and economic matter, U.S. forces must leave Iraq eventually -- sooner, if voters choose a Democratic president, much later if the president-elect is Republican John McCain. Either way, the United States needs a logical, orderly exit strategy that minimizes the risk that civil war will resume when our troops leave.

If the momentum of Iraq's political surge is sustained, it's conceivable that the United States, having torn the country apart in an ill-conceived invasion and a disastrous occupation, could help glue the biggest pieces together on its way out the door. But building a decent government will probably prove even harder than curbing the violence. And even under the rosiest scenario, it will be our moral duty to provide large-scale political, military and humanitarian aid, including support for the refugees who are beginning to trickle back home, for many years to come.

There should be no irony in Iraq's political progress. It's only ironic to those who see American success as a shortcut to longstanding demands for a precipitous withdrawal.

Recall that the antiwar hordes have seized on McCain's remark that the U.S. will be in Iraq for 100 years.

A long time, sure, but is this so unreasonable? We've been in Germany and Japan for nearly 65 years - and this is after we imposed unconditional surrender on the German and the Japanese people, dropping nuclear weapons on the latter to end a war that some historians say Japan was prepared to wage down to the last man, woman, and child.

As the Times notes, we have a moral responsibility to continue with a program of military, economic, and humanitarian support in Iraq. It's irresponsible to perpetuate unhinged left-wing political demands for an "orderly exit," just at the time when the U.S. and Iraq are moving into the phase of a arger, enduring military-strategic partnership for the Middle East.

See also Memeorandum; and Captain's Quarters.

The Left's Conspiracy of Silence

I noted in an earlier post, "Deafening Left-Wing Silence on Islamist Barbarism," how the radical left routinely launches unhinged attacks on the Bush administration and its "faux-warrior" backers, but we hear nary a word of denuciation against the most depraved inhumanities committed by the warriors of the "religion of peace."

I noted:

In the midst of the widespread distribution of the most barbarian videotape on Islamic depravity yet seen, the hard-left blogosphere's been deafeningly AWOL in joining the online campaign denouncing the violence.Instead, we get top surrender voices like Glenn Greenwald waving his own hare-brained bloody shirt against "the handful of Muslim-obsessed faux-warriors" he imagines are the real threat to civilization.

It turns out Dr. Sanity puts some psychiatric analysis to the problem in her post, "A Conspiracy of Silence":

Most family therapists are familiar with the "conspiracy of silence" that occurs in families desperate to avoid an unpleasant realty or painful truth. For example, it can be seen in the unwillingness to talk about a catastrophe or death; to pretend even, that the traumatic event never occurred. The movie Ordinary People showed the destructive power of this kind of silence on one member of a family, which eventually split apart the entire family. The conspiracy can descend when there is sexual abuse going on within the family and other members look away and act like everything is normal, ignoring even the most blatant warning signs. The phrase has also been used to describe the indifference of onlookers when some terrible event is happening to others (e.g., Darfur) and they lift no finger to help.

Elie Wiesel wrote passionately about this sort of conspiracy during the Holocaust. He said, talking about the victims in the concentration camps, "The worse sort of cruelty would have been incapable of breaking the prisoner; it was the silence of those he believed to be his friends—cruelty more cowardly, more subtle—which broke his heart.There was no longer anyone on whom to count … It … poisoned the desire to live… If this is the human society we come from—and are now abandoned by—why seek to return?"

That is why Wiesel believed, "...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all...". Yet it is an all too human defense brought to bear when the consequences of facing reality would be overwhelming.

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud wrote about an "obtuseness of mind, a gradual stupefying process" that occurs when people desperately try to avoid a reality with which they cannot or do not want to cope. Sometimes it is accompanied by real hysterical blindness; or sometimes just an incredible indifference to truth.

This obtuseness perfectly describes the state of mind of the MSM as they try to come to grips with something that goes counter to their multicultural template; a template where all the left's 'approved' victim groups--such as the poor, oppressed Palestinians and other Islamic terrorist groups--are NEVER the perpetrators of violence, but are always the victims of it.

