Maliki Did Not Just Sink McCain. Will McCain?

The clip to read is Marc Ambinder’s:

This could be one of those unexpected events that forever changes the way the world perceives an issue. Iraq’s Prime Minister agrees with Obama, and there’s no wiggle room or fudge factor. This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what’s left to argue? to argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing. Obviously, our national interests aren’t equivalent to Iraq’s, but… Malik[i] isn’t listening to the generals on the ground…but the “hasn’t been to Iraq” line doesn’t work here.

So how will the McCain campaign respond?

Weakly, as it happens. Team O not having it:

An Obama official, also speaking on background, asks:

“So given that al-Maliki said today that it’s time for an official timetable and that Obama “is right when he talks about 16 months,” will McCain honor that commitment and call for withdrawal or change his position that we should leave Iraq if asked?”

Easy, hidden tiger. As is usually the case, things here are far more complicated than any presidential campaign juggernaut should prefer. Maliki didn’t say, and won’t say, that “Obama is right when he commits to 16 months.” There is no commitment for McCain to honor. And indeed no presidential candidate needs to “call for” withdrawal — not even Sen. Obama. He, like McCain, can simply “talk about” withdrawal. And mean it! — but intend, rather than grandstand, upon it.

And this is exactly what McCain will, or at least really should, do. Take a page from the (Bill) Clinton playbook: say me too. Maliki supports Obama’s time frame? McCain supports Maliki’s. He’s already halfway there — all he has to say now is that America aimed to make Iraq a free and sovereign nation, and free and sovereign nations get to decide, at a minimum, when they think an appropriate and reasonable time is for US troops to depart their territory. Might not be McCain’s first choice. Doesn’t have to be. He’s not running for God of the Planet. He’s not running for Not Obama. He’s running for president. And a presidential candidate gets to lay claim to good, or even merely popular, ideas. People like him more when he does so. Especially when they have nowhere else to run.

Except Barr? Really? Maybe. Bet you McCain can lose more independents by getting stupid on Iraq than he can lose Republicans by getting smart. Under the circumstances. And under related ones — in the totality of them, if you like — McCain has nothing to lose by glomming onto Obama/Maliki on Iraq. He can draw a host of other important distinctions. He can question the 90% of Obama’s foreign policy that has nothing to do with Iraq. He could, in fact, make pledges not to preventively invade any foreign countries. Wouldn’t that be a game-changer, eh? McCain could dedicate his presidency to flooding Afghanistan with enough troops to ensure that the freaks who started this whole business will never rise again. Visions of sugarplums…

Seriously, folks. McCain is not doomed. He may still implode on the campaign trail — he has not brushed off suspicion that he is a crazy old man, perpetually balanced in precarious fashion between dozing off and flipping out, and no amount of Mittness can change that. Even a virtuoso Ultracompetent Zoolander act that totally overshadowed the Hotdogging Coot act would leave people wondering if McCain could resign on Day One and just be done with it, for all our sakes. McCain’s biggest problem, just like Hillary’s, is his particular self, his inimitable McCainness. Some people think Obama’s himself problem is bigger, but I don’t. Because Obama’s self is pretty well stabilized. McCain, there may be surprises in store for you and I. Wait for those debates. Americans are watching a race about (bear with me) meta-attitudes, here: the candidates’ attitudes about the attitude appropriate to a president. Obama’s attitude is that a president should definitely have his attitude — composed, consolidated, a little wary, a little catlike, but clear and conscientious. McCain’s attitude is that a president…? I don’t know. I know McCain thinks it’s okay that he’s running for president, even though he is admittedly in the dark about economics, generally disinterested in specifics, and not so hot communicating with citizens in presidential fora. That sounds a bit too close to Bush for American comfort, because what Americans hate most about Bush, as Peggy Noonan has observed, is his meta-attitude. So watch the debates, and we’ll see.

Anyway, though, McCain can accept Maliki’s statement and move on essentially unharmed. He can shift to the surge as a talking point if he likes. But he needn’t “run on it.” Because, unfortunately, even “running on the surge” might not work so well — if Americans generally want what Obama is offering them economically. Astonishingly, Bush has managed to cripple and tarnish not only the Republicans’ foreign-policy brand but their economic-policy brand as well: incompetence everywhere; no trust at all. McCain is not helping. Bye bye Gramm, better luck next life. What a monstrosity — and, again, a fatal casualty of a bad meta-attitude. But Phil didn’t speak for McCain, right? So who does? The answer, I wager, is Mitt making a big working-class pitch embossed with the Great Seal of Michigan. The worse the economy gets, the better for Obama…unless Mitt comes on board, which seems all the more likely with each passing day. And why not? The young talent needs to worry about who in the Fruited Plain is possibly going to be filling those Republican seats in Congress. Right now the answer appears to be Tootsie Roll Pop ghosts. Tie on the Kleenex, two dots for eyes…make that a red-blooded American Democrat, good and ready to make John McCain govern accordingly.

What McCain needs to internalize — and what all Republicans need to understand — is that Republicans can’t run on foreign policy this year because if foreign policy is the only winning issue Republicans might have anymore then something’s gone fatally, nightmarishly twisted. And sure enough, this election is not to be won or lost on abortion, guns, gays, faith-based initiatives, quotas, busing, or law and order. It is going to be won on: America is looking kind of like a bank-owned house after four months on the foreclosure market: going to seed…rough around the edges…disconcerting “WINTERIZED” signs promising a future of bleakness and poor supervision…. And — structurally unsound? Mold in the basement? Giant, spindly brown spiders laying dozens of shriveled egg sacs underneath the stairs?

This is what Team Mac should be thinking about. If you really want to run on the surge, run on Surge II: Surge for America. America needs a surge. We did it before and we can do it again. McCain can look a bad shake in the face without getting the shakes. That sort of thing. Against this backdrop, Maliki’s significant comments look rather miniature.