God, the McCain camp's a bunch of whiners.

Maybe it would be nice for the troops to meet their next President.

"The Republican argument that the Dems want to pull out of Iraq regardless of the allegedly improving reality on the ground there is the GOP's best shot at fighting back against the Dem mirror-image argument, which is that the Repubs are committed to saying there forever regardless of reality. The battle is joined."
Watch out now. Remember what happend when 'Baghdad' Jim McDermott visited...he came back a changed man...well until Harry and the boys got him alone in the cloak room.

When things are bad in Iraq:

"It's terrible over here! We can't leave!"

When things are not as bad:

"It's going so well. We can't leave!"

No matter the conditions, republicans will never want us to leave.

If he's as smart as he seems, he's going to go to Afghanistan too, and the facts on the ground are going to show him that the security situation in Iraq is marginally better, but that the political situation is still a giant McCain/Bush inspired mess, and what's worse, all of the troops in Iraq that are propping up that security marginally have meant we don't have enough troops in Afghanistan where our enemies actually are and where the security situation is crumbling.

It's funny how someone can go to Iraq with their minds all made up and then accuse other people of doing the same thing when they haven't even gone yet. Lest we forget the Baghdad market stroll as a prime example of what the McCain campaign is accusing the Obama campaign of. And don't forget that general Petraeus goes out in an un-armored hum-vee.

Yeah, right. If only Obama had accepted McCain's offer of a buddy trip. THAT would've meant something. Something different than a box. It would have been a circle.

A simple question for Senator Janus McCain:

Have any of your many visits to Baghdad, ever changed your mind on the occupation, and if they did not, then why the hell did you keep on going, except for photo ops?. Answer that Senator Janus McCain!

What "box" would this trip be checking, exactly? He's already been to Iraq, so I don't really get whey they're trying to say.

well of course we're committed to pulilng out of iraq as soon as possible.

it is not in any way, shape, or form, in our strategic interest to stay there! just like it was not in any way, shape, or form in our strategic interest to go in there in the first place!

McCain and his campaign just don't get it.

McCain's bunch come across as the Three Stooges. They can't get out of their own way.

McCain camp, Two weeks ago:
Can you believe Obama hasn't even BEEN to Iraq [this year]? Whassamatta, Obama? Scared? We invite you to come to Iraq with McCain! Hey, look, Obama hasn't agreed to go to Iraq with McCain--is he CHICKEN? How can he talk about Iraq? Vote McCain; he visits Iraq.

McCain camp, Today:
Can you believe Obama is going to Iraq!? What a pansy, just doing it for political purposes. It's not like he'll change his mind anyway. Vote McCain; he's consistent.

Oh.
My.
God.

No wonder he had the reputation of being a schoolyard bully and was called McNasty.

Another example of McCain doing the flip-flop. First, Obama is not being responsible because he hasn't visited Iraq in (quick, check the Obama clock) days.

Now, Obama is going to Iraq solely for political theatre.

McCain is an old, grumpy, set in his ways, somewhat-non-conformist Republican who is unable of thinking outside of the box. McCain, a less than stellar military man (yeah, he suffered as a POW, I got it), wants to show he's still got the balls to kick someone's ass. Iraq, Iran, someone.

McCain is so big business he doesn't realize that his promotion of free-trade agreements and visits to emerging South American markets is very low on Joe & Mary Citizen's list of priorities. He is so hooked into big business he can't think for himself and will do everything he possibly can to help his fat cat friends and corporate sponsors make lots of money off the backs of Joe & Mary while not having to pay a fair percentage of tax.

The McCain camp should be referred to as CAMP DESPERATION in all future correspondence.

I can guarantee you that Obama will not find Iraq to have been adequately pacified by the surge to acquiesce in a US presence for the next 100 years without any US casualties. McCain has stated that as his goal. So he needs to say how he will achieve that goal and where the resources will come from. This means he needs to be knowledgeable about things like troop levels and about the ways that military resources are stretched in multiple parts of the world.

What is achievable in Iraq? What will it cost us to achieve it? Those are the questions Obama can gain information about in Iraq. The answers to those questions will guide how Obama follows through on his consistent commitment to "get out less recklessly than we went in", but what he should not do is declare as McCain has done that pacification is the only honorable outcome for the US. When Obama questioned Petraeus before Congress his question was how we can get to "messy but stable" as we begin to give our overstretched military some relief and refocus our military resources on capturing or killing bin Laden and strengthening the government in Afghanistan against the increasingly powerful Taliban. That seems like a much better, more pragmatic, more realist approach than McCain's commitment to the Bush/neocon vision of Iraq becoming an ME version of South Korea.

It's weird that McCain himself pretty much said that the Bush/neocon vision was a pipe dream when he appeared on the Charlie Rose show in Nov 2007. Maybe he'll start trying to back off the "100 years" stuff and try to move away from Bush and towards Obama on Iraq, but that will be difficult to do while calling Obama "naive" on foreign policy. People will ask: If Obama is so naive then why is McCain trying to reposition himself closer to Obama and further from Bush? McCain's way out of this quandry is to introduce the issue of execution. He's like Bush in policy, but not incompetent at carrying it out. But that doesn't get him out of the "100 years" problem because that's a policy issue, and it's a policy he told Charlie Rose it would be difficult to achieve no matter how competently attempted.

Iraq isn't more secure. We bought off one side who was fighting us and set them against another. The other side simply stopped fighting and is in a holding pattern to see what political concessions they can get. All of them are still armed and retain the bulk of their command and control structure with the ability to start fighting each other or us if they feel it necessary. The real question in iraq is: how long are we willing (and able) to buy 'loyalty' and 'peace'? Or put another way, what happens when the money stops flowing? Historically speaking, paying off your enemies has never been a successful long-term solution. Usually the price just goes up to a point where you can't afford it and you find yourself having to deal with the same threat you feared before except it's worse because now your enemy has more resources and you have fewer.

Meanwhile, as most intelligent observers said beforehand, Afghanistan is a wreck. why? because they is no comprehensive political reconciliation that can take place when the one of the largest tribes is an absolute loser in terms of territory and power and views it (rightfully so) as a zero-sum game for all the marbles. In case anyone is wondering or has thought about it, the trajectory of our adventure in afghanistan is eerily similar to that of the soviets. after about 5 years all the happy talk ceases. then you realize these guys aren't going anywhere and are STILL there killing anyone who works with you or against them. The people in the region remember it well. They know those guys will be there whenever we decide it's not worth the price and leave like we always do. they don't forget no matter how much we do. It's the old formula: how many new enemies does each dead enemy create? We can (and will) keep killing them but how many more are replacing them?? Starting to sound a lot like that oh so successful War on Drugs, huh? how's that one working out?

i thought the same thing about the Columbia story and that it was interesting that McCain was there at the same time. but it appears to have been planned for a long while and he had nothing to do with it. but im sure he'll attempt to spin it to his advantage anyway. lets just wait. and the press will let him do it too.

Obama's pick for VP should be...

find that and much more here:

http://darkcomedyhour.com/dcmacdaddy/

This is all puppetry, anyone who has bothered to listen to John McCain in the last few months can clearly see that he is nowhere near presidential material...hell, I wouldn't hire him to suck farts out of movie seats.

Christ people, this is the best the Repubs can do? I'd suggest not screwing this pooch...If the Dems can't win this year with Obama vs. McCain, the Democratic party needs to be disbanded and studied by future political scientists on how pathetically stupid the citizens of the US were at one point.