John McCain is able to make a convincing case – if the surge wasn’t working, would Osama bin Laden be telling the Iraqi insurgents to unite?

“Basically he encouraged the extreme elements — al Qaeda in Iraq particularly in the Sunni areas — to join together and be more effective in bringing terrorism and murder and suicide bombings to Iraq and to Anbar province,” McCain said Monday. “It’s a clear sign that we are succeeding in Iraq because people got very tired of al Qaeda taking their young women, killing their young women, killing their people and acting in the most brutal fashion that they are.”

Boy, Osama bin Laden is acting weird, even for a psychopathic mass-murderer, isn’t he? First he had that dyed-beard video message mocking the Democrats for not getting troops out of Iraq, and now he’s sounding like a coach trying to keep his team motivated.

“I want this team to come together, and show a group effort above individual desires… Clearly, it’s a rebuilding year for the Iraqi insurgency. We had some injuries to some guys who thought could make a difference… This team has to get past memories of the glory days with Zarqawi, we can’t focus on the past, we’ve got to look ahead to our next opponent. We have some young guys who we think could blow up next year. The upside of getting beaten by a U.S. surge and an improving Iraqi security forces is we get a high draft choice next year.”