Ouch

Obama can be hurt hard on the surge.

If I were Obama, I would retire the anti-war sloganeering. It got him through the primary - made him feel authentic, etc, to the anti-war base. But he's a politician and it's time to throw the anti-war crap under the bus and focus on the future. He need to explain how he is the best person to capitalize on the relative calm in Iraq and how he's the best to manage the post-war draw down.

He might even be wise to back-handed compliment McCain and talk about how McCain is a warrior and a hero - and the among the bravest we have...but now is not the time to elect a fighter and a brawler. Now is the time to heel our alliances and repair Iraq. We celebrate the achievements of our troops - deposing a fascist dictator, and for the first time in 50 years standing on the right side of liberty in the Arab middle east. But he needs to argue the days of big, public, war-fighting are over...what we now need is finesse...because the final battle against Al Queda isn't going to be a Dday like battle, it's going to be a quiet whimper when a world of allies works together and through a combination of police tactics backed with military firepower manages a final push one by one up the Al Queda ladder in order to crush their personal and infrastructure. Maybe there was a time to go at it alone - we will let history decide - but now is the time to work with allies to clean up the current mess.