Believe it or not, the McCain Campaign, as reported by MSNBC, has just released a statement claiming that John McCain's timeline on the Iraq Surge vs the Sunni Awakening is the correct one.
"McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said late Tuesday, ‘Democrats can debate whether the awakening would have survived without the surge ... but that is nothing more than a transparent effort to minimize the role of our commanders and our troops in defeating the enemy, because to credit them would be to disparage the judgment of Barack Obama and praise the leadership of John McCain.’"
Are you kidding me? It doesn't minimize our troops, McCain is minimizing the efforts and success of the Iraqis, because if they're remain "incompetent" he can have his glorious 100 Year Occupation. Problem is, they aren't incompetent and the everyone has started to realize that would be Emperor McCain isn't wearing a stitch.
As I've long suspected based on various reports coming forward, it appears that during the testimony of John Ashcroft before Congress that high profile detainees such as Abu Zubaydah were abused, tortured and waterboarded months before the Bybee and Yoo Memos offering legal justification for such actions were even written.
But during questioning, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., pointed out that the abuse of Zubaydah had reportedly begun weeks, if not months, earlier. "Did you offer legal approval of interrogation methods used at that time ... prior to August 2002?"
"I have no recollection of doing that at all," Ashcroft responded. He added that he did not remember anyone else at the Justice Department doing so either. He said later in the hearing that Zubaydah’s interrogation "was done without the opinion that was issued on the first of August."
Yes, it may be too ironic to believe - but here it is in black, white and Youtube.
Rove: [T]hey’ve got a very callous view about our nation’s security and interests.
...
Well, I read their explanation. And basically, it sounded to me like they were saying we put his name out there because we decided we could. And I mean, they didn’t have a good explanation for it.
Bad Grand Ole' Lady - Bad Bad!
So just who was this agent and why did they name him? Details over the flip.
Following the reported comments by McCain Senior adviser Charlie Black to Fortune Magazine that another terrorist attack would be a "Big Advantage" for the McCain Campaign, Thinkprogress has uncovered that contrary to McCain recent denials of Black's statements...
McCain: If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree."
U.S. Sen. John McCain, campaigning in southwestern Connecticut on Saturday, said Osama bin Laden’s video message to Americans will likely energize President Bush’s re-election campaign.
"I think it’s very helpful to President Bush," said McCain, R-Ariz., while stumping in Stamford for U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays. "It focuses America’s attention on the war on terrorism. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but I think it does have an effect." [AP, 10/30/04]
The DC Court of Appeals just handed Bush a major smackdown on his terrorism policy - they (may have laid the groundwork for) establishing that there's no such thing as an "Enemy Combatant"
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court, in the first case it reviewed, has overturned the Pentagon's classification of a Guantanamo detainee as an enemy combatant.
...
The court rejected the Bush administration's argument that the president has the power to detain people who never took up arms against the U.S.
This decision probably won't affect insurgent fighters captured on the field of battle, but it could affect non-combatants those captured via informants or surveillance, and following the Supreme Court's recent restoration of Habaeus Corpus, it seems unlikely that they would overturn and reverse this decision - and if taken to it's ultimate conclusion, the implications to the Bush Administration could be devastating.
That's 344 Electoral Votes for Obama to 194 for McCain. Things are looking up, but what is becoming inceasingly clear is that this electoral lead is built on some rather short stilts.
You're not likely to hear this in the corporate media, but as of yesterday Obama has taken a massive lead on McCain in the one area that truly matters.
After finally moving ahead in Michigan, and following some corrections on Indiana, Barack Obama is turning five former Red States Blue (Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Missouri & Ohio) and now has a 304 to 221 Electoral Vote Lead over John McCain.
With the final concession and endorsement of Hillary Clinton, the Nomination process has ended and the General Election has finally begun.
So, as we start the last leg in the fight for the White House just where do we stand with Obama v McCain?
Although they been battling it out in the polls for months, the latest indications from Gallup are that as of this week Barack Obama has pulled into the lead ahead of John McCain 48% to 42%.
The problem of course with this poll and much of the talk in the corporate media pitting one demographic group against another (young voters vs old voters, educated vs uneducated, black vs women, men vs women) is the fact the we don't elect our President based on national or demographic polls - in the long run none of that data really matters.
What matters is the Electoral college, and it's when we look at that map that things get a tad more interesting.
Unless something dramatic and miraculous happens, this will be my last post about HRC until after November.
On the night that Barack Obama was declared the presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee, Hillary Clinton made these statements...
Who will be ready to take back the White House and take charge as commander-in-chief and lead our country to better tomorrows?
People in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the territories, all had a chance to make your voices heard. And on election day after election day, you came out in record numbers to cast your ballots. Nearly 18 million of you cast your votes for our campaign, carrying the popular vote with more votes than any primary candidate in history.
