What you are missing is that the term ’surge’ is a bit of a misnomer (but one that was happily locked in on by the political opponents of it.) Surge implies that the only tactical and strategic change was to deploy more troops, while anyone who was actually listening to Petraeus or the White House and Pentagon briefings at the time realized that there was a new strategy being employed (which required additional troops, hence the ’surge’.) The new strategy was based largely on Gen. Petraeus’ COIN manual, and one aspect of it was to leverage new alliances with Sunnis who’d previously supported al Qaeda, but who’d then turned against that group and tentatively decided to work with the US, coalition, and Iraqi govt. against it.

It is true that the Anbar Awakening preceded the official beginning of the ’surge’, but it’s also definitely true that the planning took those changes into account and took full advantage of them.

"Everybody, even the President, has explained the surge as the additional brigades sent to Iraq to beef up the counterinsurgency efforts.  That’s the surge as it’s always been understood for almost a year."

This is where you are seriously mistaken, unless by "everybody" you mean the liberal press and blogosphere and partisan Democrats.

What’s really odd (or perhaps disingenuous) from those who now scratch their heads and say that there was never this element of strategic alliance with certan Sunni groups to leverage the changes taking place in Anbar, is that there was definitely a period of time when it was noted that this was exactly what was going on and people were speculating on whether it might backfire (that perhaps this new strategy was faulty because the Sunnis were only siding with us because ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, but then they’d turn on us and we’d have armed a group that would then use our own weapons against us. Do you not recall those debates during the early months of this year, before it was evident that real gains were being made, Michael?

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that perhaps you missed all of that, but I have no doubt that some people are basically taking the approach that any club is good enough to beat the Bush administration with; first, ridicule the surge as a hopeless waste of resources and troops’ lives, then when there’s some progress start criticizing the actual strategy because of the questionable alliances that were being made, and then finally when those alliances do turn out to work to produce more security and and environment where political change might be possible, deny the fact that the new strategy had anything to do with the progress (even though the previous criticism had specifically acknowledged the aspect of the strategy that is now being denied as having been part of the plan.)

Dead on, Christine.

There is also the anticipation factor, the effect in Iraq of the public knowing that more troops were coming, rather than troops being pulled out to let Iraqis swing in the AQ breeze.

As I said, Michael, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt (and I certainly remember those college days, particularly when I was in vet school- I’d come home on break and devour newspapers to catch up. We didn’t have the internet then )

And the trouble with McCain trying to counter these misperceptions is that there’s nothing you can say to those who’ve bought into the alternate universe explanation that won’t come across to them as spin.

However, CS, no one ever objected to trying to get the Sunnis on our side. A simple change in tactics was supported very strongly by the left and some on the right such as McCain.

If you want to say ‘McCain was right about the surge and Obama was wrong’, or any other matter of comparing one candidate to another then you are ONLY talking about the increase in troop levels. It is clear that McCain has used ’surge’ in that context many many times. To change his view now is not being clear or being truthful or even being nuiansed, it is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

Kevin H, since I personally remember reading blog debates on whether or not it could potentially backfire to arm the Sunnis in Anbar and elsewhere, I think your definition of "no one" is similar to Micheal Merrit’s earlier statement about "everybody". In both cases, selective memory seems to be involved. If you personally didn’t object to this part of the ’surge’ tactics, then great, but other people did raise this concern. If I get a few minutes later I’ll try to track down some links for you.

If you want to say ‘McCain was right about the surge and Obama was wrong’, or any other matter of comparing one candidate to another then you are ONLY talking about the increase in troop levels.

Bull. It all keyed on the increase in troop level commitments, which also reinforced that we were NOT running away and abandoning them to a grim fate. That perception was VERY widespread in Iraq at the time and greatly undermined ongoing Coalition efforts, in great part thanks to the noisy public ongoing efforts of Democrats such as Obama to do exactly that.

Selective memory, indeed.

Its a funny thing about memory.  My distinct recollection is that long before "surge", McCain was saying we needed more troops in Iraq for success.  Along with that he was clear about his disdain for Rumsfield and his management.  I vaguely recall some folks left of center using these critiques as ammo against Bush. 

