A Plan for Iraq

John McCain continues to whine about Obama's travel plans. He wanted him to go to Iraq so much, but now he's not sure. First he criticized him for not going, now just the opposite. Confused?

His criticism now -- just shallow partisan sniping -- is that Obama already has a general plan for Iraq, which, McCain says, you cannot have until you go there. Since Obama already has been there (2006) McCain says you can't have a general plan for Iraq until you've gone there since the "surge."

"I know that Senator Obama is going to Iraq," McCain said. "I was very interested that he articulated and announced his policies and [approach to] Iraq before he went."

The thing about the Republicans is they never had a plan, a coherent policy, for Iraq, so they obviously aren't used to the idea of someone thinking these things through from the start. They were real good about going in and blowing things up, then they stood back and said, 'Now what should we do?' This led them to spend the next few years with no plan for success. The "surge" idea they finally hit upon -- sending more troops -- a common sense move they take as a genius -- could have been done earlier. (Remember Shinseki?) It wasn't a plan to flounder around for years on end, then finally do what they could've done all along, then claim to be geniuses for it!

"I've been on a lot of trips around the world, usually at your expense," McCain said. "But I usually issue my policy statements when I get back."

That is stupid on so many levels. We don't need a blank slate for president, we've already had one.