Senator McCain may understand it, but that’s not saying he didn’t sell it out for political gain. McCain has been 100 percent wrong when it comes to prognosticating about the future of this war. I see no reason to believe him.

Watching the GOP’s descent into Protestant evangelism, crony capitalism, and expedient fascism was maddening and frightening.

But ultimately the Republican Party lost me with its willingness to trade rights for a false security. It is focused on grabbing power, not securing liberty. Luckily democracy still works here from time to time, and we took it away from them in November.

I voted for John McCain only once, in the 2000 presidential primary. I’ll never vote for the man again after he, Graham and Warner rolled over for the White House on the torture issue. Barry Goldwater is surely spinning in his grave.

McCain has decided he’d rather be president than right. He’s hiring Bush’s people, and selling himself to Bush’s base. Did he not notice that the nation is sick of Bush?

He will fade. Good riddance.

Thanks for letting me rant, and one last thing to the previous commenters: lose the “I wish he’d follow through on his promise” crap. It’s mean and stupid and unproductive. Instead, let’s get to work cleaning up the damage these power-mad fools have done to our nation in the past 5 years.

A “think piece” and 25 responses to an insignificant quip, a throw-away line? What’s McCain’s sin here, that for 2 seconds he departed from robot political speak and spoke colloquially, saying something in the style one of my friends might use?

It’s just this kind of hyperbolic phrase-parsing that robs the humanity and sense of humor from politicians.

I think this is a very fair objection. This post and McCain’s quote is clearly sensational. I don’t deny that – it’s what made me write about it. I’d never heard a politician literally bet his life on his political prognostication abilities.

But this is presidential politics and, as you note, the country will hang on to every word a candidate says. Take note, though, this was said in mid October and I never word boo about it then. I found it yesterday and it was news to pretty much every person in America. Had it been said by a Democrat – say Hillary Clinton or John Kerry – it would have dominated the news for a week.

Lastly, I’m a Democrat and McCain is a hyper conservative Republican. I do not want this man to be president and I will gladly promote his own words if I think that it will be detrimental to his White House aspirations.

It’s just this kind of hyperbolic phrase-parsing that robs the humanity and sense of humor from politicians.

But people seem to like it when it’s against the other team. I’m against it when the Republicans were mocking the “Dean scream,” and when the Democrats do it to McCain, as in this story.

This “news” story is the perfect epitome of why politicians learn to speak like robots. It damages and lowers our political discourse.

We must redeploy, train and retrain those people and vigorously recruit the best, brightest, and toughest. Instead of falling off Mt. Everest, or Mt. Hood, they could find real adventure. The motivation is in the challenge.

We need to fight the war on terror like Bill Belichick runs the Patriots—look for our weak points and train to overcome them. Focus on the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. Training! Training!! Training!!! And more Training!!!!!

We redeploy—organize those courageous, capable men and women into specialized fighting and intelligence units that can go any where in the world on a moments notice to engage the terrorist enemy.

We must work to defeat that enemy without defeating ourselves in the process.

The War on terror will go on for many, many years. We must organize our Military into divisions and Units that can meet any threat at any time. Essentially the defensive posture of a coiled snake—ready to strike with deadly speed, accuracy and authority, anywhere, in the world, at any time.

Although individual fighters will sometimes be motivated by hate, a military force, cannot afford to be motivated by it, because hate ultimately blinds one to objective thinking, planning and execution. Those at the top must be clear thinking—and not confuse issues, or wars, or forget for a moment who the enemy is—not what he represents, but who he is.

Belichick despises penalties. He knows that they kill a