Honoring John McCain, War Hero

I've noticed, as I'm sure most people have, that whenever Barack Obama criticizes John McCain, he starts out by saying he respects him and that he's a war hero. Typically something like: "I respect Senator McCain and his heroic service to our country, but we can't afford 4 more years of failed Bush economic policies."

Now, initially, I read this as trying to appear as respectful as possibly to McCain, but now I have a different reading. Obama is trying to marginalize McCain as nothing more than a war hero. Let me explain...

The Rovian formula is to attack your opponent where he is the strongest. This strategy turns Rovianism on its head: You build up your opponent where he is the strongest, and thereby marginalize him.

After all, being a war hero is nice, and deserves respect, but does being a war hero make you a good president? Not necessarily.

A war hero clearly deserves our respect, but would you expect him to be good on the economy? Not really.

A war hero is owed a debt of gratitude, but would you expect him to get us out of an unpopular war that needs a political solution, not a military one? Not so much.

Basically, I think the Obama plan may be (or should be) to make John McCain into more of a war hero than he ever dreamed he was. The more people associate their positive feelings about McCain with the fact that they respect his heroism, the less they attach it to the idea that they think he'd make a good president.