With One Response, McCain Ends White House Bid

Being an Arizona native, I grew up knowing about John McCain, his war record, his love for Arizona, and his political aspirations.

I knew John McCain when he was a fierce Republican maverick.  He was, in many ways, a Barry Goldwater for the next generation.  As a Republican, he was conservative, but would often spare with party regulars when he felt the GOP was tackling issues that were unfair to the American people.

In 2000, he was willing to challenge George W. Bush in a primary and had some decent points about how the GOP was going to far to the right.

But that was then and this is now.

More on the flip.

Today, while on Meet the Press, McCain all but ended his bid to become a resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.  He achieved this lofty goal with one response:

Question:  But to do that, do you need more U.S. soldiers on the ground now (in Iraq)?

John McCain: I think so. I think so. We took troops from places like Ramadi, which are still not under control and put them into Baghdad. We've had to send in additional troops as they are. All along, we have not had enough troops on the ground to control the situation. Many, many people knew that, and it's -- we're paying a very heavy price for it.

Despite the polls, the mood of Americans regarding the war, the nearly 3000 dead soldiers, the thousands of dead civilians, civil war in Iraq, and a loose cannon administration that thinks things are just peachy in Iraq, McCain has the unmitigated gall to suggest that the thing to do is to put more troop on the ground in Iraq?

God help us.

Everyone should be flabberghasted.  McCain is a veteran from the Vietnam war.  He knows better.  The escalation of troops by the U.S. in Vietnam did nothing but get a lot of soldiers killed.  But McCain wants to duplicate that failed and miserable strategy in some vain attempt to turn the tables of the entrenched and growing insurgency and let the U.S. declare victory over said insurgency.

So, with that one response, McCain has told the American public that more troops are all that is needed to bring the Iraq war to an end with victory parades in major cities not far behind.  

Poor John McCain.  He was always so close to being the President but has now decided to play to the ultra right wing base of the GOP thinking it would secure his place as leader of the U.S.

I miss the old John McCain.