This also describes the nihilist left in the United States, which cheers the deployment in Iraq of mentally impaired women as human bombs:

I think it's just horrible that whoever was behind this latest disaster used Down's women to perpetrate the bombings but I don't see it as a sign of desperation. I see it as a sign of adaptation and a brilliant one at that.

As Dr. Sanity adds:

There is almost always an identified family 'scapegoat' on whom all the problems of the family can be blamed (and who can be the recipient of all that intense affect and emotion which rightfully should be directed elsewhere were it not for the conspiracy of silence).

In the case of the unspoken conspiracy between the poitical left and those in the media when it come to the issue of terrorism, it has been fairly clear for some time that America and the Bush Administration receive the full force of all the anger, rage, and fear they feel.

Psychologically and personally, the separation of affect and emotion from the real issue and its redirection toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid the real threat and to maintain the cherished multicultural dogma they are so invested in is quite comforting for a while. The family members can pretend that they are 'loyal' and good people; especially when they persecute and torment the scapegoat.

On a larger scale, this is, of course, the same type of psychodynamic that lead to genocide. And it all begins with a conspiracy of silence and the obsessive avoidance of an uncomfortable truth.

Note also, as evidenced by the occasional drive-by commenter here (Sheldon), just to point out these trends, for the left, amounts to "The surest sign there is of superficiality of thought."

Oh sure, it's superficial in note that 12 year-old American boys are not beheading captured enemy combatants here in the U.S., who are affording the most generous due process of law anywhere in the world.

No, the truth hurts, and frankly only psychology can explain the intense hatred of the United States and the embrace of our enemies by our most implacable America-bashers here at home.

Obama Must Denounce Che's Revolutionary Terror

It's been a big day for Barack Obama and the swirling associations of hopelessly shady socialism.

But thanks to Jeff Jacoby, who notes Obama's pathetic attempt this week to distance himself from murderous revolutionary Che Guevara, there's no better time for the Illinios Senator to offer a major address denouncing the "snarling enforcer" of early Cuban totalitarianism:

IN 1963, John F. Kennedy was murdered in Texas by a fervent admirer of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In 2008, a large Cuban flag emblazoned with the image of Che Guevara, Castro's brutal henchman, is prominently displayed in a Barack Obama campaign volunteer office in Houston.

Obama has been widely compared to JFK, most notably by the late president's brother and daughter. President Kennedy, a stalwart anticommunist, despised Castro and his gang of totalitarian thugs. But when word broke last week that Obama's supporters in Houston work under a banner glorifying Che, the campaign's reaction was to brush it off as an issue involving volunteers, not the official campaign. After two days of controversy, the campaign issued a statement calling the flag "inappropriate" and saying its display "does not reflect Senator Obama's views." Would JFK have reacted so mildly?

In December 1962, Kennedy offered a blunt summary of the Castro/Che record. "The Cuban people were promised by the revolution political liberty, social justice, intellectual freedom, land for the campesinos, and an end to economic exploitation," he said. "They have received a police state, the elimination of the dignity of land ownership, the destruction of free speech and a free press, and the complete subjugation of individual human welfare." Eleven months later, in a speech intended for delivery on the day he was assassinated, Kennedy regretted that Castro's "Communist foothold" in Latin America had "not yet been eliminated."

Were he alive today, it's hard to imagine JFK feeling anything but contempt for those who extol a dictatorship that has been crushing freedom and human beings for nearly 50 years. And it would surely pain him that so many of the cheerleaders are members of his own party....

The lionizing of Che, a sociopath who relished killing and acclaimed "the pedagogy of the firing squad," is not just "inappropriate." It is vile. No American in his right mind would be caught dead wearing a David Duke T-shirt or displaying a poster of Pol Pot. A celebrity who was spotted with a swastika-festooned cap or an actress who revealed that she had gotten a tattoo depicting Timothy McVeigh would inspire only repugnance. No presidential campaign would need more than 30 seconds to sever its ties to anyone, paid staffer or volunteer, whose office was adorned with a Ku Klux Klan banner. Yet Che's likeness, which ought to be as loathed as any of those, is instead a trendy bestseller and a cult favorite.

