National Alarm Clock

After hearing some of McCain's remarks today speaking to the VFW, I was disappointed to see the rhetoric continue as if the Russia-Georgia affair didn't have any affect on our foreign policy prospects. As my Dad alluded to a few days ago, this ought to be setting off alarm bells: has the Iraq war so weakened us that Russia believes it can invade any of its neighbors with impunity? Does Russia believe it can safely ignore the President of the United States?

Not only has the Iraq war physically weakened our military, it has also forced us to cede the moral high ground -- we can't (with a straight face) demand that Russia not go around unilaterally invading countries.

Furthermore, by putting our military in such an untenable situation, it has given the rest of the world the impression that we are weak. The great United States can't even take care of a country as small and pathetic as Iraq. Had we shown restraint and stayed out of Iraq, no such impression would exist. Perhaps the most important function of our military is its ability to deter other countries from military action. Russia, clearly, doesn't feel deterred by our military at this time.

So, with all of that in mind, it was especially disillusioning to see Senator McCain resume his campaign of calling for "victory" in Iraq and accusing Obama of wanting to "lose" the war, whatever the hell that means.

McCain's advisers are cynically banking that the American people won't notice any of the above. They continue to aim their rhetoric at the lowest common denominator -- Americans whose knowledge of world affairs doesn't go much past the ability to point to Russia on a map and who get their news from People Magazine Television (er... CNN).

We've got to get the American people to wake up. I sure hope Obama has a plan.

CNN Newsworthy Event of the Day

It's a tie!

McCain's Op Ed That Wasn't

Today, the New York Times declined to print an op-ed piece by John McCain. I have to say that I don't think any major newspaper ought to be turning down an article from a major candidate; however, I was extremely curious to see what exactly in the article was so offensive to the Times. Naturally, the McCain campaign has already posted the article at other venues already and will undoubtedly use this to bludgeon the Times into oblivion.

I think I may have found the passage the Times objected to:

To make this point, [Obama] mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

But, here is the quote from Maliki:

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Senator McCain, it is my duty to inform you that your pants are on fire.

McCain will tell you that the Iraqis have since pulled back from that statement, but evidence has emerged that they only pulled back after much pressure from the White House. Also, McCain is insinuating that Maliki never said anything like that.

A few paragraphs down, McCain leads with this gem: "No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges." Wow. It sounds like John McCain wants to cut and run instead of staying the course. Also, didn't he say something about 100 years and that leaving would be surrender? In today's article, McCain says he hopes to have most of our troops home by the end of his first term.

Here's another one:

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war?only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us.

McCain loves this line. He wants to win the war! But what the hell does that mean? I don't think we're going to be getting the terrorists to sit down with us to sign a treaty. Now, you'd think that the fact that McCain is backing away from his original position and moving towards Obama's might dissuade him from accusing Obama of being for surrender. But not John McCain. He's so honest and independent that he can copy the other guy's plan, and then accuse him of surrendering to the terrorists.

The influence of McCain's new Karl Rove surrogate advisors is beginning to surface. A Rovian campaign believes it can say anything it wants whenever it wants and get away with it. I sincerely hope he is not able to convince the public that he has been for withdrawing troops from Iraq since the beginning.

As for the NY Times, I suppose they must have decided that they're not willing to print a whole bunch of bald face lies, no matter who penned them. I can't imagine this ending well for the Times. After all, they printed an op-ed piece by Obama just last week. If it had been my call, I would have run McCain's piece, but I also would have included a small fact-check in the adjacent column.

What digby (and Jimmy Carter) said

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/mourning-in-america-by-digby-jonathan.html

Let's go Rangers!!

Rangers are now 38-26 since May 1 -- a .593 winning percentage, the same winning percentage the Angels have on the year. If only the Rangers had been only moderately terrible in April...

FISA

Jonathan Turley, a man my Dad believes to be a preeminent authority on the Constitution, today on the new FISA bill.

The argument for it is quite simple. Nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the President committed a felony -- not once, but at least thirty times. That's a very inconvenient fact right now in Washington.
...
It's like one of those stories where someone is assaulted on the street and 100 witnesses do nothing. And, in this case, the 4th amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow and 100 people are going to watch it happen because it's just not their problem.

When you talk about expanding the President's power, it's coming out of the morrow of the 4th amendment; it's coming out of the bone. And it's going to hurt. And it's being done for political convenience. There's not an ounce of principle, not an ounce of public interest in this legislation.
...
[The telecoms] are going to have a great victory. But it's a pyrrhic victory for the rest of us and what we will lose tomorrow is something very precious. It's going to be part of the 4th amendment. And that is beyond measure.

That Senators Feingold, Leahy, and Dodd's opposition to this bill is seen by most legislators as politically risky, is a reminder of how far our country has to go to cleanse itself of the stench left by the Bush administration. In our current political climate, the 4th amendment, like the Geneva Conventions, has been "rendered quaint" by the Global War on Terror(tm).

I suppose I have no choice but to trust Barack Obama's political senses. He obviously believes the backlash from GOP attack ads would be an unnecessary burden for his campaign. In exchange for that trust, I expect President Obama to urgently restore the 4th amendment after he takes office. Of course, that lets the guilty actors in the Bush administration and the complicit telecom companies -- who have likely committed felonies -- off the hook. As much as I hate to see Bush get away with this, it is more important that we restore the rule of law and not allow this illegal program to continue for one day after Bush leaves office.

What hypocrites we must look like to the rest of the world. America -- the beacon of Democracy in the world -- allows its government to openly violate the supreme law of the land; allows its President to incarcerate any man for any reason for any length of time; allows its military to torture prisoners using techniques developed by Communist China to obtain confessions from American prisoners. Meanwhile, our population is more interested in what Paris Hilton did last weekend than any of that stuff.

It is, truly, a sad state of affairs.

Gaggle of Douchebags

Jon Stewart wonders what our government's classification of North Korea is now that they are dismantling their nuclear program.