In this article on Huffington Post, you can see that an Obama campaign insider seems to be laying the groundwork for moving to the right on Iraq. Here's the relevant quote:

Speaking on background, a source in the Obama campaign admitted to a certain frustration with the current narrative of their candidate "moving to the center" on issues where the Illinois Democrat has always staked out moderate ground. When talking about a gradual pullout from Iraq during the primary season, for example, Obama took some abuse from the "immediate withdrawal" crowd for his repeated mantra that "we should be just as careful getting out" of Iraq as we were "careless getting in." (And indeed, as represented by the "Responsible Plan" website, that kind of talk is firmly in the mainstream of activist anti-Iraq war sentiment anyway.) In the aftermath of Obama's FISA repositioning, the Obama campaign's fear, however, is that every subsequent moderate noise will be interpreted as a cynical centrist tack.

I'm worried this sounds like a campaign floating the idea that they might move their position on Iraq. They seem to be trying to prepare the ground that Obama has always been for gradual withdrawal from Iraq. Here's the thing, almost no one is for immediate withdrawal. That's a straw man argument. So, why are they now bringing up this gradual withdrawal point? I think bending on his 16 month timeline for withdrawal during the general election campaign is a terrible idea. I explain why below:





There is a difference between moving to the center and moving to the right. There is a difference between making tough choices about Iraq once you get into office and flip-flopping in the middle of the campaign. There is a difference between being moderate and being weak. Changing your position on such a central issue would be taken as a tremendous sign of weakness. They better not even be thinking about it.

Obama didn't come this far by running a traditional campaign. Why would you switch now and go back to running the same old conventional losing campaign that Democrats have run for so long? Appeasing the right brings you no political friends. It just brings you justified scorn from both sides. Go with what brought you here, not some cheap old political tricks.

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Frankenstein's back, with a resounding endorsement of Barack Obama. I refer, of course, to the reemergence in public of former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Albright chastized Bush and defended Obama's statement that he would be happy to talk to Iran and other enemies of the United States. Albright blasted the current approach to the Middle East and made the anodyne point that it is just as important to converse with one's adversaries as it is to converse with one's friends.

The problem, of course, is not with talking with folks like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. The problem is: who is going to do the talking? Certainly a President McCain has the experience and resolve to sit across the table with the bad guys and not fall for their deceptions or give in to their pressures. With an unseasoned guy like Obama, whose global experience may be confined to an occasional visit to the International House of Pancakes, who knows?

With Albright too it is credibility that becomes an issue. On May 11, 1996 this woman was asked by a television interviewer for "60 Minutes" whether she was troubled by the fact that Clinton-supported sanctions had resulted in the death of 500,000 Iraqi children. "It's a hard choice," she replied, "but we think it's worth it."

Leftists should keep Albright's response in mind when they wail about civilian casualties as a consequence of Bush's war in Iraq. Iraq Body Count keeps track of these casualties, and they are less than one-fifth the number of innocent civilians (mostly children) killed in the aftermath of sanctions. Sanctions had no effect on Saddam or his henchmen, who didn't miss a meal. Rather, they hurt the most vulnerable members of Iraqi society.

These facts remind us not only of the shortcomings of sanctions, which are not likely to work better with Iran than they did with Iraq. They also remind us that bad things in the world must be measured not against utopia but against what came before. Bush's Iraq war has resulted in a steep reduction of Iraqi deaths compared to the 300,000 people Saddam deposited in the mass graves and compared to the even greater number of deaths that Clinton's policies seem to have produced.

Still, I come back to Albright's original dismissal of half a million deaths with the calm affirmation: it's worth it. Can you recall another secretary of state making a remark more shockingly callous than Albright's? How this Frankenstein became the first female secretary of state remains a mystery.

And it is this same person who would presume to lecture us on what we should now be doing with Iran. I don't think we need more advice from Albright. Rather, what we need from her is an apology, followed by an overdue withdrawal from public life.

While the Senate was ready to vote on the FISA Amendments Act today, Senators Russell Feingold and Christopher Dodd fought to keep them from casting a final vote and jamming the bill through Congress.

