Yesterday, Ambers offered John McCain’s closing argument. It’s mostly pablum, but part stuck out at me: The GOP nominee plans to “manage the two wars.” Not, you’ll note, “win” them or “end” them. We’ve lost sight of it amid the financial crisis, but McCain has never had a plan to win either war short of saying, in so many words, “I’m going to let the generals do whatever they want.” Check out his Iraq plan and tell me if you think John McCain will make any changes from the current policy status quo surrounding the war in Iraq. I doubt he will, and that is why he promises to manage the wars, not finish them. It’s a small thing, but a telling one.
Incidentally, I also noticed this: “The Iraqi government can jump-start this process by using a portion of its budget surplus to employ Iraqis in infrastructure projects and in restoring basic services.” But don’t you dare invest in infrastructure in the United States — we have too much freedom for that kind of basic economic policy.
— Tim Fernholz
