McCain on the Dole, and More on the Surge

It looks like Bush is anointing John McCain. This must be the payback for all the flip-flopping he did for Bush this year, most abjectly on the Detainee Treatment Act, an issue that a man with McCain's experience should have defended to the end.

Sen. John McCain has tapped into President Bush's vast network of campaign contributors in greater numbers and amounts so far than has a leading potential rival for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani.

We all know how much importance is placed on early money, and that the GOP nominates frontrunners (source: George Will on This Week), so this is a significant development. McCain always had the best shot, and now he should be a shoe-in, with Bush's support.

Luckily for us (but bad for America), McCain cannot win the general election now that we have decided on a surge. Unless the Green Lantern theory of Foreign Policy and War is correct - where the wielder's sheer strength of will defines his reality around him - then there is no chance of victory with a surge of 30,000 troops. More violence will ensue, and we'll be in roughly the same place by the end of the primaries. I don't think McCain will be forgiven for that by the general population - some polls have this as a 90-10 issue.

Incidentally, we'll we see just how sovereign the Iraqi Government really is in January, because we'll have to confront the Shia militias with our new forces - an assault the Prime Minister might continue to oppose, since his governing coalition contains the Sadrists. There are so many interesting hurdles to every plan, and yet, so far, they have always seemed to melt away.

Take the Generals revolting again just recently. This time it was about the Surge plan, with many of the "generals on the ground" and Chiefs opposing the double-down. They were dealt with, flipping their positions or retiring behind closed doors, and now the Surge appears to be set in the stone of conventional wisdom. That's the way we want generals to act - register your disagreement and then do what the Commander in Chief tells you. We didn't have to offer them anything.

Or take the example of John McCain opposing the Administration on torture! A few behind-closed-doors meetings with Cheney and they had arrived at a compromise wherein Bush got exactly what he wanted. Imagine that. In exchange for what, I wonder? Anyone think it might have been access to his fundraising network?

Perhaps the hurdles with Iraqi Sovereignty will melt away similarly, but I'm consumed with curiosity about what we would have to offer.