McCain Makes The Ultimate Sacrifice

Photo op was political suicide that could hasten the end of war
By Caroline Miller,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 8, 2007 9:08 AM CDT
McCain Makes The Ultimate Sacrifice
In this image released by the U.S. Army on Sunday, April 8, 2007, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., left, talks with Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of Multi-National Corps - Iraq, Monday, April 2, 2007, in Ramadi, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad. McCain led a congressional delegation to Iraq...   (Associated Press)

Frank Rich predicts that John McCain's much-ridiculed photo op in Baghdad's Shorja market last weekend won't be remembered as  his Dukakis-in-the-Tank moment—the cluelessness that sank a candidacy—but as a turning pointing in hastening America's exit from Iraq. John McCain is no Michael Dukakis, and if he can't credibly carry the flag for his commader in chief, who can?

"This incident has the staying power of the Howard Dean scream," Rich writes. "Should it speed America’s disengagement from Iraq, what looks today like John McCain’s farcical act of political suicide may some day loom large as a patriot’s final act of sacrifice for his country." (More Election 2008 stories.)

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