maybe it should be mccain

**UPDATE** although this essay was written with half-serious intentions, it should now read as, at worst, a joke, and at its best it can be considered an exercise in critical thinking. as the final paragraph made clear, the onus was on mccain to show us the improvement in iraq. and then came THE Photo Op...the one where he talked about safer strolls through the market in baghdad than ever before...while being protected by the entire united states army. so yeah, he's pretty much dead in the water, which seems worth mentioning.















the '08 presidential election is a long ways off and yet john mccain finds himself in an early hole.

according to rasmussenreports.com:

Arizona Senator John McCain (R), now trails Giuliani by twenty percentage points. For the second straight week, the Rasmussen Reports poll measured McCain’s support at just 15%. That’s the lowest level of support measured so far for the man who began the campaign season as the presumed frontrunner. For the full month of March, McCain’s support has averaged just 16%, down from 18% in February and 21% in January.

at this rate, johnny mac will be down to 0% before the end of the year, which must be embarrassing for his campaign backers. of course, conventional wisdom says that mccain's faltering support is directly related to his iraq strategy: namely, that he wants to keep The Troops in the desert until things get better (also important: he wants to add more troops to the region, not subtract). the majority of the american republic tends to disagree with mr. mccain on this front, which is hurting his popularity.

but here's the kicker: what if mccain is right? what if staying in iraq is the right thing to do? i, like so many others, have refused to even consider this strategy to this point. for me it was simple: if we aren't stabilizing iraq then why are we there? let's get out.

down the line, the dems are telling us whatever we want to hear. they are speaking in terms of exit strategies. they are passing antiwar bills in the House. they are declaring bush a failure, and rightfully so. bush has failed. but still, there is a concern that the dems are overcompensating for bush's mistakes, like they want to leave iraq just to zag away from the president, to prove his war was a failure, to gain the fleeting support of a fickle public. but wouldn't it be foolish to pull the troops in spite of the president?

leaving iraq before it has legs to stand on could lead to seriously dangerous results in the region. yet i don't here the big-boy dems talking about this, which is troubling.

mccain, on the other hand, knows he's killing himself by siding with the surge. *he knows this!* yet he remains faithful to his conviction. and his conviction is based on the fact that he's been studying the circumstances in iraq on his own. his opinion seems to have little to do with focus groups and polling. mccain seems genuinely like he's just trying to do the right thing. and today on cnn he said that the new approach in iraq is starting to show some positive results, which helps secure him in his convictions.

as much as i like the idea of obama or the charm of edwards or the clintonness of hillary, i can't help but find the do-the-right-thing-know-matter-how-you're-perceived mccain to be honorable and also electable.

however, standing by such tough medicine makes this a hard sell to the general public. if he wants to regain favor with the polls, john mccain must explain to us in plain english the progress that is being made in iraq.

does opec actually own texas?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Al Gore, who has reversed his political fortunes to become a potential contender in the 2008 presidential race, made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday in an appeal for an even more dramatic rescue -- saving the planet.

Gore advised lawmakers to cut carbon dioxide and other warming gases 90 percent by 2050 to avoid a crisis. Doing that, he said, will require a ban on any new coal-burning power plants -- a major source of industrial carbon dioxide -- that lack state-of-the-art controls to capture the gases.

He said he foresees a revolution in small-scale electricity producers for replacing coal, likening the development to what the Internet has done for the exchange of information.

"There is a sense of hope in this country that this United States Congress will rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions to this crisis," Gore said. "Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination."

He rejected the contention by opponents of quick action on global warming that the United States should only impose mandatory controls on greenhouse gases if China, India and other rapidly developing nations agree to do the same.

"The best way and the only way to get China and India on board is for the U.S. to demonstrate real leadership," Gore said. "As the world's largest economy and the greatest superpower, we are uniquely situated to tackle a problem of this magnitude," he said.

"You're not just off a little, you're totally wrong," said Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as he challenged Gore's conclusion that carbon dioxide emissions cause rising global temperatures.

Barton and Gore's exchange grew testy at one point -- Barton demanding that Gore get to the point and Gore responding that he would like time to answer without being interrupted.

"Global warming science is uneven and evolving," Barton said.

"A lot of those recommendations are more regulations and more taxation," said former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, though he added that he agrees with Gore that the scientific debate on climate change is over.

"I think we can find answers to use the coal energy, to use the natural gas we have."

Gore was warmly welcomed back by some of his critics, such as Republican Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas.

"You're dear to us, but I just don't agree with you on this," Hall said.