The Meme We Need to Spread: It's the Bush-McCain Iraq War

I used to respect John McCain deeply. He survived the most harrowing ordeals a human can go through with strength, courage, dignity, and honor. He usually spoke his mind forcefully and directly in the Senate. He was brutally and viciously smeared by George W. Bush's criminal campaign machine in 2000. And then, some strange things began to happen.

He refused to fight back against the lies about his own family.

He endorsed Bush in 2004, even as Bush's campaign was attacking a decorated Vietnam veteran in the campaign. He even physically embraced the Draft Dodger in Chief for emphasis.

He spoke out nobly against the use of torture by Bush--and then cravenly backed down.

He continued to present himself as a moderate, while compiling a hard right wing voting record in Congress, a man on whom Bush and Cheney could count every single time.

He has been the Iraq War's most consistent cheerleader in Congress.

And now he wants to increase the number of troops in Iraq. He doesn't want the 250,000 to 350,000 increase that might conceivably have a chance of restoring order. He advocates the kind of "surge" that Bush is talking about, inserting just enough troops to get a lot of them killed but not enough to do anything effective. He intends to run for president in part on his war hawkishness and his unwavering support for the Iraq adventure.

I say we give him what he wants. I say it's high time to start repeating, mantra-like, the slogan that apparently McCain wants us to embrace. It's not just Bush's war in Iraq.

It's the Bush-McCain War in Iraq.

McCain and W are two peas in the same pod, inextricably tied to the war. We should do everything in our power to associate McCain with the utterly catastrophic Bush Administration and the horrible disaster of the Iraq War. We must burn into the minds of the American people the link between McCain and the worst foreign policy disaster in American history.

After all, McCain has chosen it. I say we bow to his wishes.

Tie old John to the War. Every. Single. Time. We can.