So you are saying that the very goals of the war have been delegated to the military and foreign leaders?

My personal opinion is that it is a combination of pride and a desire to extend US military reach further; a combination of Tom Freidman's "Suck On This" and good old fashioned imperialism.

Your version is really the creepiest in my mind.

My replies below are in order of statements in your comment.

Sounds like you don't see much definition from McCain

Correct.

Re: #2, McCain’s position seems to be that we face an existential threat from “radical Islamic extremism” (or something like that – although isn’t “radical” and “extremism” somewhat redundant?) and that Iraq is the “central front” in the war against that threat. Therefore, he should be willing to do all of a number of unpleasant things if he thought them critical to achieving the adequate mitigation of this threat, including raising taxes (if he thought that would mean significantly higher revenues), the draft, etc. If he’s been asked about such a scenario and policy choices and has confirmed the above view of the threat but has not agreed that he would impose such sacrifices in such a scenario, than he has either dodged or has contradicted himself.

You quoted me saying:
my guess is that in reality McCain would deny the trade-off implied by your question.

And you commented:
Of course he would. Just as Obama would deny that trade-off in yours. He'd insist that departing on a well defined timeline with minimal slip would improve stability. But that was insufficient when Obama supporters pointed that out to you.

You seem to be implying that I was unaware of that parallel and/or that I was applying a double standard and that I was arguing hypocritically that pointing out McCain’s denial of the trade-off was a sufficient answer to the question. None of the preceding is the case, as the context of that comment should have made clear to you.

You quoted me saying:
it’s not misleading for him to imply an absolute opposition to withdrawing without his condition being met, because that scenario is highly unlikely and because it’s generally understood that there could always be some hypothetical scenario in which a president will (and should) abandon any promise.

And you commented:
That seems a bit of a turnabout from your demand for specificity from Obama supporters. You considered 'maintaining flexibility to react to conditions on the ground' to be a dodge when it came from Obama. Why would you accept that type of out for McCain? McCain supporters are JUST as specific that "we'll stay until we win" and dodge the "Unless McCain thinks something more important has come along"
It certainly seems that you are willing to accept a much greater level of dodging from McCain's Iraq position than from Obama.

Boy, it sure seems that you are trying to see a double standard/hypocrisy where there is none.

First, I never demanded specificity from Obama supporters, only that they EITHER tell me under what conditions, if any, Obama would accept a greater risk of great instability rather than delaying withdrawals further OR tell me that Obama’s position is unclear, and that they do so for whatever scenarios they wish to define. And no, I wouldn’t accept someone saying that Obama’s position – his answer to my question – was clear, and then telling me, for a given scenario involving risk to stability (i.e., potential level of instability or nature or cause of the instability or likelihood or whatever) BOTH that he would definitely withdraw after a maximum delay of X months (or years) AND that he might delay further in the interest of stability, which are obviously contradictory, unless, as I pointed out, one wished to further refine the scenario and perhaps split it into different scenarios based on whatever variable was causing the contradiction. And if someone had a scenario or two for which they would assign one answer as Obama’s position and different answers for other scenarios, I was perfectly fine with that, as I made clear; in fact, I encouraged it, and I certainly did not call it “dodging”.

Second, as for McCain supporters, the same exact rules apply. If they portray McCain’s position in absolute terms, they must either stick to that absolutism or acknowledge whatever scenarios are the exceptions. Otherwise they are contradicting themselves (i.e., being illogical).

My point re: McCain himself was just that it is not necessarily misleading for a candidate to state something in absolute terms even if he’d make an exception under circumstances he considered extremely unlikely, particularly if it was also considered extremely unlikely in general by others, and particularly if it was generally considered an extreme case, as I explained via example.

Bottom line: What the heck are you talking about, k-man?? Maybe ease up on the implications of a double-standard/hypocrisy on my part unless/until you have a better argument supporting that charge.

5) Actually, he has addressed dodged the hypothetical; expressing confusion at the idea that anybody would actually tax someone to pay for a war . So he's been presented with the question and dodged it (suggesting that this is NOT existential in his mind)

Boo! K-man, BOO! You know better than to try to pull that or to be that (conveniently ) sloppy. Show me where in that brief transcript McCain was asked if he would raise taxes if he thought it would “speed up this victory”, or more precisely, if he thought it would make “victory” significantly more likely?

6) Of course he hasn't, but if it isn't existential then an evaluation of cost/benefit is necessary is it not?

Yes, and it would be necessary even if it were an existential threat, since (1) there could be other existential threats, and (2) sometimes nations (and people) decide an existential threat (or level thereof) is worth the risk vs. the alternatives (sometimes I go to the deli at 2a.m. even though there may be “existential threats” walking the streets of Manhattan, and if there “may be”, then there are those threats from the standpoint of my decision to go out there). But generally speaking, the lesser the threat (the farther from a significant probability “existential” threat), the more one should engage in cost/benefit analysis, because generally more goals/priorities become competitive with the goal of reducing/eliminating the threat in question.

do you believe that McCain's stance is consistent with an existential war or not?

I’m not sure. Nothing jumps out at me as glaringly inconsistent, and nothing you’ve presented establishes inconsistency. If you disagree, show me where he has indicated that he would not be willing to make sacrifices that he deemed critical to adequately mitigating this existential threat.

So I'd like to explore what set of actual goals you think are consistent with McCain's positions.

Boy, that’s a pretty open-ended question (if it’s a question). Do you mean what specific, measurable goals? I’ll need a clearer question (not that I’ll necessarily be able to answer it well). Also, if your point is inconsistency between McCain’s stated/implied goals and his positions, maybe we should focus there, with you making the case.

[edit: K-man, I was about to vote for this diary, but when I went to the "vote" page I saw that you had already beaten me to it! I assume that was an accidental mouse click on your part (voting for your own diary). Otherwise, that's a no-no. You might be able to un-do your vote, in which case, I'll be glad to cast mine.]

I was gonna delete that spam comment but I'll just edit it to preserve yours.