The Fall Of St John

by digby


Kos has posted an interesting item by Bob Novak, which, if true, would be good news:

1. The debate inside the Republican Party is whether the mid-term election defeat was solely the result of unhappiness over Iraq or constituted deeper concern with the drift of the GOP, under both presidential and Congressional leadership. Defeated Republicans who put all of the blame on Iraq are infuriated by White House denials of this argument. In any event, we find widespread agreement among Republicans that U.S. troops must be leaving Iraq at the end of 2007 to avoid catastrophe in 2008.

2. The decline in the polls of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), as measured against Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), reflects more than declining Republican popularity nationally in the weeks after the election. It connotes public disenchantment with McCain's aggressive advocacy of a "surge" of up to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. Unless the additional troops show immediate benefits, President George W. Bush's determination to put more boots on the ground is feared by Republicans as another political burden to bear.


I'm not sure what could stop Bush at this point if he is convinced by his top military advisors (Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich and Laura Ingraham) that an escalation is just what the doctor ordered. But it's good to know that even Republicans are beginning to see that the McCain-Lieberman escalation plan is just the latest tinker-bell tactic.

Putting more troops over there is a ridiculous idea set forth by the same neoconservative fantasists who got us into this in the first place. And whether Bush does it or not, it's an idea that St John McCain owns as his very own --- he's been urging escalation from the beginning and continues to agitate for it even when it's obvious that it won't work. He has stuck his neck way far out on this.

I just don't see how he backs off now. If those Republicans Novak quotes are right and McCain is suffering in the polls because of his escalation plan then great. It just means that we won't actually send in more troops and McCain will continue to be seen as the slightly insane warmongering weirdo he really is.

Win win.


*Also, the item about Republicans being furious with the White House about being told they are to blame for the election loss because they were not conservative enough is a very entertaining sideshow. Karl Rove treated the congress like a bunch of house boys for the last six years and they followed every twisted order with a smile. It's some serious chutzpah for him to be whispering about how they didn't "perform." Haha.



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