In a statement released by Feingold, he says:

"I am pleased we were able to delay the vote on FISA until after the July 4th holiday instead of having it jammed through. I hope that over the July 4th Holiday, Senators will take a closer look at the deeply flawed legislation and understand how it threatens the civil liberties of the American People. It is possibly to protect this country against the terrorists while also protecting the rights and freedoms that define our nation."

For those who haven't read up on the new FISA bill, it would basically give the government the right to peek into the private overseas phone conversations, emails, and even text messages of all Americans. Part of the bill would give retroactive immunity to telephone companies that gave the government private information of Americans.

Feingold says the FISA bill would also allow the government to take all international communications and put it in a giant database. The most outrageous part of the bill states that there does not have to be any court review or evidence that anyone is doing anything wrong before the government intrudes on the person's privacy. The government will simply have complete access to the personal overseas communications of every single American.

Feingold continues to say, "It's a vast power that has no limits. There's no regulation of it."

Obviously, the new FISA bill was created to help the government "track down terrorists"....just like the Iraq War was orchestrated to find weapons of mass destruction. It all makes perfect sense.

It's angering that the government has instilled so much fear in the minds of Americans, that many are ready to hand over precious civil liberties in the name of "protection." In fact, it's sickening. All the Republicans who are avid gun owners and want to protect their constitutional right to bear arms have NO RIGHT to say an American's right to privacy is not as important. This proposed FISA bill simply violates the right to privacy. Fear tactics should not trick Americans into giving up their freedoms. The Senate needs to wake up.

The more the Bush Administration remains in power, the more the United States mirrors the image George Orwell illustrated in his book 1984. Big brother really is watching, and members of our own Senate are allowing it to happen.

Feingold admits that many of the Senators have not completely read the bill and do not know the logistics of it. By holding off on the bill until after July 4th, hopefully the Senate will have the opportunity to think things over and not just hand the Bush Administration exactly what they want.

If you want to watch TYT's interview with Senator Feingold, please check out the video below:




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We just found out that the person in charge of investigating detainee treatment in the past for the Pentagon said the Bush administration is committing "war crimes." And that the four major Western oil companies have conveniently received no-bid contracts to take the oil out of Iraq.

And what has the press done with these stories? Not a damn thing. War crimes -- don't sweat it. A war that cost thousands of lives so that the oil companies can get no-bid contracts -- don't even look into it. The news editors in this country are a national embarrassment. They wouldn't know news if it slapped them across the face. They're too busy typing out the latest government press release as if it's real news.

Here is the war crimes story and what the press did about it:




Here is the Iraqi oil story and what the press did about it (can you see a pattern here):




The press is supposed to challenge power, not suck up to it. It seems they have completely forgotten this part of the job description. Television is the worst, I don't know why we call those paid actors and models reporters anymore. Other than a handful of quality journalists, the rest of them have no idea what the news is and they are matched in their incompetence and cowardice by their own news editors. God forbid someone actually wants to report on the news, that's when the editors come in to spike the story. This system is fundamentally broken and it will take a long time to repair, if ever.

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Plenty of former officers have criticized the Iraq War, but there's only been one active duty career soldier who's not only come out against the War but also refused to go and fight in it. (He said he would go to Afghanistan instead, but that the Iraq war is "illegal").

That soldier is Lt. Ehren Watada, 30, a junior Army officer from Hawaii who's become a poster child for the anti-war movement. He's also become persona non grata within the military and is facing a possible sentence of six years in prison.

Our friend Tara McKelvey is the first journalist who has gotten close to him in more than a year. She's written an amazing story for The American Prospect about Watada, who's now in legal limbo and being subtly punished at a desk job.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain suspects the war in Iraq will be over by 2013.

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won," said McCain.

Despite the fact that he predicts the war will "be won" in five years, McCain denies any claims that he has drawn up a timetable for full-scale troop withdrawal.

"It's not a timetable; it's victory. It's victory, which I have always predicted. I didn't know when we were going to win World War II; I just knew we were going to win," said McCain during his speech in Columbus, Ohio.

There you have it: John McCain JUST KNOWS the U.S is going to win the war in Iraq. He might not know how, but he just knows. One of the journalists who attended McCain's speech suggested he took listeners on a "magic carpet ride" to the future.

With the number of U.S casualties increasing, and the faltering economy in mind, occupying Iraq for an additional five years is a scary thought. But there are other underlying issues in McCain's statements.

