A Crooked Man,A Crooked Road
By David Glenn Cox

The good news is that there is no good news, the bad news? Well, that’s the good news. Bush and McCain say that it is the surge that has brought relative calm to Iraq. Obama claims it was more due to Anbar awakening. Who is correct? Neither is correct, both are absolutely wrong.

As you're all well aware, John McCain enjoys repeating over and over and over that:
-he will never surrender in Iraq
-we must achieve victory in Iraq
-Barack Obama advocates defeat in Iraq (Joe LIEberman frequently repeats this statement as well)
-Barack Obama cares more about winning an election than the wellbeing of the American people.

Of course John McCain has never sufficiently defined what victory in Iraq would look like, and even if he has done that to some extent, he certainly has not offered any course we can chart to achieve that victory. It is fairly obvious that McCain wants to stay the course of the last 5-6 years, hoping things will fix themselves.

  We Shall Keep the Faith  

      Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
      Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
      We caught the torch you threw
      And holding high, we keep the Faith
      With All who died.

      We cherish, too, the poppy red
      That grows on fields where valor led;
      It seems to signal to the skies
      That blood of heroes never dies,
      But lends a lustre to the red
      Of the flower that blooms above the dead
      In Flanders Fields.

      And now the Torch and Poppy Red
      We wear in honor of our dead.
      Fear not that ye have died for naught;
      We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
      In Flanders Fields.

   by Moina Michael, November 1918

Tonight we remember a marine who was killed in Iraq and a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan

Just what is up lately with John McCain?  One has to wonder if his campaign is sabotaging him on purpose.  Surely it can't be the case that the candidate of a major American political party is completely without access to a basic fact checker?

Even a college-aged intern (with the Google or other basic Internet skills) ought to be able to help a guy out for next to nothing, without putting undue stress on McCain's budget.

Yesterday, while standing in line at my bank (to get some quarters, because, well, why else would I actually need to consult a bank teller?), I heard the familiar & eerie voice of the presumptive Republican nominee. The voice was coming from the two televisions above the bank windows, which are constantly tuned to CNN, & from that voice I heard something like this:

"I would rather lose an election & win a war ... Barack Obama would rather win an election & lose a war ..."

(The statement was followed, of course, by that creepy smile, which flashes as embarrassingly as an "applause" sign above a studio audience.)

It's a basic concept.  Many of us learn the ability within the first few years of our lives.  Its function in society is rather quite important.  

So, to keep it simple:

Barack Obama is an outstanding leader. If the American people didn't know it before, they know it now as evidenced by the following he has among the Iraqi leaders. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agrees with Barack Obama's position on withdrawal.

Update: Despite getting two hundred diggs in just a few hours, this video never made it to digg's home page. Turns out it was buried, presumably by McCainiacs. Please redigg with the new link that has been set up and spread the word if you can -- let's stop this McCain censorship.

This is just for fun - a friend challenged me to write up a list of McCain's "Greatest Hits" for an album cover, so here it is, with thanks to Sturangedaze, a Navy Mom, and our friend ArchitectWolf.

Also, thanks go to Timelad, for his adjusted and updated map of McCain's "World".

Biggest thanks, of course, to Keith Olbermann and Countdown, for keeping us all informed.

More below the fold...

A day after the Spokane Spokesman-Review highlighted a surge in vet suicides in her state -- and focused on the most recent case where the victim was denied full help by the V.A. -- Sen. Patty Murray will speak out on this issue (which I have long written about) in a major floor speech on the Hill later this afternoon.

The press release from her office notes that she is doing it "to raise awareness of the continuing problem of veterans struggling to get the mental health care they need and the epidemic of veterans suicides....
Although, Senator Murray will acknowledge that the VA is taking some helpful steps to address suicides including running advertisements highlighting their 24-hour suicide prevention hotline, Murray will call for more to be done. In her speech, Senator Murray will call for an increase in resources to boost outreach, breakdown barriers to care, and ensure that veterans are not turned away when they seek mental health care at VA facilities."

Yesterday's Spokesman-Review piece was a real shocker.

Disgraceful shill Andrea Mitchell just gave a two minute speech on Chris Matthew's Hardball in which she stated that "clearly the surge has worked!"

I shit you not.

I'm writing this diary shaking with rage.

Unless I'm mistaken, while the media -- and the Roots -- have focused on Maliki's seeming endorsement of Obama's position on Iraq, what has been largely ignored is his statement in the same Der Spiegel interview that also undercuts McCain badly.

In fact, I was only dimly aware of it until coming across it today at, of all places, National Review's "The Corner."

Here is part of what Andy McCarthy posted there.

Remember this little tidbit of news (via here) from last month? Here's a refresher:

Of late, as Barack Obama tours Afghanistan,  McCain has been doing an awful "lot of crowing about his support for the surge and how because of it we are "winning the war in Iraq

I hope he will have a chance to admit that he badly misjudged the situation and he was wrong when he said that the surge wouldn't work. It has succeeded and we're winning the war," he said.

To hear McCain tell it, he was always for the surge calling for more troops,  new strategies, and standing up against incompetent Don Rumsfeld, being one of the first to call for his head.   To hear him tell it the situation on the ground now  proves his foresight and wisdom.

In a word:  Bullshit.  
NOW  that the winds are blowing almost gale force in one direction he calls for these things, but you know John McCain served in the senate BEFORE  the 2006 referndum on the war, and a look at his record prior to 06  reveals a far more damning pattern of inaction and misjudgment and it's time we started calling him on it:

This qualifies as Breaking since it probably isn't anywhere but Drudge right now, from the exclusive.  It's also explosive in what it inserts into the debate.

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

McCain is screaming Bias

A top McCain source claims the paper simply does not agree with the senator's Iraq policy, and wants him to change it, not "re-work the draft."

Details of the BURN below...  including the actual reason why it didn't run.

Sorry for the "breaking" but this is just huge news:

Iraq's government welcomed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday with word that it apparently shares his hope that U.S. combat forces could leave by 2010.

The statement by Iraq's government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, followed talks between Obama and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki — who has struggled for days to clarify Iraq's position on a possible timetable for a U.S. troop pullout.

Al-Dabbagh said the government did not endorse a fixed date, but hoped American combat units could be out of Iraq sometime in 2010. That timeframe falls within the 16-month withdrawal plan proposed by Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day as part of a congressional fact-finding team.

"We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq," al-Dabbagh told reporters, noting that any withdrawal plan was subject to change if the level of violence kicks up again.

http://news.yahoo.com/...

Cross-Posted on MYDD

I don't usually have the luxury of watching morning Joe on a workday, and I know many of you don't either, so I'd like to share how Andrew Card just got ridiculed for his mealy-mouthed defense of Bush's/McCain's "Time Horizon." His shilling was actually going quite well until, a few seconds into it, the words "Time Horizon" escaped Andy’s mouth. The result was a loud guffaw courtesy of Joe Scarborough followed by the following, unusually non-anti-Obama conversation (paraphrased, but not loosely):