Sad to say, IMO McCain isn't nugatory at all. That air of monomaniacal martial menace he projects is catnip to a hell of a lot of voters.
Did you catch McCain's mouth-frothing performance at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week? McCain reamed out Carl Levin for making the lily-livered claim that "a significant amount of the troops that are there want us to change the direction in Iraq ... they want to get ... the Iraqis is get on with their own government, get on with their own nation." McCain was bug-eyed with outrage at any suggestion of heading for the exit in Iraq.
Said he: "Mr. Chairman, I think I'm familiar with the sentiment of many of the troops, and the fact is they want to *win.*"
You had to see McCain on video to get the full impact of the line, "they want to *win.*" McCain has been looking increasingly unhinged for a while. Now he seems much an aged version of the poetical mass slaughterer Robert Duvall played in "Apocalypse Now," Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore. Kilgore's famous comment seems pretty consistent with the McCain POV: "You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' chink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory."
I suspect McCain's desired "win" in Iraq would have that same smell.
What may be most disturbing was Sen. Levin's quick concession to McCain's browbeating demand for a "win." Said Levin, "We all want that."
<http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_012607/content/america_s_anchorman.guest.html>
Carl
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