First off, John McCain's response to reporters makes no sense at all. If he has not at least created a game plan for the Iraq War, what is the premise for him saying the war will end by 2013? Does he just assume things in the Middle East will smooth over by the end of his presidential term (if he gets elected)? Surely, he must have some sort of "timetable" set if he has the ability to announce a year as to when Americans can expect their sons and daughters to return from the war.

Denying that he has a game plan probably hurts him more than helps him. It's understandable that McCain likes to stick to his guns. In fact, he would be accused of hypocrisy if he didn't stand by his word. In his campaign during the primaries, McCain criticized former Republican rival Mitt Romney for hinting at a timetable for troop withdrawal. But since when is it a bad thing to have a timetable? Is the electorate keen on staying in Iraq for years to come?

The Republicans claim they are tough on national security, and that is precisely why they have kept U.S troops in Iraq. However, keeping troops in the Middle East has not secured the U.S at all. McCain's Democratic rival Barack Obama said the war has failed to secure America since it has made the U.S military weak and vulnerable to any potential attack made by other Middle Eastern countries such as Iran.

Cenk makes a good point about McCain's current comments in the following clip:



Nonetheless, it's comforting to know one of the candidates for presidency makes predictions with no real premise or plan.

President George Bush has given up golf in honor of U.S troops in Iraq. During an interview with Politico and Yahoo News, Bush said his decision to give up his favorite sport came after the August 2003 Bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. The bombing killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was the top U.N. official in Iraq.

Bush continued to say, "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Good job Bush. We're proud of you.

Did the preseident think that revealing his "sacrifice" would result in the American people increasing their respect for him? Thousands of troops have given up their lives for the war in Iraq , and thousands more continue to risk their lives in the Middle East. Instead of thinking of ways to END the war, Bush decides giving up golf makes him a respectable and honorable president.



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Congress is voting this week on expanding the G.I. Bill dramatically, reports the AP. As you can see in this MTV News report, the costs of education have risen so sharply that a lot of soldiers wind up only getting a small portion of their tuition covered. One Marine reservist got just $282 a month toward his community college education when he returned from Iraq. According to MTV:

Phil Donahue was on our show yesterday to talk about his new award winning documentary, Body of War. It's the story of one wounded vet who has come back from Iraq to fight against what's happening. During the interview, he made a great point about the war -- it's an insult to our troops to be unconcerned about the human costs of this war because it's only the volunteer US troops who are dying and getting maimed for life.

You can watch the whole interview by clicking here or watch a short clip from the interview below:




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President Bush was trying to explain what success in Iraq means to him, when as usual, he embarrassed himself (and the rest of us for electing him):





By the way, I should also note that there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded and Iran's influence in Iraq has been greatly expanded since our invasion as well. So, we are now fighting a circular war in which we are battling the forces we helped to create by attacking Iraq in the first place. George W. Bush is the worst president ever.

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While the country is busy picking apart every word Obama ever uttered, or anyone he knows has ever uttered, John McCain gets to say anything he wants. Earlier this week, he said that the decision to invade Iraq was "academic." Is he saying that the lives of all our troops that died there are academic?!

If I was a Republican, I would pretend to be outraged by this. Then I would pretend that he meant this as a grave insult to our troops. Then I would demand that all the news stations run the comment 24/7 until he apologized and admitted he "misspoke."

And since apparently almost no one in the media has a brain of their own, they would all go along with it. Of course, that's if John McCain was a Democrat. But since he is a Republican and a "maverick," the press loves him and would never speak an unkind word about him. It's not their job to challenge Republicans; it's their job to challenge Democrats. God knows if they challenged Republicans with half the aggressiveness with which they go after Democrats, they might be called liberals!! Heaven forfend!

John McCain mixed up Sunnis and Shiites when talking about Iraq on several occasions. If Barack Obama had done that, they would have ripped his liver out and fed it to the crows. They would have said he was a foreign policy novice who wasn't ready to be Commander-in-Chief. McCain does it and nary a peep.

He must have misspoken, because we all know he is a foreign policy expert. And exactly how do we know that? Well, he has so much foreign policy experience. The same experience that led him to enthusiastically support the disastrous Iraq War. The decision he now claims is academic.

