Let’s consider the following hypothetical.  Your grandfather likes to smoke in his bed.  He’s been told over and over again that it’s neither hygienic nor safe.  But grandpa tends not to listen to anyone and does what he wants regardless of the potential consequences to either himself or those around him ...  

Time to get back to the business of endlessly pointing out just how wrong John McCain is on foreign policy.

Ya'll remember the SURGE, don't you?  You know the tactic that McMilitary single-handedly forced the Bush Administration into.  He has that much power and creds at The White House, you know.  The man is a walking marvel.

Well, it seems that one of McPander's three people he would call on if he were pResident (and possible Veep shortlister, yeah right) Gen. David Petraeus simply will not say that the progress in Iraq was due solely to the SURGE.  Did Petraeus mention the Anbar Awakening?  Why, yes, children he did.  The one that occurred before the SURGE?  Right again.

Please come along for some pie (in Johnny's face)

Americans like smash mouth competition - be it "three yards and a cloud of dust!" type football, or a high fastball down the middle in the bottom of the ninth, "two men enter, one man leaves" Thunderdome-style cage matches.  It's simple, it's primal, it's fundamentally American.

This fundamental premise is why Karl Rove and the GOP have been so successful.  Take the fight to the enemy.  In a way, it's the political doctrine of preemption.   Use "shock and awe" to immediately decapitate the opponent's perceived strength:  Al Gore's wonkiness, John Kerry's heroic service in Vietnam, and now, Barack Obama's popularity and judgment.

Americans need to know a few things about their media, and their military before heading to the polls in November.  Oddly enough, they both involve a "surge" of one kind or another.

The NY Times ran a very telling article today on the nature of violence in Iraq. It shows, once again, that McCain is consistently wrong in his foreign policy assessments.

Here's the money quote:

Although the "surge" is often described as the turning point that led to lower violence, a number of America officers contend the Awakening that began well before the surge ... was the most significant reason for the decline.

Got that? Sound familiar? That's exactly what Barack was saying during his Mideast trip.

Once again, Barack, in his studied careful way, gets it right. McShame and Republican media gets it wrong.

You gotta get your ducks all in a row there before tooting those horns:

At a press conference she and Zebari said the negotiators were close to signing the deal but cautioned it had not yet been clinched.

Everyone says how intelligent you are, and after all you're the Secretary of State with a whole department working for you, or are they being allowed to.

From the very beginning of the debate about the surge, its stated objective was to provide a stable environment in which the Shiia controlled Iraqi government could settle its differences with the Sunnis and Kurdish populations, reach agreement on the division of their oil revenues, take control of their country and begin rebuilding Iraq.

Some how these stated objectives were forgotten and the Republicans began crowing that the surge was working because of the reduction of ethnic violence. To them... that and that alone has become the definition of victory. Never mind the previously stated political objectives, the reduction in violence has been cause for them to once again cry "mission accomplished."

This is the words of Reporter Dexter Filkins from today's article, the paragraph continuing as follows:

The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now: violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures the general provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq — 13 — than in any month since the war began.

After HAMMERING McBush all day on forgetting-how-many-homes-he-owns-GATE, Obama is now SLAMMING McCain on foreign policy!

Good stuff (well, horrible, scary stuff really, since our troops are still in the middle of it, but good reporting nonetheless-

Key U.S. Iraq strategy in danger of collapse

A sample, Courtesy of McClatchy

McCain continues to hammer Obama on his oppostion to the surge, claiming that "he would rather lose a war than a political campaign."

Gee, really?  Let's look back at who else was unpatriotic.

This one really peeves me. LDS Church-owned Deseret Morning News published this editorial cartoon today.

The surge did not work, and there are no credible, a-political, experts who believe it did.  Not in terms of the originally stated-goals, nor in any other quantifiable terms.

The only surge that worked was a corporate-media conspiracy to smear that canard like seagull shit and leave it to dry, unchallenged in the main-stream media.

