In the midst of carnage and doubt during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln is believed to have said that "events are in the saddle” to those who wondered about the future of the union. I thought of Lincoln’s stark remark as John McCain has embarked on a seven-day “No Surrender” bus tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina (he will be in Rochester on Thursday).
It’s no coincidence that McCain is piggybacking on the latest affirmation of the status quo in Iraq by General (and Chief Emissary from Delphi) David Petraeus. All year McCain has embraced the surge as a winning strategy. Yesterday, McCain attacked the moveon.org advertisement that questioned Petraeus’ credibility -- by using more than three years of his optimistic pronouncements that proved hallow at best -- as an example of left-wing McCarthyism though I think he’s forcing a fight that he can’t win; after all, McCain of all people should know what happens when military leaders make one optimistic statement after another that prove to have little to do with the reality on the ground (See Vietnam: Westmoreland, William, a general who was the heralded, impressive, and smart David Petraeus of that tragedy.)
But for now, as the Politico's Roger Simon reports today, McCain is rallying his campaign under the "No Surrender" banner in hopes of sparking a major revival. In last week's shameful charade of a debate in Durham, McCain made his stand by taking ownership of the surge as a winner while telling voters he wants to bring the troops home and "I want them home for the right reasons.” But sadly for McCain, he wants a short-term tactic to be a winning strategy when we can't even define what victory is -- except we know it's one that keeps changing, along with reasons for staying there.
While McCain can add definition to a needed debate about the course of this misguided foreign policy disaster, claiming the “No surrender” high ground seems dubious at best. Perhaps we should simply change the definition since we’ve done the same with victory at every sign post over the past five years. A war conceived in hubris, born of lies and raised in incompetence is riding in a saddle of tragedy and no amount of hopeful rhetoric can disguise the deadly quagmire the troops and the country are stuck in.
Having interviewed McCain numerous times about the war, I have no doubt he speaks from the heart of a warrior. But time will tell whether that will even matter in the slightest in the both the short and long run. When events are in the saddle, one never knows when the ride will end -- or even where it’s going.
What is certain is that has it becomes clear little will change regarding the war in Iraq until January 2009 when President Bush rides off into the sunset -- and that the New Hampshire primary will become a serious battleground of Iraq war ideas, proposals and emotions. Not unlike 1968 when the Vietnam tragedy continued to grind on and on.
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