McCain's Judgment Continues Downward Spiral

I don't know if John McCain, the maverick we thought we knew, could have made a difference in 2004 if he had simply been willing to recognize that George W. Bush didn't know what he was doing and somebody, perhaps the senator from Arizona, needed to point out the obvious to the American people instead of supporting an incompetent and failing president. Everything we needed to know about President Bush we knew in 2004; but the media, the Republicans and their right wing supporters managed to obscure the need to change presidents. As a consequence, we're stuck for another two years with the biggest two term failure our nation has ever seen. And John McCain wants to give us more of the same in his bid to become the next president. The surge in Iraq is being called the McCain Doctrine and it fits since McCain is grandstanding and has pontificated several times now about sending troops that don't exist.

One of the sad things about today's Republican Party is the failure of the President to recognize his own blunders and do something about them with something Americans used to call common sense. For the sake of public relations, Bush admits to a boner or two but refuses to engage in regional talks. In the meantime, he's doing everything he can to blame others for the fiasco in Iraq. Iraq is Bush's war. He broke it, he owns it. But Bush wants to blame the Iranians now for his incompetence and recklessness.

Because McCain is tied to Bush's wagon, McCain is now playing the game of blaming others, anybody in fact except the president and certainly not the Republicans in Congress who avoided their responsibilies for the last five years. Kristin Roberts of Reuters shows the latest example of 'leadership' from the new John McCain:

Senator John McCain, a Republican contender for the White House in 2008, chastised Europe on Saturday for failing to supply the troops and money to win in Afghanistan and said NATO's future was at stake.

In tough comments that singled out specific countries, McCain told NATO allies to move beyond the "false debate" over security and development priorities in Afghanistan -- a dispute that dominated a defense ministers' meeting earlier this week.

Instead, Europe should follow Washington's lead and put more forces and resources into the war effort.

We don't need more grandstanding from Senator John McCain.

Four years ago, as Bush was preparing for war in Iraq, Rumsfeld and other Republicans were ridiculing our allies in Europe and Colin Powell damaged his reputation telling lies at the UN that Cheney and others had put together. Nations do not lie to their friends. Worse, five years ago, we declared the war in Afghanistan finished and started sending troops to the Persian Gulf before the job was finished; we lost enormous leverage in our foreign affairs. By 2004, we had two unfinished wars on our hands. And John McCain supported an incompetent.

Afghanistan should have been finished three years ago but it continues because Bush put Afghanistan on the back burner and let the war simmer until it burst forth again. But McCain can't put the blame where it squarely belongs: in the White House. We do not need another Republican in the White House who might stumble into another war we don't need and then blame others when his blunders don't lead to the result he promises.