For whatever reason, I didn't really hear Democrats in the midterms say this. President Bush has been losing two wars simultaneously.

But ... it’s essentially true and in need of highlighting if the persistently stylish hawkish worldview, now fighting back desperately with the “more troops” canard (We’ve been calling for them all along and we still need them, etc. etc.), is to be properly tossed from its pedestal of courage and wisdom. It’s important to underscore, as left bloggers are doing, that we don’t have troops to supply for ongoing operations, nor a realistic chance of stopping the Iraqi slide deeper into hell. But such practicalities aside, progressives need also to put the administration’s record into perspective, because that record is necessarily, to a large degree, that of the hawks as well. Wars that require nuanced political management, massive, long-term, troop engagements, and ongoing fighting are, other things being equal, dubious ventures. (This note of caution does not mitigate against the Afghan war, which has had widespread international backing and a longer and fuller -- and persisting, albeit diminishing -- opportunity for useful policy corrections.)

So consider the record. The initial campaigns to overthrow the authoritarian regimes in Kabul and Baghdad are generally agreed to have been quickly and successfully executed. But precisely because of this rapidity, the credit for these successes belongs primarily to battlefield commanders, military planners, and the troops who did the fighting, not to the White House. As the Taliban began its resurgence and the Iraqi insurgency and sectarian bloodshed became more widespread, the problems in these wars became increasingly amenable to and requiring of political and diplomatic, rather than merely military, responses. That's where any president’s wartime leadership really gets tested. President Bush has failed this test, twice.

It’s also worth pointing out that hawks seem to have been conspicuously silent as the Taliban has become increasingly embraced, however reluctantly, by Afghans lately, not as an ideological matter but as a possible source (once again) of some rudiments of order and, no less important, a source of power not shot through with corruption -- sought, in other words, as a possible source of functioning, day-to-day governance.

As president, McCain would undoubtedly run these or other wars better than Bush has done. But increasing and rebuilding our military will take some years; in the meantime, the glaring reality of overreach will be as damaging to our national security in terms of both success on the ground and preparedness as it is today, and any hawk who does not address this fact should not be accorded credibility in discussions of our nation’s defense.