Kang/Kodos '08

John McCain is not who they say he is. My theory is that he had a stroke a few years ago and it damaged the portion of his brain that I liked.

There is a beautiful myth about the Senator from Arizona, that he is the last honest man in Washington. He had incomparable courage when he was in the Hanoi Hilton. His “straight talk express” was a stroke of genius. He assailed the likes of Jerry Falwell as dangerous lunatics. He stood up to Bush.

However, there seems to be a screw loose these days.

It started with him embracing W in the ’04 campaign, even after Bush and company smeared him in the previous election. He towed the line with the president on all the ridiculous policies he had. He backed down on habeus corpus and torture, and has begun cozying up to the religious right.

Most recently, he has called for a sustained increase in the number of troops in Iraq.

Where are we supposed to get this sustained new number of troops?

It should not come as any surprise to him that our Armed Forces are stretched rather thin these days. Soldiers are being sent on multiple tours of duty in Iraq. The Pentagon is missing recruiting targets and “stop lossing” many soldiers whose time is up. Every military expert quoted in the press has mentioned that we are depleted.

It all feels like a very calculated presidential gambit. First you cozy up to the religious right base that you used to demonize, because you need them. Then you come out with a position on the war that can not possibly be followed, but sounds tougher than anybody else’s plan so you can say “I told you so.”

If this is not calculated, then it sounds just plain crazy. I am not sure which is worse.