With Che at his side, Castro toppled Fulgencio Batista in January 1959. "As soon as they had seized power...they began to conduct mass executions inside the two main prisons, La Cabana and Santa Clara." As chief prosecutor of the new regime, Che oversaw the bloodbath, ordering hundreds of executions in the first months of 1959....

Like totalitarians of every stripe, Che didn't scruple at the death of innocents. "Quit the dallying!" he ordered Jose Vilasuso, a conscientious government lawyer who was seeking evidence against several prisoners. "Your job is a very simple one. Judicial evidence is an archaic and secondary bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! We execute from revolutionary conviction"....

That this sadistic thug's face also adorns the office of a US presidential candidate's supporters is appalling and disgraceful. That the candidate couldn't bring himself to say so is even worse.

Well said.

See also my post, "Obama's Substance," which contains video footage of Obama's Potomac victory speech; and also, Charles Krauthammer, "Obama Casts His Spell."

Foreign Policy Questions For John McCain

George Will, over at the Washington Post, has a few questions for John McCain:

Foreign policy has slipped to the periphery of presidential politics, displaced by a nonexistent recession as the voters' preoccupation. Come autumn, however, Iraq and Iran may be central subjects, Iraq as a bigger problem for the Democratic nominee than for John McCain and Iran as a problem for McCain. And the presidency may be won by the candidate who embraces a modest conception of that office.

Regarding Iraq, Democrats have won a retrospective argument: Most Americans regret the invasion and execrate the bungled aftermath. But that will not enable the Democratic nominee to argue prospectively that what America's sacrifices have achieved should be put at risk by the essentially unconditional withdrawal of forces that both Democratic candidates promise.

Nancy Pelosi says that the surge has not "produced the desired effect." " The effect"? The surge has produced many desired effects, including a pacification that is a prerequisite for the effect -- political reconciliation -- to which Pelosi refers.

The Democratic nominee will try to make a mountain out of McCain's molehill of an assertion that it would be "fine" with him if some U.S. forces are in Iraq for "maybe 100" years, if Americans are not being harmed. Voters are not seething or even restive because U.S. forces have been in Japan and Germany for 63 years and in South Korea for 58. McCain's real vulnerabilities are related to four questions about Iran and one about Iraq. By answering all five he will reveal what constitutional limits -- if any -- he accepts on the powers of the presidency regarding foreign and military policies.

First, he says war with Iran would be less dreadful than an Iran with nuclear arms. Why does he think, as his statement implies, that a nuclear Iran would be, unlike the Soviet Union, undeterrable and not susceptible to long-term containment unless internal dynamics alter the regime?

Second, many hundreds of bombing sorties -- serious warfare -- would be required to justify confidence that Iran's nuclear program had been incapacitated for the foreseeable future. Does McCain believe that a president is constitutionally empowered to launch such a protracted preventive war without congressional authorization?

Third, why would any president not repelling a sudden attack want to enter the pitch-black forest of war unaccompanied by the other political branch of government?

Fourth, President Bush has spoken of the importance of preventing Iran from having "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." Does McCain think it is feasible and imperative to prevent, or destroy, such "knowledge"?

The fifth question concerns Iraq and Congress's constitutional role in the conduct of foreign policy. On Nov. 26, Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a "Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship." Pursuant to this declaration, a status-of-forces agreement -- or perhaps something substantially more far-reaching than such agreements often are -- is to be completed by July 31. The declaration says that the agreement will include "security assurances and commitments" requiring the United States to defend Iraq "against internal and external threats," and to "support" Iraq's attempts to "defeat and uproot" all "terrorist groups," including "al-Qaeda, Saddamists, and all other outlaw groups," and to "destroy their logistical networks and their sources of finance."

In a Dec. 19 letter to the president, Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said constitutional law and "over 200 years of practice" establish that such an agreement would require congressional authorization in the form of a treaty, statute or concurrent resolution by both houses. Sen. Hillary Clinton has introduced, and Sen. Barack Obama is co-sponsoring, legislation to deny funds to implement any such agreement that is not approved by Congress. Hundreds of such agreements, major (e.g., NATO) and minor (the Reagan administration's security commitment to the Marshall Islands and Micronesia), have been submitted to Congress. Does McCain agree with Clinton and Obama?

