McCain, not Obama, is weak on Iraq war

Roy Grosser, Las Vegas

Friday, May 30, 2008 | 2:03 a.m.

Why would John McCain open his presidential campaign by blasting Barack Obama for foreign policy naivete?

Simple. It’s the political strategy of attacking one’s opponent at his strongest point.

Watch McCain’s face and body language as he’s firing away at the TV camera. He’s dispassionate, a rock, a man of sober judgment, a student of history. He’s delivering the sacred lessons of history.

Of course, we know what he’s really doing: He’s trying to blunt the public’s reaction to his Iraq vote in spring 2003. Most Americans see that vote as contributing to the most ill-considered foreign policy blunder in our history.

John McCain bought the arguments for war hook, line, sinker, trawler and fleet. Still does.

In this election he will have to face the “naive,” “unschooled,” “untested” Barack Obama, who, as luck would have it, saw through the administration’s tortured rationale for war, which the sober man of judgment swallowed whole. Obama knew a “dumb war” when he saw one. Still does.

It’s going to be one of the great moments in presidential debates this fall when Obama gets to question McCain’s willingness to roll over for the neocons five years ago. If the straight talker puts on that ultrasober game face and diverts the question to “Where do we go from here?” we old debate lovers will hear a thunderclap and a voice from the clouds: “Score one Obama!”