For the “maverick” senator from Arizona, the best way to solve a problem is to make it worse :

In a speech on Thursday that highlighted the growing unease of some Republicans with lack of the progress at defeating the insurgency, Senator John McCain of Arizona said, “There is an undeniable sense that things are slipping in Iraq.”

But Mr. McCain warned that proposals for withdrawing forces next year “are exactly wrong” and called for the American military presence to grow by 10,000, to 165,000.

“Instead of drawing down, we should be ramping up, with more civil-military soldiers, translators and counterinsurgency operations teams,” he told a packed audience at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington research institute.

We’re digging ourselves into a hole in Iraq, but his only solution is to get a bigger shovel. How would increasing the military presence in Iraq ease tensions or prepare the Iraqi people to take control? I can’t believe people take this guy seriously.