A Brilliant Strategy?

John McCain appears to have embarked upon a new campaign strategy so unusual that it may be historic. Realizing that his candidacy has been vulnerable to parody and attack from late-night humorists and bloggers, Senator McCain has, like the true military mind he is, decided to deny them that territory by taking it and holding it himself.

That's right, he has started an advanced program of self-parody. Realizing that last week's resentful mutterings in response to the Obama World Tour weren't going over well, Senator McCain returned to his major campaign talking point, the surge.

But he dialed it up to 11!

Oddly enough, my opponent advocates the deployment of two new combat brigades to Afghanistan -- in other words, a surge. We're left to wonder how he can deny that the surge in Iraq has succeeded, while at the same time announcing that a surge is just what we need in Afghanistan.

Yes, that's really what he said.

Of course, for this to really be a logical conundrum, Iraq and Afghanistan would need to be the same, and require identical tactics. Given the Senator's recent geographic confusion, I guess he does have that confusion. I suppose many of the voters McCain hopes to win are similarly impaired.

Of course, in reality-land, Iraq and Afghanistan are vastly different countries, with dramatically different conflicts, and the idea that the same solution ought to work in both places is simplistic and silly. Why might more troops make sense in Afghanistan but not in Iraq? Perhaps because there have been far fewer troops in Afghanistan for years? Perhaps because it might leverage increased NATO participation, which the Iraqi escalation couldn't? Perhaps because Afghanistan is where the al Qaeda villains who attacked us are, not Iraq?

Between stuff like this, and his complaining about making campaign appearances overseas, it's getting hard to tell whether Senator McCain is even trying to be serious anymore.

Update: From the same speech:

With all the breathless coverage from abroad, and with Senator Obama now addressing his speeches to "the people of the world," I'm starting to feel a little left out. Maybe you are too.

So, Senator, just what world are you a person of, then? Just wondering...

(Hey, maybe he's from one of those comic-book alternate-reality worlds! That would explain a lot. Maybe it's like ours, but in that universe tax cuts actually do increase revenue, and there is still a Czechoslovakia. I wonder if it will be part of DC's Final Crisis this summer?)