And this:
In all of the states, you voted because you wanted a leader who will stand up for the deepest values of our party, a party that believes everyone should have a fair shot at the American dream, a party that cherishes every child, values every family, and counts every single vote.
Translation per clammyc: Dallasdoc: I really won, and we were robbed.
The Democratic Nomination is over, except for it not being over.
Barack Obama is now the Presumptive Nominee for President of The United States. At least until the convention.
In the meanwhile, we have a strong second place finish by Candidate Hillary Clinton who has yet to acknowledge Obama's win, and yet to suspend her campaign and yet to concede defeat.
It's only been a single day, but instead of rallying her troops in solidarity with Barack to the greater fight that awaits us, by all indications and certainly based on her speech last night - Hillary Clinton is still in it to win it.
So what should Obama and his supporters do about this?
As the AP has reported, the Democratic Primary race is now effectively over.
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, becoming the first black candidate to lead a major party into a campaign for the White House. Vanquished rival Hillary Rodham Clinton swiftly signaled an interest in joining the ticket as running mate.
Tonight, or at worst case tomorrow, Obama will achieve the magic Number - but the question remains, particularly if Obama does not immediately reciprocate her push to be VP, while Clinton and put Country and Party ahead of her own personal aspirations and finally begin doing the right thing?
Will she put down the sword and pick up the plowshare to start reinvesting in the the party infrastructure and unity - or will she continue to refuse to concede and still "take this alll the way to the convention" as Harold Ickes threated to do just three days ago?
One of Hillary's strongest and most ardent supporters, Governor Tom Vilsack - Hillary's National Campaign Co-Chair - has said it's time for Hillary to Give it UP.
(CNN) – Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, one of Hillary Clinton's most ardent supporters, said Sunday it's time for Hillary Clinton to acknowledge she has lost her bid for the Democratic nomination.
Vilsack, who was briefly a presidential candidate himself last year, told the Associated Press it's "pretty clear that Senator Obama is going to be the nominee."
"After Tuesday's contests, she needs to acknowledge that he's going to be the nominee and quickly get behind him," Vilsack also said.
You can't make a horse drink from water he doesn't want, you can't make someone accept an outstretched hand toward unity if they just plain don't want it, and you can't convince people of facts and realities they just refuse to accept.
In this video Clinton's Campaign Manager Harold Ickes accuses the Obama campaign of theft, and even suggests the Hillary could still win the nomination with the support of the remaining uncommitted delegates. As of now she needs 240 out of the remaining 290 total uncommitted Super and Pledged Delegates.
That's 82.9%
In what bizarro upside-down world is that likely to happen?
No one was going to push Hillary out of this race, except Hillary. No one was going to invent some genius argument, that was going to convince her or her supporters that her candidacy had to end - she had to do it herself.
Of course, it's not going to end. It's going to limp on for a few more weeks, it might even get worse for her as she attempts, as she has so many times before, to lash out at the invisible enemies who have so spitefully held her back, and blocked her inevitable coronation.
It had to finally be revealed that Hillary's greatest foe, her greatest downfall, is Hillary.
That incredible font of Patriotism Laura Ingraham has apparently responded to Keith Olbermann's taunt - "Why do you hate our troops" with the following.
Her claim here, using the site "Olbermannwatch" as her source is that Keith is a liar, and that he really did mean to insult our U.S. troops when he mentioned "Cold=Blooded Killers" in the Iraq War and wasn't simply throwing Bush's ridiculous rhetoric at the Knesset right back at him in reference to BlackWater.
Is that or it is that not so stupid it makes your head hurt?
The argument that simply speaking with the leaders of countries we disagree with being "appeasement", some type of surrender or traitorous behavior is simply ridiculous on it's face. It's false bravado, bully diplomacy done at the barrel of a gun and the dull plodding thoughtlessness of a charging Rhino.
Most High School students, those with a better knowledge of Presidential History than Dana Perino, understand that Kennedy talked to Kruschev. Nixon talked to Mao, Reagan talked to Gorbachev, George H.W. Bush (via Rumsfeld) talked to Saddam, Bill Clinton's people talked to Jerry Adams and Milosevic, and George W. Bush's Administration has talked to both Qaddafi, Lil Kim Jong Il and the leaders of the Sunni Awakening.
It's taken me a bit of time to come to this conclusion. I've carefully considered the issue of post nomination Party Reconciliation and whether or not we may need to a Shotgun Marriage to repair the wounds that have been gouged into the Democratic Party by this Primary Season.
But I've finally realized we don't need to break out the spackle, silly putty and super glue in order to re-stitch the Democratic party back together. With Barack Obama's candidacy we ourselves are Becoming the Change that we need.
Hillary Clinton is a fine candidate, and a fine politician - but she is shown herself to clearly be a politician of the past with her use of divide and conquer, fear-mongering, crush and smear tactics.
It's time we moved away from that kind of politics, and that kind of country. It's time we embraced the future - and that future is President Barack Obama.
