The title of this post might seem like an exaggeration. How could Saint John McCain have a friend and supporter who is a criminal, a thug and far more un-American than Reverend Wright? This man we're talking about even worked actively to undermine the American system of government -- and was convicted for it. And John McCain calls him a dear friend. You don't believe it, watch and hear the quotes for yourself:




Here is the story that has all this information and the links that link to the original stories. Now, I know a lot of people will think, "This doesn't count." But think about that. Why don't you think it counts?

There are three reasons: 1. You already know this guy so you feel like it's old news. But that doesn't make his actions or his words any less despicable. 2. He is white. Admit it; it sounds a lot more dangerous to you if it's a black radical calling for people to shoot the heads off of federal agents 3. He's a Republican, so we know they don't play fair and he was just trying to give his party an advantage. Now imagine how you and the media would react if you heard Obama's staff broke into McCain's headquarters (or Hillary's) in the middle of the night and stole his most important campaign information. And Obama later said the people who did that are his dear friends and he is proud to be associated with them.

Look, you know the answers to these questions. You know that it would be different if it was a black Obama supporter who had done any of these things. I don't think everything is about racism, not by a long shot; but aren't some things? And if that's not the right explanation here (and it might not be), what is the reason behind this incredible double standard that is applied to Obama and McCain backers?

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You gotta love Jesse Ventura. Look at what he says about George Bush, Dick Cheney and all the rest of the chickenhawks:





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Maybe Karl Rove was Bush's brain. He leaves the building and all of a sudden the White House is using terrible talking points. The President gave a speech today comparing Iraq to Vietnam (an analogy he had directly rejected earlier , saying the comparison he made today would send "the wrong message to our troops" and "the wrong message to the enemy.")

Iraq is like Vietnam? That's the worst marketing strategy I've ever heard. Why don't they try this one next -- If You Liked Vietnam, You'll Love Iraq.

Bush is no student of history, so I don't know if he knows this, but we lost Vietnam. And more importantly, there was no hope of winning. If Bush is trying to say we should have stayed in Vietnam, that dog will not hunt. I guarantee it. The jury is in on Vietnam and the two inescapable conclusions are 1) we should have never gone in (like Iraq) 2) we had to leave because we had no chance of winning (like Iraq).

The one thing the Bush administration used to be good at is politics. Now, if they have also lost this ability, they're cooked. You have to be awfully desperate to think bringing up Vietnam as a comparison to Iraq would help your case. Who would have thought that four years into the Iraq War Bush would be arguing that Iraq is like Vietnam. They're in awfully bad spot -- just like Vietnam.



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The Newsbloggers Iraq-Vietnam trifecta is complete
Ada Calhoun wrote about it first this morning
The Young Turks later mentioned it on their radio show.
And now I just saw the news on BBC and offer the video below so you can hear the words from the horses mouth.

I mean c'mon, if you are really afraid of the "terrorists following you home," why not spend the billions you spend in Iraq on security and intelligence and stop it at the source, I really don't understand how continuing in Iraq is going to stop terrorists from targeting America, if anything your breeding more anger the longer you stay, or is the plan to kill every last one of them? So it looks like the war is going to continue.

What is confusing to the outsiders looking in, we thought the Democrats won the election in 2006 because they were going to end the war. Well the war continues and the Democrats popularity continues to drop. Glenn Greenwald explains in this article at Salon.com.

Since Democrats took over Congress in January, there have been three major attributes characterizing their conduct: (1) a failure to stop or restrict the war in Iraq; (2) a general failure/unwillingness to stop Bush on much of anything else of significance (FISA, a failure to reverse any of the excesses of the GOP Congress, such as the Military Commissions Act, lack of limits on his ability to attack Iran, etc.); and (3) numerous investigations, sometimes flashly but thus far inconsequential. There is no rational way to argue that the numerous investigations (item (3)) are responsible for Congressional unpopularity given how overwhelmingly Americans want Congressional investigations of the administration.

According to USA Today, President Bush "plans to argue today that a hasty 'retreat' from Iraq would lead to the kinds of bloodbaths that followed U.S. withdrawals from Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s."

The speech, which was released to the press late yesterday, reads: "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps,' and 'killing fields.' " Read more here.

In the past, Bush has at times seemed to accept the Iraq-Vietnam comparison, as here on ABC News. But at other times he has said, point-blank, "Iraq is not Vietnam."

His latest position seems to be that backing out of Iraq would, in fact, be like backing out of Vietnam. CNN has pointed out that he does sound a lot like President Johnson when he talks about withdrawal: