Be careful what you wish for, Senator McCain

Since being Bob Somerby'ed into submission some time ago, I've been arguing that the critical truth of the 2008 presidential campaign is that the Republican presidential candidate will have one opponent (the Democratic candidate), but the Democratic candidate will have two (the Republican candidate and the corporate media, addicted to its anti-Dem storylines).

A good piece by Digby today made me realize that my pre-midterm arithmetic needs to be re-checked:

Whoever wins the Republican nomination in 08 must run against both Bush and the Democrats.

Case in point:

According to some green-room gossip going around today, John McCain admits that his call for 20,000 more troops isn't likely to go anywhere, but says would be good for troop morale.

Digby notes the obvious, that it would also give McCain a bulletproof political alibi in 2008: By calling for a troop increase that he knows won't happen, he's perfectly positioned to throw all blame for the next two years in Iraq back onto Bush while keeping his own skirts clean. If only they'd listened to me, he could insist 18 months from now, we'd be a whole lot better off today.

It's a brilliant plan. So brilliant that there's only one thing that could possibly go wrong with it.

Check out Digby's post to find out what that might be.