Posturing Pol

John McCain has been nearly alone in his calls for more troops in Iraq, despite the fact that the Pentagon is also theoretically considering a short term increase in troop levels. Just where those troops will come from is a bit of a mystery but likely the Pentagon would start drawing on more soldiers from the National Guard. But McCain knows that this is untenable. And, as Mike Thoma at Economist's View tells us, McCain was already well aware of this in June of this year.

FT: You are saying there should be more troops, not a discussion about drawing down troops because the US is stretched too thin?

JMC: But that is like saying I would also like to see a mission to Mars. I just don’t think it is going to happen. In a way, we are getting close to the point where the Iraqis really have to be capable, hopefully with our help, to assume more and more of these responsibilities. We can succeed in having that happen, but we have made the path incredibly more difficult and frustrating because of our failures.

So, according to McCain, more troops in Iraq was about as likely as a "mission to Mars" in June. Nothing has changed since then, other than McCain's posturing about it. Why is McCain loudly trumpeting his "mission to Mars" now? It's all about the pose, people. It's all about the pose.