Moving The Goalposts

As we approach a change in troop levels in Iraq, John McCain is now changing his position as well. While he has for the last couple of months been calling for an increase 20,000 troops, now that it appears we will do exactly that, McCain has came out calling for even more. Why? It has nothing to do with the facts on the ground. It's because McCain's Iraq policy can never line up with George Bush's Iraq policy. From the Washington Post:

This is a serious argument, and the two senators [McCain and Lieberman] have been principled and even courageous in making it. But several questions give us pause. One is whether the administration and the Army will have the political and logistical capacity to carry out the sort of surge that the senators, and experts at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who support them, say is necessary: Total U.S. forces in Iraq would grow from fewer than 140,000 to as many as 175,000 and remain at that level indefinitely. Such a deployment would place severe new strains on the Army and probably require the alteration of Pentagon rules limiting the deployments of reservists. Some reports have said the administration is considering a more modest increase, both in numbers and in length of deployment. Mr. McCain says that would doom the strategy to failure.

Choosing a position that isn't feasible isn't courageous at all. McCain is simply playing presidential politics with other peoples lives. Never fear John, we're still going to wrap this mess around your neck.

Update: Think Progress has pulled up some recent McCain quotes and it looks like he is just plain nuts. He has called for troop levels to be increased by 20,000 (10/27/06), 100,000 (12/6/06), and 30,000 (1/4/07). Looks like he is just talking out of his ass.