Good Advice

William Kristol's latest article advises John McCain to return to the theme of national security, because that's a winning issue for him.

I'm not sure about that, but let's see Kristol's reasoning.

The McCain campaign intends, I gather, to return to the commander in chief theme with an event in Florida Wednesday showcasing former secretaries of state and retired senior military officers. But why not showcase young Iraq vets instead? These young soldiers and marines can testify eloquently to the success of the surge that John McCain championed, and to the disaster and dishonor that would have followed Barack Obama’s preferred path of withdrawal.

. . . McCain could point out that hope is nice and prayer is good. But, he could ask: With respect to our national security, do we really want to elect a president on a hope and a prayer?

He then recommends that McCain drop his negative advertising; because nothing screams positive message like suggesting your opponent will get us all killed.

I don't know if this will work for McCain. For one thing, the war is one area where he agrees with Bush the bulk of the time (with the exception of Torture - Bush is objectively pro-torture, McCain has some reservations). And we've seen what 8 years of Bush policies have got us.