one year from now the only major effect bush's "new" policy will have is it will get mccain to change what he says a little bit as he runs for president. mccain will either have to say bush did the troop increase all wrong ("he didn't increase them enough!" or "he increased them too much!" or "he sent too many right-handed people!" or something), or he will flip-flop and come up with some completely new position on iraq.it hasn't been a year yet. indeed, it's only 5 days since bush's "new" policy that i was talking about last month was officially unveiled, but already my prediction is paying off:
Incredibly, it appears that John McCain is already laying the groundwork to subtly distance himself from President Bush's escalation plan, should it fail.the only thing i didn't expect is just how early mccain started distancing himself from bush's escalation plan. it hasn't even started yet and already mccain--one of the earliest "surge" proponents--doesn't believe it will work.
Here's how: Though full-throatedly backing Bush's plan, McCain is also starting to put out the word that he'd prefer that Bush were sending more troops to Iraq than the President has announced he'll send. This means, of course, that if escalation fails McCain may be able to dilute its impact on his political fortunes by saying success might have been possible if escalation had been carried out completely to his liking.
(via atrios)
