November 14, 2006--McCain's Macarena

Remember the Macarena, the mid-1990’s dance craze? It was so popular that fans at baseball games did it during the Seventh Inning Stretch; and as a way to demonstrate that he was not humorless, even Al Gore performed his version of it on Saturday Night Live during his hopeless run against George Bush. Actually, it was one of the few funny things Gore ever did.

Now we have another version—John McCain’s. He tried it out on this past Sunday’s talk shows (see NY Times article linked below). It’s his Iraq dance but it’s not very funny. Here are the steps—

The public clearly has turned against any variation of staying the course. McCain, as he contemplates a run for the presidency in 2008, has a big problem: he is identified as a staunch supporter of Bush’s now unpopular policy. In fact, he was and continues to be an advocate for “winning” the war by sending in more U.S. troops. This is even less popular than staying the current course.

But even assuming McCain thinks his is a good idea, minimally he still needs to find a way to explain his position to a skeptical electorate while at the same time preserving his image as a consistent, straight-shooter. Knowing all too well how pathetic John Kerry looked when he attempted to explain his multiple positions on the war (“I was against it before I was for it which was before I was against it.”), he doesn’t want to be labeled The Flip-Flopper of 2008.

So here’s how he wins by either winning or losing: He claims that early on he predicted that unless we send in enough troops to win we would lose the war and chaos would ensue. To remain consistent, he continues to say this, but now in the context of also being a critic of past and current policy—“If they had only listened to me then . . . .”

But he knows, of course, that there is no way that anyone will agree to assign more soldiers to a hopeless or unpopular cause. So there is not a chance that his recommendation will be accepted, much less be put to the test and fail with blame then assigned to him.

Rather, we will either stay the course (he’s opposed to that) or, most assuredly, we begin some sort of phased withdrawal (he’s also opposed to that). Since either scenario inevitably leads to even more chaos, he gets to say, “I told you so. If we had only had the vision, the perseverance, the guts to do it the right way (my way--with adequate forces) we would have prevailed. So don’t tie me Bush’s failed policy. All along I had the winning plan and no one listened.”

Brilliant!

And like Gore’s version of the Macarena, where he stood motionless to poke fun at his own stiffness, McCain’s also doesn’t have to move his feet. All he has to do is talk and talk and avoid taking or acknowledging any responsibility.