Whoa! Those are some big ones!

Well, let's see what McCain ought to do:

1) Containment assumes national leaders who serve as rational actors who act in the name of the state. Some argue that Iran's leadership is essentially conservative, trying to consolidate the distribution of power in the Middle East after Saddam. Other's have argued that Iran's an unsatified revisionist power. However Iran's viewed, the ravings of a state leader like Ahmadinejad don't bode well for the assumptions of deterrence. Who's to say he wouldn't seek to wipe Israel off the map with intermediate range missiles, the same delivery systems that could reach the European heartland? The research is not definitive on this, although there's by no means a consensus the potential to deter an emerging Third World nuclear power. McCain's on solid ground to suggest Iran might not be deterrable.

2) Hundreds of bombing sorties could be launched in the absence of congressional authorization. The War Powers Resolution authorizes the president to deploy military force for 60 days in the absence of a congressional resolution, and Iran could be buried in cataclysmic rain of death from above in a matter of a few days, or weeks if need be. Would McCain do it? Should he? I watched McCain this morning on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulis," and the Arizona Senator stressed his many years in Congress, and how the experience would incline him toward a legislative resolution on the use of force. I have no doubt that's what he'll do as president, but he doesn't have to if immediate threats arise that do not require a prolonged deployment of U.S. force. (Keep in mind, public opinion will likely demand congressional authorization for war, but should the U.S. or its key allies face hostile military power, McCain could act first and get a resolution later.)

3) I doubt any president would want to enter a "pitch-black forest of war unaccompanied by the other political branch of government." To be honest, G.W. Bush is the one to whom Will should be posing this question. The Democrats in 2007 worked endlessly to thwart the administration's revised strategy in Iraq, and they demonized the war effort as a failure. McCain was in the Senate throughout this period, and he's practiced in defending against a congressionally-imposed surrender. As president - more than any candidate currently in the race - McCain would have both the legislative and national security credentials to avoid a potential circumstance Will suggests.

4) Would or should a President McCain work to prevent Iran from obtaining actionable knowledge on nuclear capability? Well, that's what happening right now, according to the recent NIE. The question's probably moot, the way things are going. Depending on the source, Iran's well along the path to developing nuclear capability, and recent announcements from Ahmadinejad have essentially proclaimed it.

5) Will is right that the "Cooperation and Friendship" agreement with Iraq amounts to a treaty. Indeed, the statement is the basis for a U.S.-Iraq alliance, and a McCain administration would stake its presidency on securing this modus operandi. We are still in Japan and Germany after 60 years. Americans won't expect the U.S. to implement an unconditional withdrawal from Iraq - after years of blood and treasure - without some type of security guarantee in place. The Clinton-Obama pledge to torpedo such an agreement is irresponsible. Will's question here clarifies the differences between the parties on Iraq. McCain's certainly ready to engage these issues.

John McCain may or may not be a "TR" kind of president. The difference? He won't speak softly.

The same can't be said for the Democrats, and the voters have nine months to ponder that.

McCain is Tonic for Post-Bush Republicans

One of my commenters suggested I was falling asleep on the job!

I'm supposed to be pumping John McCain, not wasting my time on some "'third-generation' of Ditto-head denial arguments" against the Arizona Senator.

Okay, okay...we've got a nomination to wrap up, so I'll keep up the pace.

Here's Jonathan Rauch from National Journal, who argues McCain's just the tonic for the Republican Party this year:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., endured boos amid the applause when he spoke at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference. Good for him. And good for the Republicans. Those boos may not have been music to McCain's ears, but they were one indication that he is the healthiest thing to happen to the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan.

This year's primary season has been so full of healthy developments that you could package it with oat bran and hawk it at Whole Foods. The country can thank its lucky stars that the process has pushed forward -- in McCain and in Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama -- the three most formidable figures in American politics. If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, the result will pit the two most widely admired political figures of their generations against each other in a presidential race. The last time the country saw anything remotely like that was when Dwight Eisenhower faced Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956.

