We can learn two things from John McCain's major foreign policy address. First, John McCain has a good speechwriter. Second, the McCain campaign is very, very concerned about the impact of his call for a 100-year occupation of Iraq. That's what accounts for the first section, which reads like a Santa Cruz flower child's brief on why she, like, hates war, man. "I detest war," intoned McCain. "It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. The lives of a nation's finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die." And, similarly, the speech ends, "I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are." But if the mark against Obama is that he's all words and no record, McCain is a whole lot of record that he's trying to paper over with words. McCain may hate war, but like your buddy who professes to hate his ex-girlfriend, he sure does fall back into its arms a lot. He supported the grievously misguided war in Iraq, continually advocates its escalation, and professes comfort with a literally endless occupation. He wanted ground troops in Kosovo and an attack on North Korea. And however much he proclaims his hatred of war, his dip into song -- "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran..." -- certainly wasn't a somber treatment of life's most detestable outcome. At a moment of high tensions with Iran, asked whether he would support a catastrophic war with a major Middle Eastern nation based on fearmongering about their nuclear ambitions that turned out to be false, McCain not only agreed that he would, but he broke into song over the idea. McCain may say he "hates" war. But that's different than having an aversion, or even a reluctance, to go to war. As it is, what McCain has is a statesman's political persona and crazed hawk's policy positions. And that's, if anything, more dangerous.
