beibei1

Waving the flag on Iraq -- now in rerun!

Waving the flag on Iraq -- now in rerun! It's hard to predict how Obama's trip will play out with voters inNovember. But McCain has obviously decided that whatever flashystunts Obama pulls off, his own best strategy is to stay on message-- and that means turning the Iraq lemon into lemonade. The war maybe hugely unpopular, warmonger-in-chief Bush's approval rating maybe approaching Vlad the Impaler's -- no matter! Attack! The bestdefense is a good offense! Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

It's an audacious strategy, and it could prove to be disastrous.Pickett's charge did not succeed for the Confederacy at Gettysburg.But it's right out of the Karl Rove playbook -- and if recenthistory has taught us anything, it's never to underestimate KarlRove.

Rove, and his star pupil Bush, perfected a political tacticreminiscent of the old Green Bay Packer power sweep: Everyone knowsit's coming, but they still can't stop it. And McCain is too smartnot to stay with a proven winner -- especially because he doesn'thave any choice.

The Rove play is based on three things: wrapping yourself in theflag, never admitting you're wrong, and impugning your opponent.These three tactics have one thing in common: They are aimed at thelowest common denominator of the American people. Under normalcircumstances, they have only limited effectiveness. But when thenation is at war, they are extremely potent -- as John Kerry andthe Democrats found out in 2004. And McCain is going to use themand use them and use them.

McCain's repeated claims that we are succeeding in Iraq and muststay the course to final "victory," and his attacks on Obama, aretextbook examples of the Rove-Bush-GOP tactic. Take the

recent speech

 in which McCain attacked Obama for not supporting the "surge." "IfSen. Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreatunder fire. The Iraqi army would have collapsed. Civiliancasualties would have increased dramatically," McCain intoned."Al-Qaida would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun tocooperate with us, and the 'Sunni Awakening' would have beenstrangled at birth. Al-Qaida fighters would have safe havens, fromwhere they could train Iraqis and foreigners and turn Iraq into abase for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war,genocide and wider conflict would have been likely."

McCain then went on to sketch an even more apocalyptic vision ofwhat would have happened if America had been led by the weak andtraitorous Obama instead of the brave and resolute Bush: