1. Bush waits till he is finished then puts priority on getting OBL befroe he leaves his office.

Obama wants to surrender before he gets into office.

If troops are still in Afgan, Obama will invade that country to get members of AQ and OBL if he thinks he knows where OBL is.

Then when Obama surrenders and pulls the troops out by 2012, if AQ becomes a threat again that Obama says does not exist now, Obama will send troops back into Iraq to get AQ. Or will he get AQ in Iraq with the troops he promises to keep in Iraq or nearby?? All to confusing. Wait for the latest update from his next campaign speech.

Robert OKane at 4:55AM on Jun 19th 2008

2. In support of our troops

Another marine had the charges dropped against him in the media so called Haditha massacre. A total of 7 marines have been found not guilty or had the charges dismissed, with one marine left to be tried. The military judge dismissed the charges against this marine because he found there was undue pressure by General Mattis to bring charges against the marines.

Rep Murtha and the rest of the "we hate american troops" pushed the "cold blooded marines" idea into the public and forced the trials of those marines.

Murtha and company applied "off with the heads" treatment to our troops in uniform before knowing the full truth, while giving the benefit of doubt to the terror suspects at Gitmo.

MSNBC hangman Keith Olbermann, without knowing for a single moment what really happened at Haditha, termed what happened as "wilful targeted brutality"

The Nation magazine stated "members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, perpetuated a massacre", before knowing the facts. Hang the Marines mentality.

Murtha, when asked to comment about the dismissals, runs for the elevator without making any comment.

Then we have to listen to the phoney Left Wingnuts trying to win votes with their false concern over the welfare of people who have not even joined the military yet and the need for a new GI Bill.

Robert OKane at 4:56AM on Jun 19th 2008

3. Bush will leave office an unpopular and failed president. His "legacy" will be that he will leave the Republican party in shambles. Not just my opinion - ask every GOP house and Senate member who has to run for re-election in the fall. They are running away from Bush like a skunk in the road.

David S. at 5:14AM on Jun 19th 2008

4. David S

What a short selective memory you have. Gore keep Bill Clinton miles and miles away from him and had Clinton do him a favor and not campaign for him. Newspeople always questioned why Gore and members of Congress did not have Clinton out supporting them.

According to your logic, Gore and Democrat members of Congress ran away from Clinton like a skunk in the road.

Robert OKane at 8:18AM on Jun 19th 2008

5. What, no comments from Paul Sparceofbraino?

Sparrow at 9:01AM on Jun 19th 2008

6. Cenk
I am wating for your story on the muslim women not allowed to sit in the front row of Obamas speech. Now Cenk surely "You" will report on this right?
This Americal Idol presidency has become such a pitiful marketing scheme, Obama has been packaged and presented to us with a pretty little bow, text your vote to 111 or 222 to vote for Obama the phone lines are now open.

Ben at 9:32AM on Jun 19th 2008

7. As soon as we get BinLaden the Liberals will treat him the same as they treated the father of modern Arab terrorism. Yasser Arafat was treated like Royalty by the Clintons. When does BinLaden get his Nobel Peace Prize?

Dennis D at 9:47AM on Jun 19th 2008

8. Sparrow,

Go read Winnie the Pooh and pick up some of a Barack Obama administration National Security agenda!!! Who do Democrats turn to for Energy Policy advice Barny the Purple Dinosaur and the Teletubbies!!!!!!!

BTW: Does the Democratic Illinois Senator Barack Obama consider Osama bin Lader innocent until proven guilty?

Paul Sparcello at 9:53AM on Jun 19th 2008

9. Dennis D, what are you saying? That the president of the US determines recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize? I don't think that's how it works, but if it is, then we can expect to see both Bush and Cheney get the Nobel Prize, instead of being tried for war crimes as should happen.

Mac at 10:01AM on Jun 19th 2008

10. Ben,

Great point! And do not forget that Michelle Obama started the "Vanilla City" back drop at a Carnegie Mellon rally. The Mayor of Chocolate City, Willie Ray Naquin, would be appalled!!!!!!!

One final thought: If Cenk, David, Ana....... were to do a story on this issue they would be claiming it was all the Republicans fault.

Paul Sparcello at 10:08AM on Jun 19th 2008

11. According to you libs we dont even know if Osama bin did anything wrong. I thought Bush bombed the towers. You libs are truly disgraceful. Cenk, take your muslim ass back to Turkey and see if you can get away with bad mouthing the government on a personal level. You will be in jail with rats knawing that crap off your face before you can say Ottoman empire.
Once again, today, I challenge any lib to tell me how they have personally had their rights violated as they always claim. I did it yesterday and had no takers. All anyone could come up with was that calls were potentially listened to via the LA local phone company. Pathetic.
Come on, it is such a big complaint I hear by you libs. One example, anything. How have you not been secure in your person, papers, or communication? I am talking on a personal level. Not some terrorist having his phone tapped. I am talking about you personally.
Oh, and by the way, give Bush credit for keeping your asses safe the last 7 years. If everything that happens is his fault, the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks on our soil must be his fault too. No small task. At the time, it was a foregone conclusion that attacks like 9/11 would be the rule going forward. Since then, nothing. give the guy his due on that. Where are you about reporting on that Cenk. Bin Laden may not have been caught but he hasnt left his self imposed jail cave for fear of being killed. Why no credit for that Private Negative and Clif Klaven and Bob Johnson?

german guy at 10:53AM on Jun 19th 2008

12. Today it came out that the other Osama barred two muslim women from sitting behind him in Detroit during a rally. This is just hillarious on so many levels.
The women were picked out of a group and told they couldnt sit behind Osama with the rest of their group because they were wearing head scarves.
An hour later, Osama gave a speech about unity, blah, blah. The women were appalled and wanted a personal apology.
Would they bitch to their own male leaders or family members due to second class treatment? Does this really surprise anyone coming from the libs. Always, do what I say not what I do. Beautiful. OSama, in true Muslim fashion, said, Fatima Rosa Parks, its the back of the bus for you.
Come on Cenk where is the outrage?
If a republican would have done that it would be major news for the likes of you. Olbermanns communist Ikabod Crane ass would be frothing at the mouth. Transportation to Denver, $200. Tickets to the convention, $300? The libs day after day spewing their hypocritical crap, priceless.

german guy at 11:34AM on Jun 19th 2008

13. If the Winnie the Pooh Democrats get their way, OBL and every other Islamic Radical thug will have to be read their Miranda rights on the battlefield, and when apprehended, will get a costly jury trial.

We already tried the criminal justice approach after the 1994 WTC bombing and it didn't work. We put some folks in jail, but we still had 911 because Grand Jury testimony was sealed and we needed that intelligence to stop 911.

People - It's a war. These brainwashed thugs shouldn't get a taxpayer-funded jury trial. They should get two things: A military tribunal and a death sentence, if found guilty. Anything else turns our constitution into a suicide pact.

It's this simple: if we don't kill them, they're going to kill us, including peace-loving Democrats. And by the way, what sane person wants war? That's the problem - these Radical Islamists aren't sane. If the whole world is engulfed in a nuclear firestorm, they'll think that's great.

