After being pilloried by Barack Obama and the press for his erroneous assertion that "we have drawn down to pre-surge" troop levels in Iraq, John McCain once again resorted to grammatical sleight of hand to extricate himself. Speaking about possible future events as if they happened in the past, McCain claimed credit in the present. But as his jaw-dropping "2013" speech earlier this month revealed, that rhetorical device isn't merely a defensive tactic, but an essential campaign strategy. Call it McCain's Future Perfect Presidency.
McCain's double-bogey on Iraq Thursday provides a case in point. He both misstated American troop levels in Iraq while labeling the city of Mosul "quiet" on the very day it was rocked by suicide bombings:

"I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it's long and it's hard and it's tough and there will be setbacks."

Confronted with the inescapable truth that U.S. forces in Iraq have not yet returned to pre-surge levels, the McCain campaign turned to the future perfect tense for its rescue. McCain, they argue, is right now because he may yet be correct in the future, as this exchange between McCain foreign policy guru Randy Scheunemann and the AP's Liz Sidoti laughably shows:

SIDOTI: He said, "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels." And what you're saying is, we will have drawn down to pre-surge levels by June - or, I'm sorry, by July. He was speaking in the present tense: "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels."
RANDY: And if we want to talk about verb tenses, we can talk about verb tenses. Everybody knows - it's been publicly announced since before April - Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker testified about it extensively. It is very well-known where we are in the surge force levels and that we are drawing down to pre-surge levels. That has not been fully completed yet, but will be completed within no more than 60 days.

But what the McCain camp this week protested as "nitpicking" over verb tenses was in fact the foundation for John McCain's stunning May 15th speech describing his vision of a potential future America after his first term. In that address, shifting verb tenses wasn't a problem for John McCain; it was his platform:

"So, what I want to do today is take a little time to describe what I would hope to have achieved at the end of my first term as President...The following are conditions I intend to achieve."

In his ensuing grammatical magical mystery tour, McCain offered remembrances of things future as the reason Americans should elect him now. His presidency, he insisted, would conjure a perfect future across all issue foreign and domestic. Nowhere would that more true than in Iraq:

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role."

In Afghanistan and Pakistan as well, what is happening on the ground is replaced by what might unfold after John McCain follows Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell:

"The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced but not eliminated. U.S. and NATO forces remain there to help finish the job, and continue operations against the remnants of al Qaeda. The Government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. in successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where al Qaeda fighters are based. The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants."

McCain's flights of fancy extend to domestic policy as well. No surprise, McCain's continuation of Bush's retrograde economic policies will have delivered unsurpassed prosperity for all Americans:

"The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth, and Americans again have confidence in their economic future."

(Also unsurprising, McCain neglects to mention making the Bush tax cuts permanent. That promise carries an estimated $2 trillion price tag, leading McCain to omit any mention of his now-retracted February pledge to balance the budget by the end of his first term.)
In one area after another, McCain describes what his imaginary world might look like in the future as having already occurred, therefore justifying support for him in the present. "New free trade agreements have been ratified and led to substantial increases in both exports and imports," he envisions. McCain foresees that "public education in the United States is much improved thanks to the competition provided by charter and private schools." And despite the consensus view that his health care proposals are woefully inadequate, McCain predicts "health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history." And so it goes.
The culmination of McCain's future perfect world comes in his science fiction fantasy turned political ad, simply titled "2013." In that amazing spot, what is possibly the future is four years is prologue to the vote this fall.
Sadly for John McCain, Americans are in a subjunctive mood. With each day, we increasingly understand what will happen if John McCain is elected president. If he wins in November, the federal deficit will mushroom as the wealthiest 1% of Americans captures almost 60% of the McCain tax cuts. If McCain were elected, new conservative justices on the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade and erase Americans' reproductive rights. And if John McCain moved into the White House, U.S. forces would perpetually remain in Iraq, serving only to inflame the region while failing to advance American national security. The list goes on and on.
On May 15th, John McCain concluded his excellent adventure into the future:

"I promise you, from the day I am sworn into office until the last hour of my presidency, I will work with anyone, of either party, to make this country safe, prosperous and proud. And I won't care who gets the credit."

Of course, as he showed again this week on Iraq, he's already taking it.
(Disclaimer: I know virtually nothing about grammar, but recognize a gift for fiction when I see it.)