Well, of course, it isn't academic. It's critical to how he would govern as president. But since this is actually a relevant issue, the press has decided to ignore it. So, let me explain why this shows exactly why you shouldn't vote for John McCain:





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While sitting in my Political Behavior class for graduate school, my classmates and I found ourselves in a somewhat heated debate about the presidential elections. My professor pointed at a chart indicating that the independents vote will determine whether John McCain or Barak Obama will make it as president. This clearly illustrated that the best strategy for both candidates is to campaign with political ideologies that are as moderate as possible to get the large number of independents to vote for them.



Some of the students argued that John McCain would be more likely to get the independents vote because he is a "moderate conservative," while Barak Obama is on the far left with liberal ideals. But what the students failed to understand is that McCain is a full-blown left wing conservative, and there's nothing "moderate" about him. Although some media outlets might make him out to be a moderate conservative, the proof is really in the pudding. Don't believe me?

The front page of Huffington Post featured an article today that perfectly summarizes just how conservative John McCain really is. When it comes to every partisan issue, John McCain takes the right-wing stance indefinitely. Not only does he support the war in Iraq, but he also has served as a key ally in George Bush's efforts to increase U.S soldiers occupying the country. Other topics like abortion, gun control, and gay rights also illustrate that "moderate," is really not a descriptive word pertaining to the Republican candidate.

When it comes to abortion, McCain is a self-proclaimed pro-life advocate. He has vowed to appoint Supreme Court Justices that will limit the impact of the Roe v. Wade ruling, which basically legalized abortion. His views on gay marriage are just as conservative since he completely opposes it. In fact, he worked to ban gay marriage in Arizona and fully supports the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. He even opposed legislation that would protect homosexuals from hate crimes and job discrimination. To top things off, he is an avid supporter of the National Riffle Association and has voted AGAINST a ban for assault-style weapons. But people consider him a moderate conservative?

Where is the logic in that?

Polls have indicated that most people do in fact see McCain as a centrist while Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton are perceived as far left candidates. Studies done by political scientists such as Philip Converse show that independents are typically less politically aware than strong Democrats or Republicans. This presidential election would perfectly illustrate that finding if the independents are naive enough to fall for McCain's "moderate conservative" tactics.

If you think John McCain is a straight shooter on the war, wait till you get a load of the video we found from his speeches on the Senate floor. He now claims that withdrawal is unacceptable and that we must stay in Iraq until it is a viable nation that can police itself. He now says he doesn't care if we stay in Iraq a hundred years.

As you will see below this is exactly the opposite of what he argued in Somalia and Haiti when we had a Democratic president. He demanded withdrawal not in an orderly fashion from those countries, but immediately -- damn the consequences. If you don't believe me, watch for yourself:





These politicians drive me crazy. They're all flip-floppers. Their position on any given issue is directly related to who the president is. If he's in your party, you support him no matter how wrong he is and what kind of a disastrous war he's gotten us into. If he's in the opposite party, you demand withdrawal as soon as possible. How do they get up there and make speeches that are diametrically opposed to what they said before and do it with a straight face?

Now John McCain isn't the only one guilty of this but unlike most other politicians he gets a free-ride in the press. They portray him as a maverick and a straight talker when he is nothing of the sort. Look at the video above, if he was a Democrat he would be called the biggest flip-flopper of all time.

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John McCain was on The View and the women ate him alive. They asked the best questions on the war of anyone on TV. Joy Behar stone cold busted him on the Iraq War:




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1. The Petraeus Paradox: If we're doing well, it's because of the extra troops so we shouldn't pull them out. If we're doing poorly, obviously we need more troops. Either way, we need more troops and need to stay in Iraq longer. This supposition is obvious nonsense, yet we're taking it seriously.

2. The central government of Iraq is a myth. It is neither central nor a government. It doesn't govern anything outside of the Green Zone and is run by one Shiite militia and in no way encompasses the Sunnis, the Kurds or the other Shiite factions.

3. Giving more time to a project headed in the wrong direction doesn't help the project, it hurts it. If you're going the wrong way, people aren't helping you by giving you more time to head in the wrong direction.

Here's a quick explanation of the myths of the Iraq War:




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