You could try chocolate, too.

Right before the nap.

So he does potentially have a bone fide peace maker credential.

His son is also over there in the front lines.

A lot of people I know who are not running for president know the differences between Sunni and Shi'a. I'm not arguing that they're "average" voters, but I'm not usually into gotcha! moments and I was startled that McCain made this mistake in public a couple of times.

Otherwise, you're right that a person running for POTUS should know those other things. I'm just not sure how hard the voting public is going to be on him for his errors when McCain is making them too. I think a coherent sounding policy matters more in an election than an itemization of facts.

Used to be IOKIYAR.  Now, it's IOKIYAO.  

If he's smart he'll use his record on vietnam to show he's able to be a peacemaker as well as a Hawk.

This is at least a substancially critical part of his record on Vietnam.

nly after the disaster unfolded did McCain decide to speak up. According to the WaPo blog:

As he gets closer to the Republican nomination, John McCain has been trying to balance his unqualified support for the Iraq war by reminding audiences that he was also a tough critic of the way it was managed until President Bush finally changed strategies a year ago. In recent weeks, McCain has gone so far as to tell audiences that he was "the only one" who called for then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation.

The only trick is he never did, at least not publicly. The senator from Arizona was a tough critic of Rumsfeld and more than once declared that he had no confidence in the Pentagon chief in the two years before Bush finally dumped him in November 2006. But even as he was criticizing Rumsfeld, McCain typically stopped short of calling for the defense secretary to step down on the grounds that it was up to the president to decide who served in his
Cabinet.

. . . At the heart of McCain's case against Rumsfeld was the failure to send more troops to Iraq from the start. In 2004, McCain estimated that an additional 100,000 troops were needed to pacify the country. Ultimately, he became one of the biggest proponents of Bush's decision in January 2007 to send what would become an additional 30,000 troops. . .. Democrats plan to try to wrap Iraq around McCain's neck regardless of the nuance, pointing to any number of optimistic statements of his own that later proved unfounded.

In an interview with the Associated Press news agency, Mr McCain was asked whether he was confident in the secretary's leadership.

He said he remembered responding to a similar question recently: "I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence," he said, according to the agency.

Mr McCain said he believed a further 80,000 army personnel and 20,000 to 30,000 more marines were needed to secure Iraq.

"I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops - linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.," Mr McCain said.

"There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."

But Mr McCain refused to say whether Mr Rumsfeld constituted a liability to the Bush administration.

Unease

Last week, Mr Rumsfeld was publicly grilled by troops who alleged they used scrap metal to armour vehicles.

The row prompted new calls for his resignation from long-time opponents, including senior Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

This is not the first time Mr McCain has spoken plainly of his disquiet about Pentagon policy under Mr Rumsfeld, but his remarks underline that there is unease in Republican ranks too ...

I don't beleive my fellow blogger was trying to say he didn't support the war.  Of course he supported the war but he correctly felt that we didn't put enough troops on the ground and called for a surge like increase in troops long before Patreaus actually did it.

McCain calls for more troops

McCain calls for more troops

McCain criticizes Bush

It is insane to say McCain isn't qualified to be commander in cheif.  If democrats want this fight it is a supreme loser.  To quote our current president "Bring it on"   McCain will run circle around Obama in a debate on this subject.   Obama needs to stick to domestic and popular democratic themes and conceed the CIC argument to McCain because it's all he's got.  Trying to go after him on this only makes it more relevant then it already is.  

Kerry lost this argument to Bush when he had a legitimate one.  Obama has no argument so he should leave it alone.    

Dems need to stop drinking the koolaid.

My opinion is:

McCain is qualified to be president, but I don't agree with him on policy.

Obama isn't qualified to be president.

And his call for sending more troops to Afghanistan is pure ad hoc.   McCain has no strategy.  He plays off his biography, and as Yglesias points out, this allows him to get lazy and fail to prepare....