McCain Channels the Rove Within

By Damozel | Here's what McCain said:

This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign..

Elrod at TMV points out the comparison to Rove and discusses the drawbacks of this approach for McCain. 

Even Joe Klein thought this was way over the top of the scurrilousness scale for a presidential contender.  If you want to put something that inflammatory out there, at least get Rove or some surrogate to say it for you.  He found it 'unpresidential.'  I found it all too presidential.  I was kind of hoping we could raise the bar a bit.

Here's the blah dee blah, courtesy of  JK:

The reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Nouri al-Maliki nor most anybody else believes that the Iraq war can be "lost" at this point. The reality is that no matter who is elected President, we are looking at a residual U.S. force of 30-50,000 by 2011 (a year ahead of the previous schedule). The reality is that McCain should be proud that he helped salvage a disastrous situation by pushing the counterinsurgency plan. It's something to run on. But, at this point, McCain must sense that it's not a winning hand. Obama, the poker player, has drawn to an inside straight: the Iraqis favor his plan over McCain's long-term bases. That must be galling. But it's no excuse to pop off the way McCain did. It was, shockingly, unpresidential. (Swampland)

The Anonymous Liberal asks what price John McCain's respectful campaign?

John Cole says, 'John McCain, go Cheney yourself.'

Does anyone still doubt he is any different from the current occupants of the executive branch? This was inevitable when he got folks like Goldfarb and Rove apparatchiks running your campaign.

And Cole has something a little bit special in the way of straight-talk about this.

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