Supporting the Iraq War is the original sin. It's the judgment that Obama can use to trump McCain. It boggles my mind that he hasn't been using it much these last couple months.

It's time to re-visit that original decision, for Obama to explain why supporting it (cheerleading for it, leading the way to make sure everyone voted for it, the way McCain did) is a disqualifying moment for McCain...and tying it back to the economy.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

It's pretty obvious based on the track record that McCain is a big supporter of the so-called Leeden Doctrine:

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

That partly helps to explain Kosovo and Iraq; war for the sake of showing dominance. And that needs to be driven home - as an obvious fatal flaw of the neocon worldview - by Obama.

http://pufferfish.typepad.com/

Politics as a Rambo movie. Haven't people had enough of this crap? And anybody who even comes close to being a believer in the Ledeen Doctrine - and I believe McCain is one of these people - needs to be kept as far away from the Oval Office as possible. As I'm sure we all remember, McCain was the neo-cons' boy until he lost the nomination in 2000. They only settled on Bush because they had no other choice and got lucky because the guy has a daddy complex and a childish desire to play cowboy.

I think it's an interesting idea to keep the foreign policy topic but try to throw the ball back at McCain.

I'm just not sure it's a smart idea or that it's going to work. McCain OWNS national security now. For Obama to push back on him with Iraq will mean only one thing: SURGE IS WORKING. And he won't have anything to say.

The media only covers what either campaign pushes. McCain is pushing a lot more on the media and thus they're getting the coverage they want. The Media has 24 hour/7days a week coverage they need to fill and "No Drama Obama" doesn't fill the news. McCain is giving them Britney and Paris, his smear web ads, complete access to surrogates ready to discuss any and all issues. Obama is always on the issues, and the issues don't pull the ratings.

Fellow Obama supporters, enough with the handwringing. We nearly passed out from hyperventilation when the Clinton campaign got Samantha Power's resignation and HRC began talking about the "Commander-in-Chief threshold." Obama's campaign steered him through that, through Reverend Wright, through "Obama's not a Muslim, as far as I know," the Somali garb photo, and everything else. His campaign is being run by professionals.

Here is what I think is going to happen:
1) The campaign is going to keep their responses fairly restrained this week. Doesn't mean they won't strike back, but it won't be as shrill as McCain's campaign is right now.
2) They are going to go into the convention with a lot of positive energy. That's an absolute key in cementing the narrative: Obama is an all-American family man, not the oh-so-feared angry black man (even if his anger is directed at an imbecilic war-monger who is slandering him).
3) VP selection.
4) Obama campaign, VP included, kicks in the media offensive into gear.
5) As the campaign heats up, Obama raises over $100 million in September.

On that last point, I stopped donating for a few months after the primary because I had donation-fatigue and nothing was really pissing me off in the way that Clinton's attacks had. Now that McCain is ramping up the sleaze machine, I'm starting to get angry again and my money has once again started flowing to Obama. All my donations up until now have been for $50-$100, and I gave $50 last month. Watching McCain try to re-ignite the cold war, call Obama treasonous, and refer to "President Putin of Germany" has me thinking it may be time to drop $1,000 into the Obama campaign.

John McCain scares the heck out of me. He has said he would still go into Iraq today even if he knew then what he knows now. This tells me he has no problem with invading any country he sees fit. He has no problem with the go it alone strategy. He has no problem with fighting 2 or more wars at a time. He has no problem sending our troops anywhere in the world without the essential equipment, proper training, or proper exit strategy to get us out. This is what I hear when John McCain says the Iraq war was a good idea. If I were running Obama's campaign I would counter McCain's crap Obama doesn't want to win the Iraq war, with McCain has lost credibility when he claims He would repeat the same course the Bush doctrine says that invading Iraq was and still is a good thing. We have lived thru almost 8 years of Bush cowboy mentallity. We don't need 4 more years. I find it hard to believe how any American could fall for this crap that talking tough in a campaign means we will be safe. We are not safer today politically or with our economy. He knows nothing about the economy, so where I sit his whole presidency will be war, war, war. (bomb, bomb, bomb Iran).

Another warmonger Arizona Senator running for president. Time to revisit the "Daisy Ad".
In your guts, you know he's nuts.
Extremism in the defense of John McCain is todays' vice.

McCain has no ideas beyond the military. In April, he said his solution to America's education problems is to bring military people into schools. He calls it "Troops to Teachers"
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/04/at_his_high_sch.html

I'm not sure I agree that this was a good article at all.

While the substance of it-- McCain's war talk, the misdirection from Al Qaeda--speaks to his idiocy--I the article is framed remarkably uncritically. It repeats the "straight talk" bullshit, it subjectively chooses to characterize McCain in terms of being a war "hero" (which I still fail to see)rather than a corrupt Keating Five leftover (granted it could be ironic--but the info just isn't there to force that reading); this phrase: "the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan" leaves it implicit that there was actually AQ involvement in Iraq/Iran.

When it finally hits a critical graf, it's in terms of vague "critics" rather than a flat recognition that everything he said and advocated was at odds with reality. This is a McCain whitewash piece--it just depends on you not to know the facts, and invites readers to ignore them in favor of partisan perceptions.

The info may be damning, but it's still the bland Times left-right horse race style. It's shit.
-j

Another in the list of things the corporate *#$%@s will avoid like the plague (which Obama and his campaign would have railed against, ala the tree in the forest):

http://thepage.time.com/2008/08/18/obama-team-blasts-mccain-fundraiser-with-ralph-reed/

This is important to get out. I never heard this before today but heard it from several sources today. This demonstrates why this man should not be in charge of our military. He was ready to go after Saddam Husesien and to war with Iraq with absolutely no cause, no suspicion of WMD's. He just wanted to go get them. He is a dangerous man.

Obama should be crucifying McCain over the latter's eagerness to go to war in, Iraq of all the unlikely benighted places. Why isn't this happening?

McCain said it would take "three weeks" to win. Only reason I know that is from reading the posters on this site. Why?!