The McCain difference
With General Petraeus testifying before Congress this week, Iraq returns to the centre of the political stage. McCain, Clinton and Obama will all have a chance to question him and you can expect the Democrats to once more try and make capital out of McCain’s comment that he would be relaxed about US troops being in Iraq for 100 years. But McCain’s own personal history and the fact that one of his sons has already served in Iraq, and another might, is going to make it hard for the Democrats to portray McCain as blind to the sufferings of war. Indeed, the very personal stake that McCain has in this war is bound to make people give McCain a hearing on the war. McCain commendably refuses to make political capital out of his son, his campaign condemned today’s New York Times piece on his service, but it is hard to imagine the fact that his son has fought in Iraq is not going to become one of the best known things about McCain by November.