MCCAIN AND THE SURGE. Markos's analysis seems trenchant here . Bush's adoption of the Surge plan is murder for McCain's presidential prospects. Back when the pundits were talking rapturously of Bush's certain adoption of the Baker-Hamilton plan for withdrawal, McCain could advocate the useless and unpopular surge, secure in the knowledge it would never happen, and so would keep him safely insulated from the war's final, losing chapters. But when Bush decided to embrace the useless and unpopular Surge plan, that complicated McCain's ability to levitate above the muck. And when John Edwards and others began explicitly tying the surge to McCain -- calling it the McCain Doctrine and so forth -- that made matters even worse. Now McCain is trying to separate himself out from Bush's Surge which, as Markos shows, was exactly the strategy McCain has been demanding. Worse, the Surge remains unpopular, and when it fails, McCain will have simply backed a losing and lethal gambit. The question is, will the press let him weasel away from his advocacy role in the strategy? --Ezra Klein