Dave at 11:45AM on Jun 19th 2008

14. McCain’s real military file is unflattering. To end all the speculation, McCain should authorize the Navy to release all his military record.
In June 2005, seven months after he lost his bid for president, Senator John Kerry signed the 180 waiver, authorizing the release of his complete military service record to the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press. ** Unlike Kerry, McCain shouldn't wait until after the election to do so. The Navy may claim that it already released McCain's record to the Associated Press on May 7, 2008 in response to the AP's Freedom of Information Act request. But the McCain file the Navy released contained 19 pages -- a two-page overview and 17 pages detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain's career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain's file, of which 617 weren't released to the Associated Press.
Some of the unreleased pages in McCain's Navy file may not reflect well upon his qualifications for the presidency. From day one in the Navy, McCain screwed-up again and again, only to be forgiven because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals. McCain's sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush's.
Despite graduating in the bottom 1 percent of his Annapolis class, McCain was offered the most sought-after Navy assignment -- to become an aircraft carrier pilot. According to military historian John Karaagac, "'the Airdales,' the air wing of the Navy, acted and still do, as if unrivaled atop the naval pyramid. They acted as if they owned, not only the Navy, but the entire swath of blue water on the earth's surface." The most accomplished midshipmen compete furiously for the few carrier pilot openings. After four abysmal academic years at Annapolis distinguished only by his misdeeds and malfeasance, no one with a record resembling McCain's would have been offered such a prized career path. The justification for this and subsequent plum assignments should be documented in McCain's naval file.
McCain's file should also include records and analytic reviews of McCain's subsequent sub-par performances. Here are a few cited in two highly favorable biographies, both titled John McCain, one by Robert Timberg and the other by John Karaagac.
Timberg:
"[A]fter a European fling with the tobacco heiress, John McCain reported to flight school at Pensacola in August 1958.... [H]is performance was below par, at best good enough to get by. He liked flying, but didn't love it. What he loved was the kick-the-tire, start-the-fire, scarf-in-the-wind life of a naval aviator. ...One Saturday morning, as McCain was practicing landings, his engine quit and his plane plunged into Corpus Christi. Knocked unconscious by the impact, he came to as the plane settled to the bottom....McCain was an adequate pilot, but he had no patience for studying dry aviation manuals.... His professional growth, though reasonably steady, had its troubled moments. Flying too low over the Iberian Peninsula, he took out some power lines, which led to a spate of newspaper stories in which he was predictably identified as the son of an admiral.... [In 1965] he flew a trainer solo to Philadelphia for the Army-Navy game. Flying by way of Norfolk, he had just begun his descent over unpopulated tidal terrain when the engine died. 'I've got a flameout,' he radioed. He went through the standard relight procedures three times. At one thousand feet he ejected, landing on the deserted beach moments before the plane slammed into a clump of trees."
Adds Karaagac:
"In his memoir, everything becomes a kind of game of adolescent brinksmanship, how much can one press the limits of the acceptable and elude the powers that be....The [fighter jocks'] ethos of exaggerated, almost aggressive sociability becomes an end in itself and an excuse for license. There is a tendency for people, not simply to believe their own mythology but, indeed, to exaggerate it.... Fighter jocks, like politicians around their campaign contributions, often press the limits of the acceptable. It is a type of mild corruption that takes place in a highly privileged atmosphere, where restraints are loosened and excuses made....McCain gives some hint in his memoirs about where he stood in the hierarchy among carrier flyers. Instead of the sleek and newer Phantoms and Crusaders, McCain flew the dependable Douglas A-4 Skyhawk in an attack, not a fighter squadron. He was thus on the lower end of the flying totem pole."
The genius of McCain's mythmaking is his perceived humility amid perpetual defiance. Having been a rebel without cause, and often a rebel without consequences, McCain apparently was not surprised when his Vietnamese captors went relatively easy on him compared to his fellow POWs. The Vietnamese military secretly and frequently filmed the American POWs to learn their propensities. Col. Pham Van Hoa of the Vietnamese People's Army Film Department was in charge of the filming. Asked recently for his dominant impression of McCain, the now-retired Van Hoa said that McCain "seemed superior to other prisoners." How so? "Superior in attitude towards them."
But when Mark Salter, McCain's closest aide and co-author, was asked by the Arizona New Times about the first McCain memoir, Faith of My Fathers, that he was then working on, Salter said "the book will showcase a humble McCain. When I worked on this book with him, he just kept saying, 'Other guys had it a lot worse. I think they took it easier on me because of who my dad was. . . . When they tied me in ropes, they'd roll my sleeve up to give it a little padding between the rope and my bicep, you know, little things I noticed. The only really hard time I had was when I didn't go home, and then it only lasted a week, and sometimes I felt braver, I felt I could get away with more.'"
Is McCain now getting away with more by hiding his official history and by having his national security adviser inflate McCain's resume with a bogus promotion to admiral humbly declined? If so, McCain may be attempting to hide why the Navy was in fact slow to promote him upwards despite his suffering as a POW and his distinguished naval heritage.
One possible reason: After McCain had returned from Vietnam as a war hero and was physically rehabilitated, he was urged by his medical caretakers and military colleagues never to fly again. But McCain insisted on going up. As Carl Bernstein reported in Vanity Fair, he piloted an ultra-light, single propeller plane -- and crashed another time. His fifth loss of a plane has vanished from public records, but should be a subject of discussion in his Navy file. It wouldn't be surprising if his naval superiors worried that McCain was just too defiant, too reckless and too crash prone.
Regardless, McCain owes it to the country to release his complete naval records so that American voters can see his documented history and make an informed decision.

iynaroc02 at 11:47AM on Jun 19th 2008

15. How about holding the feet of some of your own to the fire once in awhile, instead of carping about Bush acting like...well...Bush?

Yesterday, a war funding deal that bankrolls the conflict through 2009 was approved. In order for that to happen, a number of Democrats had to go along with the deal.

If you want to really do something more effective than jabbering about how horrible Bush is, pressure those in Congress on your side of the aisle to step up and defund the war when they have the chance. Otherwise all the complaining about Bush running rampant sounds pretty hollow.

bob at 11:55AM on Jun 19th 2008