Obama is the real backer of the surge.

Dave at Hominidviews posted a defence of the Obama/Biden stances on the surge vs that of McCain. The essence of his argument is correct. The Repricans are overselling the surge as some sort of victory and are trying to give John McC. the laurel wreath. Of course,l as Dave says, that is utter horse turd.

While it is true that McC suported the surge, so did Obama. His concern was not with the few bucks involved but that we not allow Bush to use this as the basis for yet more war years.

As dave says, the R. claim that Obama opposed the surge and said it would not work is simply not true. Obama supported the surge if and only if it was implimented in some way that we could measure the outcome. What he did nto support was one more blamk check.

A big part of the problem with anyone being able to understand Obama or McCain today is that both adopted pander bear positions during the campaign. One reason I chose to support Obama over the other Dems was that only he and Biden refused to join the "out now" crowd. Both of them talked about a political/strategic plan for getting out that did not please some on the left. Hillary, Edwards, and even Richardson talked as if we could either leave asap or at worst at whatever rate the military said was possible give our resources for transportation etc.

During that time, Admiral Zini gave a great speech, explaining why BOTH the left "out now" and right "till victory" memes were dangerous.

General Patraeus point in asking for the surge was in support of Admiral Zini. Petraeus never claimed that the surge was means toward either victory or withdrawal, rather that it was necessary to achieve either in what Obama calls a "smart out" strategy.

One very dangerous aspect of the McCain campaign has been to misrepresent the surge as a step toward victory. Indeed, Petraeus himself, during the famous "Betraeus" testimony made it clear that the surge was only likely to be successful in the long run if the US adoptd a do-able strategy to bring the Iraqui invasin to an end.

Petraeus' POV was very much in the tradition of Colin Powell, a tradition that says .. following our debacle in Vietnam and Russia's debacle in Afghanistan, that a great power should only intervene when it knows what it wants to achieve and then sends in the forces and other resources needed to get to that end. Bush's invasion of Iraq failed to meet the criteria of the Powell Doctrine. We went in with enough forces to topple Hussein, BUT we had no achievable goal other than the bizarre fantasies of the neo cons that somehow Iraquis would be utterly grateful to us and would give forth a new nation, conceived in Jeffersonian Democracy.

Remember that for most this war, Bush and Co. were down on Petraeus and on any other pragmatism. The surge only happened once Rummy was on his way out and someone, perhaps Scofield???< began making rational decisions for GW.

How does this effect our current choice? Frankly, the only substantive difference between McC's stated policy and Obama's is that McC want to be able to declare victory and Obama does not think such a transparent Orwellian terminology will mean much.

In the meantime, what does worry me about Mc vs Obama is the nature of their advisers, including St Sarah and Jo. Despite his military patina, I see NO evidence that the general staff is flocking to McCain. Why? I think they see him as driven by the neocons and by far right jingoism. NOTHING in his speeches suggests a realistic understanding of what we do and do not have resources for. Nothing suggests a plan for post US Iraq, nothing suggests a commitment to negotiate peace in Israel, security in the Indian Ocean, etc. This may be hard to play as a political card, but it is Obama who has thought about such issues, pulled together strong advisers (including Biden) and seems more likely to offer a real strategy for use of the US military.