Democrats can be grateful they have two tough races on their hands, first for the nomination and then, as now seems virtually certain, against McCain in the general election. Remember LBJ and Jimmy Carter? When Democrats win against weak opponents or crippled parties, they overreach, underperform, and lose touch with the country.

But the healthiest news of all is McCain's emergence as the presumptive Republican nominee. Of all the Republicans in America, McCain is best positioned to undo the errors and correct the excesses of Bush-era Republicanism. If the Bush years were snakebit, think of McCain as an antivenin.

Not all Republicans see it that way, of course. Some would like to see more ruthless partisanship, more fiscal recklessness, more polarization, more presidential monarchism, more erosion of U.S. credibility on human rights, more immigration-bashing. Wiser Republicans, though, know better. They understand that the Big Four of post-Reagan, post-Gingrich Republicanism -- President Bush, Vice President Cheney, former White House strategist Karl Rove, and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- steered the party to a dead end.

Wise Republicans know, to begin with, that the party is lost if it cannot rebuild its own center and appeal to the country's. Bush-era Republicanism was all about suppressing the center and mobilizing the extremes, on the (correct) assumption that conservatives outnumber liberals. It worked, for a while, because of 9/11 and because the Democrats unwittingly cooperated. Forced to choose between the Republican Right and the Democratic Left, independents leaned Republican or just stayed home.

Unfortunately for Republicans, the Democrats wised up and started choosing candidates with centrist appeal. Forced to govern from the center of their party instead of the center of the country, Republicans meanwhile swung too far to the right. Independents cut loose. Blood rushed back into the political center. Republicans found themselves marginalized by their own polarizing strategy. The wiser among them now understand that the only way back is through the middle.

McCain stands unrivaled among Republicans as a proven magnet for moderate and independent votes. He has a long record of working and talking across party lines. He not only understands independents, he needs them, because polarized partisans don't trust him (for good reason). Even if he wanted to, he couldn't run a Bush-style "50 percent plus one" strategy of playing to the base and picking off just enough moderates. "He may be able to bring the party back to the center, and that would be deeply useful," says Steve Bell, who, as a longtime senior aide to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has observed McCain for years. (Domenici has endorsed McCain, despite past encounters with McCain's epithet-laced temper.)

Democrats control both chambers of Congress and are expected to consolidate their majorities this year. In 2009, a Republican president is unlikely to be able to scare Democrats into submission, as Bush did for a while. Instead a GOP president would have to do a delicate job of triangulating between the Democratic majority and a sometimes truculent Republican base.

With his long record of working across party lines -- on campaign finance law and global warming and judicial appointments and much more -- McCain is uniquely equipped to provide Republicans with the last thing they expected to see post-Bush: a productive Republican presidency. "I think we might actually get some stuff done," Bell says.

Most Republicans understand that their loss of credibility on spending restraint and fiscal responsibility has damaged the Republican brand. Wise Republicans understand, further, that supply-side dogmatism has become part of the problem. The supply-side movement made sense when the top tax rate was 70 percent, taxes rose with inflation, and tax cuts were only one part of a program that also included deregulation and lower spending. It stopped making sense when Bush-era Republicanism turned it into an obsession, fixated on the idea that if you just cut taxes and then cut them some more, lower spending, smaller government, and shrinking deficits will follow.

McCain has a long record of vocal opposition to pork-barrel spending and congressional earmarks; he makes a point of calling for entitlement reform; and he is not a supply-sider, having voted against both of Bush's biggest tax cuts. Supply-siders hate that, and it's true that he has now rallied to them with expensive and unpaid-for promises to extend the Bush tax cuts and abolish the alternative minimum tax. Still, McCain's heart belongs not to the supply-side absolutism of the Bush era but to the tightfisted rectitude of the Eisenhower era. If anyone has a shot at restoring Republican fiscal credibility, it is McCain.

Read the rest.

Rauch takes some cheap shots at the administration, but for the most part he makes a good case.