Reich on McCain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

John McCain supports a troop increase in Iraq.

Robert Reich tries to get inside his head: "I think McCain knows Iraq is out of our hands – it’s disintegrating into civil war, and by 2008 will be a bloodbath. He also knows American troops will be withdrawn. The most important political fact he knows is he has to keep a big distance between himself and Bush in order to avoid being tainted by this horrifying failure. Arguing that we need more troops effectively covers his ass. It will allow him to say, 'if the President did what I urged him to do, none of this would have happened'... In the end, McCain alone will be able to escape blame."

(Slate's John Dickerson makes a similar point in an interesting piece on five key challenges McCain faces as GOP frontrunner for '08. TNR's Isaac Chotiner disagrees with him.)

An interesting analysis. McCain certainly seems to be spending a lot of time covering his ass lately, eh?