McCain is a member of the rubberstamp GOP

[noise]

He isn't running as an independent. I don't see how any citizen who bothers to watch No End in Sight can vote for a Republican. I truly don't. Furthermore, the Republicans resorted to the worst sort of grandstanding and fearmongering (to defend Bush's policy) while soldiers were telling them the strategy was screwed up.

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">Link

The GOP has intentionally conflated the corrupt, criminal civilian command with soldiers in Iraq. They did this in order to escape being held accountable for sinister policies implemented at the expense of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

McCain gets elected only if the past doesn't matter.

[bryant69]

1. Juan Cole had an article at Salon today -

"John McCain runs for George Bush's third term" --> http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/03/12/mccain/

I think it's pretty accurate.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[noise]

3. The GOP has pushed the idea

that the Bush administration acted in good faith and unforseen problems prevented a flourishing democracy in Iraq. This is nonsense. Bremer's policies helped create the insurgency.

[Lasher]

2. Hopefully McSame won't get elected because the future matters.

There are people who will vote for him. I'm in the middle of an email battle with a real live neocon right now, I kid you not. I thought most of those guys realized how insane their ideology is.

[zbdent]

4. The U-Turn Express Bush Yes-Man ...

remember, "voting was mostly along party lines" means that the Republicans thought every fart from Bush was perfect ...

[LibDemAlways]

5. The thing that concerns me about McCain is the

GOP flogging his stint as a POW. There is footage of him from those days taken, I believe, by a French tv crew. He's in great pain and lying in traction in a hospital bed. After that he was tortured and put in solitary. MSNBC has been running a profile of McCain with interviews with some of the guys who were POWs with him and they all vouch for his honor and herosim. The repukes are going to exploit that to the max and it's going to be hard for a lot of Americans not to vote for a "war hero," especially one perceived (wrongly) as a political "maverick."

The GOP will make McCain's past matter - a lot.