By now, we've all figured out that you guys are pissed about Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Berlin, his visit to Iraq and his media coverage. You think it's a bunch of unwarranted hype. You're free to go ahead and stew in the rancid juices of jealousy for the rest of the campaign, but know this:
It's your own damned fault.
That childish 'day counter' at GOP.com is one of the main reasons for Obama's hype. Without the goading from the GOP website and other republican megaphones of ignorance such as the sycophants at Fox News, this hype probably wouldn't exist. I say 'probably' just because I'm an open-minded lefty and I leave room for other possibilities (like Obama's brilliant campaign).
But if I were more like you, I would say something like this:
I have a nicely aged six foot cedar fence that runs across the back of my house. The backyard extends around 25 feet from the back of the house to the fence; the fence’s length along the back of the lot is close to 100 feet. The back fence, it keeps things out and keeps my dogs in. The north side connector fence is a cyclone fence, see-through and lacking in privacy.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
Our military has again gone above and beyond in their attempt to bring peace and stability to Iraq. They deserve our praise, respect and admiration. They and their families deserve our sincere gratitude for their many sacrifices. They overcame the obstacles placed before them by the Bush Administration's failure to plan for the aftermath of the invasion in Iraq, as well as the care of the soldiers and their families here at home.
Sen. McCain and his supporters are asking Sen. Obama to admit that Sen. McCain was right to call for more troops in Iraq and that the surge worked - he and the surge reduced violence.
Sen. McCain and his supporters see only two possible responses: either Sen. Obama says the surge worked - thanks to Sen. McCain's courage to stand up to the Bush Administration and the hard work and sacrifice of our military; or Sen. Obama has to say that the surge and our military failed. The truth is more simple than that. Sen. McCain knows this, yet now he is seeking credit for less violence while denying his role in supporting the mistakes that created, or at least failed to prevent, the violence in Iraq in the first place.
Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than previously thought, and could be less than five years away from having an atomic bomb, several senior American and Israeli officials say. "The date by which Iran will have nuclear weapons is no longer 10 years from now," a senior official said recently, referring to previous estimates. "If the Iranians maintain this intensive effort to get everything they need, they could have all their components in two years. Then it will be just a matter of technology and research. If Iran is not interrupted in this program by some foreign power, it will have the device in more or less five years."
Well I've just gotten home from the Obama rally, followed by a stop at the movie theater at Sony Center. I want to diary my experience at the rally and share some eyewitness details for all of you who were not able to attend. I do apologize that I don't have photos, but by the time I got there it was too dark to use my iPhone camera...
Axis of Evil By Jerome Grossman
President Bush has decided to abandon his long-standing position that his administration would not meet face-to-face with Iran until Tehran suspended its uranium enrichment program. A senior American official recently participated in talks with Iranian officials, the first such meeting since the seizure of the US Embassy by Iranian militants in Tehran in 1979.
There is one more John McCain gaffe that the media missed from the now famous CBS interview with Katie Couric.
This is the same interview in which McCain claimed the surge led to the Anbar Awakening, which is demonstrably false. But watch below for another gaffe when McCain says Iraq was the first major conflict after 9/11.
Apart from Sen. Barack Obama's trip abroad, the top political campaign story of the past two days has been the accuracy of a claim by Sen. John McCain concerning the "surge" in Iraq. McCain accused Obama of not knowing his history on this subject -- but Obama forces, bloggers and some media outlets quickly charged that it was McCain whose account of the timing of the "Anbar awakening" was false.
It then became a TV story when it was revealed that CBS had edited an interview with McCain on this subject, substituting his answer to the key question (where he allegedly got his facts wrong) with his reply to another one (an attack on Obama).
But The New York Times' summary today, in seeking "balancing" quotes, did not reveal the background of its key pro-McCain source.
As we all know on, Tuesday night during a CBS interview with Katie Couric, John McCain lied, or was mistaken about The Surge/Sunni-Anbar Awakening timeline in Iraq.
Unfortunately, as we found out CBS News, removed McCain's incorrect answer, kept the original question, then substituted the question, with a different answer.
Yesterday, in response (during the end of McCain's town hall meeting in Pennsylvania), he gave one of his most convoluted/confusing answers yet, on the Surge/Anbar Awakening (and I cried about it all day on Kos, lol)
Fortunately (for us), McCain repeated his bewildering explantion, in front of the Cheese Case (during a unscheduled interview), at the King Supermarket, in the Westgate Mall, in Bethleham, PA.
Remember (probably in embarrassment), he had cancelled a scheduled Press Conference yesterday.
"Barack Obama and his supporters can try to litigate what came first or what was crucial, but that's really an attempt to undermine the significance and the impact of the American troops and their sacrifice and their effort."
How fucking insulting to our troops, that getting history straight about how and why they're fighting can undercut their efforts. As if they're infantile hot-house flowers that wilt in the bright light of fact. Ugh.
I wasn't planning on posting anything today, have to much to do and other thoughts on my mind.
But yesterday I watched, as many have seen by now, someone who should have a much better understanding, above that of it's citizens, what this countries policies are and their implementation.
McClatchy has a couple of reports that hit on a couple of the Points of the 'surge':
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The International Olympic Committee has banned Iraq from competing in the upcoming Summer Olympics games because of what it says is political interference by the government in sports.
An Iraqi Olympic Committee official said the IOC sent letters in Arabic and English confirming the ban.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news for the McCain campaign, but there already is genocide in Iraq. At minimum, around 90,000 civilians have already been killed in the past five years, and those figures are very conservative.
According to Iraqbodycount.org,Iraqbodycount.orgthe number of dead Iraqi citizens is as of this morning between 86,171 and 94,031. Other organizations have much higher numbers of dead Iraqis,including ta study by Johns Hopkins University which estimated as many as 600,000 Iraqis have been killed in the conflict. Regardless of which body count figure is used, the point is that genocide in Iraq has happened, is happening and will happen in the future UNLESS the United States brings its troops home.
Responding to criticism for their unprofessional and unethical editing of a Katie Couric interview with John McCain, CBS News Senior Vice President Paul Friedman said:
The report was edited under extreme time constraints and one piece of tape was put in the wrong order. Fortunately, this did not in any way distort what Senator McCain was saying.
Clearly, Mr. Friedman is either stupid or a liar. Roll the tape:
Perhaps Mr. Friedman can explain how replacing McCain's incorrect claim about when the "Anbar Awakening" began and his mocking of Obama for not knowing this "matter of history," with a contemptible attack on Obama's patriotism didn't distort what McCain said.
The Washington Post has the Silent Posting article buried in the World News section. The article is a four page description of the man's work and the work of his unit known as the "Gravediggers".
Since he was ordered to silence the blog, his fiancee has taken it over and keeps the faithful readers up todate with the unit. The blog was not ordered down due to OPSEC it was supposedly for the fact the one post in question was not approved by a superior officer, the post was about a higher ranking officer wanting him to accept a lateral promotion, which LT G did not want. The Army felt he was ridiculing the officer.
