Why is John McCain hiding from Voting on the New GI Bill of Rights?
The bill puts McCain between a rock and a hard place. By design, I’m sure, coming from Democrat Jim Webb and anti-Iraq-War Republican Chuck Hagel. Everybody loves the troops, and wants to give them more stuff. But stuff costs money, and incentives to leave (such as paid-for college education) cause staffing problems. There’s also the “dwell time” rules, which specify time at home for troops who have been in combat, which military people see as dictating tactics to the generals. That makes the current war harder to fight, and if McCain helps pass the bill, he’ll get grief from the pro-war side which is his most important base. McCain’s best strategy is to force them to amend the bill. That allows him to claim a leadership role, and if he spins it right he gets to claim that the additional troop benefits were his idea. Sure, that’s all politics, but then, the bill is as much politics as policy in the first place.
