Our timeline does support some of McCain's argument. It's true that as early as August of 2003, after he'd visited Iraq, he started saying that there weren't enough American troops in Iraq. At the time, this was consensus opinion among Democratic members of Congress and foreign policy hands. When McCain claims credit for having called for more troops early on, he's right.

Though it was a stupid thing to get into, no one knows what may have occurred in Iraq if it had been done competently.  Would Abu Graib have occurred under McCain?

The other side need not care about perspective and balance.  I hope we care more.  In my opinion, trying to pin Bush's mendacity on McCain reduces one's credibility on other matters.

After all, did not Obama say this:

In a meeting with Chicago Tribune reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said,

    "On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago. [...] There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."

-- Chicago Tribune, 07/27/04

Once again Obama has defined the center for McSame, who dutifully follows. Next Bush is going to agree with Obama's timetable.

BLITZER: So why do you think he said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?

McCAIN: He said it's a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it's a pretty good timetable, as we should -- or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.

McCain said some very stupid things that, today in the general election, I'll bet he wishes he didn't have to explain.

since the end of wwII, it has been something of an article of faith that one who has himself seen the horrors of war, up close and personal, would be far less likely to lightly take the country into it.

. . . McCain defended comments he made in an interview on Tuesday when he incorrectly argued that the surge in Iraq gave way to the so-called "Anbar Awakening" - when Sunni leaders joined forces with U.S. troops to fight Al Qaeda in the fall of 2006.

In an interview with CBS's Katie Couric on Tuesday, McCain said that the surge led U.S. forces to ally with Sunnis, "And it began the Anbar Awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history."

Thus, the Deciderator's decisions are effective before they begin in this new form of history.  And the Commanding Generalship of David Petraeus takes effect before the troop movements begin.

Just in case some reader does not have a timeline on the surging of the surge: Reuters Apr 8, 2008 (link):

President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to increase troop levels in Iraq in January 2007 under a strategy known commonly as the "surge" that included security, political, economic and regional components.

The Anbar events ended more than 3 months earlier & Think Progress describes it here (link):

Spencer Ackerman notes that the colonel McCain cited is "now a one-star general" and had explained the "Awakening" to a reporter in September 2006 "before it even had a name." "For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge is either a lie or professional malpractice," added Ackerman.

McCain can feel it. It has gotten away from him and it's driving him mad.