You know, to say "you were right" doesn’t negate any further discussion of future strategy.  I’m frankly dumbfounded by Obama’s approach right now.  To say, "knowing what I know now I’d still vote against it" is as confusing as a Republican saying that "if we knew beforehand that there were no WMD and that an invasion would degenerate into sectarian violence, I’d still vote for the war". 

Why do candidates feel so obliged to fall for lawyerly tricks.  Questions that box you into a "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" world aren’t seriously addressing.  Is it so hard to believe that we have well-reasoned opinions at one point in time but sometimes later experience tells us that our well-reasoned judgment was wrong. 

Furthermore, I so remember the frustration out in the Blogosphere with GW’s inability to admit he was wrong.  Why does Senator Obama feel compelled to follow that example?

Furthermore, I so remember the frustration out in the Blogosphere with GW’s inability to admit he was wrong. Why does Senator Obama feel compelled to follow that example?

Because, as you can see from almost any political site in the blogosphere including this one, any candidate who does admit changing his opinion is accused of being a flip-flopper who is dishonest, evil, untrustworthy, etc, etc, etc, etc.  It is all about the "gotcha" these days, few in the blogosphere actually care about how responsible people actually think.

I thought more troops was a great idea and should have been done from the start. My judgment was the same as McCain’s. Doesn’t make it right or wrong obviously.

I probably should learn never to use absolutes… er I mean rarely use absolutes

I don’t doubt you can find a few liberals and conservatives worrying about empowering sunnis. Hell, maybe even I worried about it and some point. Regardless if you replace ‘no one’ with ‘few’ in my comment I think the main point still stands. If McCain wants to use his stances on Iraq as a distinct difference between himself and Obama, he’s talking about troop levels.

Kevin, I don’t think it was wrong to worry about arming the Sunnis (or any other group that we felt it necessary to ally ourselves with, but which wasn’t necessarily pro-American.) Those were and are very real concerns.

But I’m only commenting on it to illustrate the "any club is good enough to beat an opponent with" aspect of political debates, because it’s clear to me that some of the same people who expressed those concerns (and in some cases, going beyond expressing the legitimate concern but basically dismissing the policy as reckless, even though a lot of consideration went into the implementation of it) are now denying that ‘the surge’ included these tactical shifts and instead persist in describing ‘the surge’ as a simple increase in force levels.
On the latter, I feel you are doing the same when you insist that any differentiation of McCain and Obama’s positions on ‘the surge’ had to do with whether or not each man favored the additional troop levels being deployed. That’s just false; there were clear differences in the way each candidate described his position regarding STRATEGY in Iraq, with Obama taking the side of those who felt that US troops in Iraq were doing more harm than good and that sending more would only exacerbate the situation AND encourage the Iraqi political officials and military to delay their own progress toward stability and self sufficiency. THOSE are the central points on which Obama has now been proven completely wrong in his previous judgement, although he now denies that these were his rationales. For a comparison of what he’s saying now vs. what he said then, watch the videos here (note: I don’t agree with the inflammatory title of the blog post, unless you want to subsitute the word "typical politician" for "serial liar".)

He now claims that his objection to adding troops to Iraq was strictly due to his view of the big picture, because he felt it was more important to reinforce Afghanistan, and he claims that he always said that adding troops to Iraq would have a positive effect on the level of violence and unrest. Yet in the second video, he clearly said no such thing at the time of the debate over the surge- he argued the opposite, that additional troops in Iraq would likely make the situation worse.

I don’t agree with the inflammatory title of the blog post, unless you want to subsitute the word "typical politician" for "serial liar".

Which, regardless of conventional wisdom,  are NOT synonymous.

"Which, regardless of conventional wisdom,  are NOT synonymous."

Yes theya re only RON PAUL is different Ron Paul is the last poltician that wont sell out your freedoms and he is a candidate like no other but the MSM hates him and buried him even though he got 17% nin this staet in this poll but hey buried it.