Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Let's start with this hilarious WaPo article

The Defense Department opened its new recruiting year with good news: announcing yesterday that the Army met its goal for October

Wow ! Afterall the problems they have had filling the ranks it looks like they have found the winning formula. It's ingredients are simple

Army officials said that they recruited 4,925 soldiers into active duty in October, the first month of the new fiscal year, exceeding the monthly goal of 4,700. Last October, the Army slightly exceeded its goal of 6,935.

S. Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command, said that the discrepancy does not mean the Army is lowering its goals simply to make them.

Dude, I was educated before intelligent design was on the curriculum. I also excelled in math too

The Army, which still hopes to recruit 80,000 soldiers during the fiscal year, plans to sign up 10,450 people in July, 10,050 in August and 9,800 in September -- months that are traditionally strong for recruitment. That means the Army is leaving 30,300 recruits -- or 38 percent of its annual goal -- for the final three months of the fiscal year.

The Army did not recruit more than 9,500 in any month last year and fell far short of its monthly goals several months in a row.

So let me get this right. You plan on recruiting more people this year than last year in 3 consecutive months, because you want to take it easy early on ? Uh-huh. Ok.

Seriously. The Iraq war is breaking the "all volunteer" Army, and the current 150,000 strong deployment cannot be sustained. As soldiers go on their 3rd or even 4th rotation retention is going to be incredible difficult - and these are the committed guys - the guys who would have been lifers.

So with that in mind, and the popularity of the war plummeting as people begin to understand the lies that got us to this point, what do you think John McCains big idea is ?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Sen. John McCain, a major backer of the Iraq war, said on Thursday the Bush administration must make broad changes in its strategy to confront the insurgency in Iraq, and commit more troops and resources to the effort.

McCain, the Arizona maverick who challenged George W. Bush for the presidential nomination in 2000 and is considered likely to make another run, repudiated calls from many Democrats for a plan to start withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Send more Troops !!

Now there are war hawks and there are war hawks. But who in their right mind thinks we have more troops to send ? And even if we could squeeze a few more war bodies out of the offices and put them in fallujah with an M-16 just how popular do you think that platform idea is going to be ?

McCain is a raving lunatic - and it gets worse - because he has a plan for all these shiny new soldiers he is going to magically send to Iraq

The United States has 150,000 troops in Iraq. More than 2,050 U.S. military personnel have been killed there.

Instead of trying to shift forces around the country to secure all of Iraq from insurgents, McCain said the Pentagon should concentrate on securing and then holding insurgent strongholds.

"Our forces cannot hold the ground indefinitely, and when they move on to fight other battles, the insurgent ranks replenish and strongholds fill again," McCain said. "Our troops must then re-enter the same area and refight the same battle."

Indeed - what we need is Whack-a-mole 2.0 - Whack Harder.

So please Republican voters - pull that lever for John McCain in 2007 - the nation will thank you. I know I will.