Let's talk about "wisdom" then.

McCain's got a new poster up.


So let's talk about wisdom, shall we?

There are a couple of ways to talk about Iraq right now. There are, as Obama has pointed out, tactics, and there is the much broader question of wisdom.

The tactics, pretty much anyone with a brain knows, have been screwed up since the beginning of our Grand Adventure. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their various "intellectual" sycophants did no adequate planning for the occupation of the country. They put the American military in Iraq to prove an acedemic theory, and were sure that once Saddam was down and we were "greeted as liberators", capitalism and Ahmed Chalabi would pretty much take care of everything else.

Not enough ground forces. Not enough civilian assistance. Young, inexperienced cronies given ridiculous amounts of governmental responsibility. And when stuff went wrong? "Democracy is messy."

None of this should have been suprising. Military brass warned early of the need for a greater troop presence. The administration fired them. The army's counterinsurgency manual was tossed. So were the Geneva Conventions. "A few bad apples". Truckloads of US currency quite literally vanishing- billions of dollars. And as for a country that could, Wolfowitz predicted, "finance its own reconstruction"? It wasn't safe to walk out of doors, so you couldn't really blame them for not hopping up and rebuilding their power grid on our timetable, could you?

So yes, it's been pretty obvious that our tactics have been miserably inadequate. John McCain would like you to know that he would have planned things much better. Thanks for the tip, Senator.

Of course, he's been a very reliable supporter of the president while all of this has been going on, so I'm not sure about his track record.

But let's get back to the question of wisdom. The president is, after all, a civilian commander-in-chief. Tactics will, presumably, be influenced by actual military brass in the next administration (unlike this one, where the president just keeps firing generals until he finds one that makes the right noises). The president has to actually set goals, policy, strategy: the military should probably work on tactics without his help. So let us then recall,

John McCain still thinks our Grand Adventure was a Grand Idea.

Deep breath, and then, all together. Ready?

INVADING IRAQ WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA

John McCain supported the idea then, and he supports it now.

Lest we forget, there was not a unanimous vote for force in congress. There were people who held on to their brains and their principles while the rest of DC (and much of the country) was acting like a bunch of angry bed wetters. There was no humanitarian reason for going: our invasion has killed many times more Iraqis than Saddam could've in the same period. There was no threat, and the intelligence agencies knew it, and so should have congress.

"Preemptive" war is bad policy, and it certainly isn't an accurate reflection of American ideals. John McCain bought into the policy then, and he hasn't changed his mind.

Bush has said that 9/11 changed him, and that's why we had to start bombing people. Personally, that speaks to me of great moral weakness. 9/11 scared me, but the fear subsided. 9/11 hurt me, but we all must live on through pain. 9/11 made me want to do something, but it didn't make we want to start wildly bombing people (the "Suck.On.This." school of foreign policy advocated, at the time, by Thomas Friedman).

So when I listen to men and women who supported this war in the beginning, I hear great moral weakness. If they've come to their senses and realized what morons they were, then I'm pretty forgiving. Bush and McCain will never come to their senses. They will always be weak men in this regard, more concerned about their own definitions of "honor" and "strength" than they are about reality.

What I want in our next president? A compass. I don't know that expecting the Wisdom of Solomon is realistic. I'll settle for a track record of decent judgement.

Barack Obama publicly spoke against the policy of preemption and the invasion of Iraq when it was politically very unpopular to do so.

We've got a fairly messed up global situation right now. I'm hoping for a president who won't be tempted by wild, angry, paranoid, oil-filled goose chases.