By timran from Eyes on Obama:

Throughout the past few weeks, McCain has repeatedly demanded the bragging rights to the surge, and in the name of increasing Obama’s "regular guy" appeal, I think he should concede those bragging rights to Senator McCain.

John McCain has become so enamored of the surge in Iraq, which he has trademarked and owns exclusive rights to (and which did not lead to the Anbar Awakening), that it is now his answer to everything.  Last week he proposed a surge in our cities to keep the population under control.  He honestly believes that America needs armed government thugs on every corner.  Now he proposes an "Economic Surge."  John McCain says, "We'll fight those pesky market indicators with our own, better equipped market indicators.  We will bring war to every aspect of life in the United States.  We're going to have a Straight Surge to fight the Gays.  We're going to have a Religious Surge to fight every person who believes in the wrong things.  By God, we will definitely have a White Surge to combat the uppity Illinois Senator.  And thanks to Viagra, I will have a surge in my pants too."  (paraphrased)

Much more after the flip

McCain’s campaign has always been about the surge. He has nothing else. So to distract us and the media he will continue to attack Obama from all fronts. Sadly, it seems like his strategy is working. To combat this, Senator Obama should focus on what the war is costing us in lives and treasure and put McCain on defense. The real story of the Iraq war is far different that what McCain wants you to know.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds a staggering drop in the public awareness about fatalities in Iraq:
Public awareness of the number of American military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August. Today, just 28% of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war. As of March 10, the Department of Defense had confirmed the deaths of 3,974 U.S. military personnel in Iraq.
In August 2007, 54% correctly identified the fatality level at that time (about 3,500 deaths). In previous polls going back to the spring of 2004, about half of respondents could correctly estimate the number of U.S. fatalities around the time of the survey.

(refurbished content)

Iraq was feeling good. He had finally rid himself of the dreaded Saddamlophocus infection, his WMD levels were amazingly low, and his Violence Eruptus had stopped flaring up. Best of all, though, he was finally going to have that reconstruction he had been waiting for since 2003.

Yes, it was lucky times for Iraq:

The month's Iraqi civilian toll, though harder to count and still wretchedly high, will also be one of the lowest since the insurgency got going in 2004; some 500-odd violent civilian deaths were reported in July, compared with a tally of 3,700 at the height of sectarian mayhem two years ago. Irrespective of the different plans of the two American presidential candidates, a reduction of American troop numbers is also happening steadily, from 171,000 in October to 145,000 at last blush. At the same time, the size of the Iraqi forces is creeping up, from 115,000 two years ago to 229,000 today. This week the province of Kadisiya, south of Baghdad, became the tenth out of 18 to come under Iraqi, rather than American, operational command.

I couldn't let this line from a New York Times Op-Ed (written by usual suspects and Iraq War Cheerleaders, Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack)   go today:

Almost everyone now agrees there has been great progress in Iraq. The question is what to do about it.

Really? Everyone, or just the same mainstream media that was so complacent during the buildup to the war initially that they failed to question the fundamental reasons for going to war.

Both the Iraq surge and the off-shore drilling movement have parallels in that they openly short term tactical methods of slowing violence and oil speculation long enough to secure and make the GOP look good enough to a certain segment of the American people in time for November. Some independents and blue-collar workers. Trying to spend a lot of time explaining why both the surge and off-shore oil drilling won't work over time causes us to appear too complicated for the average voter to follow (because they don't see any results). So here's how we play the game, and why Obama is doing it right.

Here are a few things you should know about domestic drilling here at home.  The United States and its coastal areas has 3% - THREE PERCENT - of the world's oil reserves.  That's nothing, especially when you consider that we import 25% of the WORLD'S exports.

Oil companies don't drill unless a seismic survey shows it's pretty likely there's something there.  This is particularly true for offshore drilling, which is incredibly expensive and difficult.  So if the drilling ban is lifted, the oil companies usually WON'T drill even though they can.. because there is very little oil here in the US.