Predictably, the Iraqi government doesn’t like the fact that there are foreign troops in their country. Today while in Iraq, Senator Obama sat down with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to discuss the state of Iraq. After the meeting, al-Maliki’s spokesman said “We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq.” This discounts the idea that Der Spiegel mistranslated al-Maliki’s statement about an American withdrawal. Al-Maliki’s Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi echoed this statement and said that he would be happy if American troops left by December 31st, 2010. This is a fairly similar timeline to the one proposed by Obama earlier in the campaign cycle.

Despite this, McCain still opposes withdrawal despite a saying in April of 2004 that “It is obvious we would have to leave if they asked us to leave. This once again leaves Obama looking like he can see what has to be done with McCain looking like he’s behind the times.

President Bush has agreed to set a nebulous “time horizon” to(as he said) “cut and run.” Bush agreed to(as he once said) “raise the white flag of surrender” in the wake of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s statement that he wanted to see American troops leave Iraq. This is in sharp contrast to the Bush administration’s previous opposition to Democratic plans to begin to leave Iraq. In fact, the Bush administration still opposes the more specific plans proposed by the Democrats. They argue that the difference between the plans is that Democratic party’s plan is an arbitrary time table while the new Bush plan is a “time horizon” based on what’s happening on the ground.  This of course ignores the fact that the reason the Democratic party and Barack Obama support a careful timeline based on events on the ground is that the war has been failing.

The Bush administration’s justification for their pivit is that the Surge has worked. This of course is false because the objective of the Surge was to bring about political reconciliation. Instead the Kurds have walked out of the parliament and that Baath Party members are still not able to fully participate in the government. In other words, the Surge brought about security gains, but failed to meet its objective.

A few months ago, President Bush said that anyone who was willing to meet with Iran was seeking “the false comfort of appeasement.” Well, now the Bush administration has sent its third highest ranking diplomat to Switzerland to have six-way talks with Iran. The talks are intended to get Iran to stop enriching nuclear materials. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino tried to spin away the fact that this shows hypocrisy on Bush’s part:

“We will be there to listen. We are not there to negotiate. And our long-standing principle, that Iran must halt its uranium enrichment before negotiations can take place, remains the same. It’s also been referred to as freeze-to-freeze _ if they were to freeze their enrichment, then we would not move forward with the consequences of not accepting the (incentives) package, which are more sanctions,”

Unfortunately for Mrs. Perino, hypocrisy is harder to spin away than that and most people seem to recognize that Bush now must view himself as equivalent a Nazi appeaser if he is to be intellectually consistent. Of course, his original statement that negotiation automatically equals appeasement is false but unless Bush admits that, he has to see himself as an appeaser.

This also supports the Obama candidacy as he has been calling for strong diplomacy with Iran and this is a first step along that path.

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by jim.greenhill who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from jim.greenhill.

Okay, so he doesn’t actually have an R next to his name. However, today he has shown again why he should end the charade and show his true self with an R. In a speech in front of the Center for U.S. Global Engagement and full of McCain campaign talking points, Senator Lieberman depicted Senator Obama as a foolish politician with dangerous policies. My critiques will be italicized in red:

“I’ve been following Sen. Obama’s comments in this campaign and particularly in the last months since the primaries were over, And I wish he would just say that the surge has worked.It hasn’t. The surge was supposed to create political reconciliation and that hasn’t happened. He doesn’t have to give credit to John McCain or anyone else. He can give credit to General Petraeus and the troops who have carried it out. I wish he would acknowledge the surge is working, rather than changing his position on how and when we should exit Iraq He never changed his position on Iraq., without acknowledging that these are changes of positions that are understandably based on conditions on the ground. A president’s credibility is based on the courage of his or her convictions, his or her acceptance of reality, and consistency of views are critical elements of national leadership. A president who squanders those does so at our nation’s peril.Of course, President Bush has squandered them as the Iraq war has created more terrorists. Sen. Obama said this morning that he wants a foreign policy that is tough, smart and principled, this afternoon I want to ask my colleague who I respect and like a couple of direct questions: Was it tough when Sen. Obama voted to order U.S. troops to retreat from Iraq on a fixed timeline regardless of the recommendations of our military commanders or conditions on the ground?Recent polling has shown that the American people want us to leave Iraq, so it would simply be the President obeying the will of the people as he’s supposed to. Was it smart when Sen. Obama opposed the surge and predicted that it would fail to improve our security? Of course, that’s exactly what happened. … Was it tough and principled when Sen. Obama said he would be open to changing his plan on Iraq He never said this. He only said he would refine his position, which implies far smaller movements such as the speed of withdrawal or which troops will be drawn out first. after going there and talking to General Petraeus, which I think was the right position, only to change that position hours later after being heatedly criticized by organizations like MoveOn.org? I say respectfully the answer to all those questions is, no.”

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by dbking who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from dbking.

This is fairly late, but Tony Snow died over the weekend of cancer. He was 53. His family’s loss has been mourned by people of varying political ideologies. On the Right, the President released a statement expressing his sympathies:

“The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character, it was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day.”

On the Left, Elizabeth Edwards’ wrote an article about Snow’s death which draws on her personal experience with cancer. Some of what she says in the article is:

“Tony Snow has died. And lots of people who valued the same things Tony did—a family well-loved and work well-done—have died and will die of colon cancer, those who have preceded Tony and those who will follow him. Can’t we start with something easy on which we can agree? That no one should die of a disease we can find and stop? And when we agree—and agree to do something about it—then we can move on toward those fault lines, like Tony, not taking no for an answer.”

MSNBC host and Bush administration critic Keith Olbermann has also expressed his sympathies:

“Tony Snow was an optimistic, funny, and courageous man who could set aside his politics and inspire others to do the same. It might surprise many at all political points, but while we could not have disagreed more on policy, we were in frequent contact, even during his days as Press Secretary, even as I was criticizing his work and he was — in his own words — yelling at the screen as he watched. It was with great sadness that I heard of his death today, and with sincerity I extend my condolences and my staff’s to his family. In the best of us, there is a difference between the message and the messenger, and Tony Snow epitomized that.”

The end of Olbermann’s statement says it all. We should remember that a good person can be the messenger of a message that we disagree with completely and it seems like that was the case with Mr. Snow. He was a good man, though from my perspective, a misguided one.

The cover of this week’s issue of the New Yorker depicts Barack Obama in Arabic(ie: Muslim to most people) garb performing a “terrorist fist jab” with Michelle Obama, who is dressed like a Black Panther. Behind them, the US flag and a picture of Osama Bin Laden hangs over the fireplace. The New Yorker’s defense of the cover is that it “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”

His point is well seen, but nothing on the cover references the fear mongers. This lack of context means that the same people who have fallen for misinformation and scare tactics will think the New Yorker is verifying their point of view. I’m not saying the New Yorker shouldn’t be able to publish this. Nor am I saying that the New Yorker has to be positive towards Obama. I’m simply saying that the New Yorker should be above reinforcing the fears of the right. I do assume that regular readers of the New Yorker would get the point. However, this cover will be seen by many who would never read the New Yorker due to how incendiary it is.

A magazine with the reputation of the New Yorker should act more responsibly.

Edit at 11:40 AM, July 15, 2008: I’ve been thinking more about it and it seems to me that the problem is simply in the execution. If, as an example, they had put the scene in a thought bubble coming from a scared stereotypical white man the satire would be clearer and it would be far more difficult for it to be misinterpreted. Of course, even if was done badly, The New Yorker has a right to say it which is something we should be happy about.

On Monday, Barack Obama gave his critique of the “English only” movement:

“I agree that immigrants should learn English, but instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English - they’ll learn English - you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual. We should have every child speaking more than one language.”

Members of the English only movement such as the political action committee known as Americans for Legal Immigration responded by falsely characterizing Obama’s position:

“Barack Obama has stepped on a political land mine by stating Americans should be forced to learn to speak Spanish.”

Today, Obama responded to their deceit with the truth and humor:

“The Republicans jumped on this. I said, absolutely immigrants need to learn English, but we also need to learn foreign languages, this is an example of some of the problems we get into when somebody attacks you for saying the truth, which is: We should want our children with more knowledge. We should want our children to have more skills. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a good thing. I know, because I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing,”

Americans for Legal Immigration’s need to slander him by mischaracterizing his statement is an interesting one which suggests that they understand that they need to spread a sense of xenophobia and fear to spark the Republican base into action.

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by jurvetson who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from jurvetson .

MSNBC’s political director, Chuck Todd has said that the electoral map is now shifting in favor of Barack Obama. Last month, MSNBC’s map showed Obama and McCain to be completely tied with each having 200 delegates. However, now Obama has 210 electoral votes to John McCain’s 189. 139 votes are considered toss ups. This reflects just how much trouble McCain has been having gaining traction due to promotion of the Bush policies.

The photo used was uploaded to Flickr by jetheriot who licensed it under a Creative Commons Attribution License and my use of the photo in no way indicates an endorsement of the article from dbking.

Karl Rove defying the law is nothing new. This time he has ignored a subpoena to testify in front of the Senate about the unlawful political prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Rep. Linda Sanchez(D-CA) has ruled that Karl Rove’s defiance is a violation of the law which means that this may be the first step in holding him in contempt of Congress. The ultimate choice about contempt will now lay with Speaker Pelosi.

House Republicans declared that the Democrats were simply playing politics and that if they really cared about information they would have accepted his offer to discuss informally. This of course completely misses the point as his informal offer would have been off the record and not under oath. The reason the Democrats refused his earlier offer is that they want his testimony to be part of the public record so that he can be held accountable for his actions. It seems as though Rove knows this and thus is trying to avoid justice in any way he can.

Rove’s lawyer and advocates insist that Rove did nothing wrong. This of course raises the question of just why Rove refuses to testify. If he was truly innocent, wouldn’t he want to go before the Senate and prove that he has been falsely accused? Of course, Rove is now an analyst for Fox News and reportedly informally advising the McCain campaign.

Today Iran has test-fired nine missiles including a new version of the Shahab-3 which means that Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and the Arabian peninsula are all within the nation’s attack range. The test came one day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the idea that the U.S. and/or Israel would attack Iran was a “funny joke.” However, they have also made it clear that if attacked, they will attack Israel.

As you might expect, the tests have lead to two very different responses from Senators Obama and McCain. Obama has said that this test shows why it’s critical for the U.S. to step up strong diplomacy and economic sanctions as well as offer incentives to persuade Iran to take a better and more peaceful path. However, Senator McCain has said that this demonstrates the need for systems like STAR WARS.