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By Marybeth Hamilton
By Mark Pagel
$14.78
$23
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By William Pfaff — Barack Obama is right to want to get out of Iraq, but his eagerness to do battle in the tribal hinterlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan will only lead to a quagmire of his own.
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Sen. Barack Obama was careful to praise U.S. troops in Iraq during Tuesday’s speech outlining his foreign policy strategies, while declaring that Iraq has been a costly distraction for America. “This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize,” he said, before laying out his five goals “essential to making America safer.”
Posted on Jul 16, 2008
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AP photo / Al Behrman
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Sen. Barack Obama made a key speech on Tuesday in Washington, in which he asserted his position on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, offered a 16-month troop withdrawal timetable and outlined his plans for combating terrorism if he is elected president in November.
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Members of the San Diego-area Minutemen and other anti-immigration groups voiced their displeasure with Barack Obama’s stance on the issue outside the National Council of La Raza convention in San Diego on Sunday.
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youtube.com
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Following an appearance by Barack Obama the day before, Sen. John McCain faced some tough questions about his stance on immigration Monday at a meeting with members of the National Council of La Raza in San Diego, where he denied Obama’s claim that he had changed his tune on the immigration issue to please his Republican base.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — If the 2008 election is destined to break up a frozen electoral map, Virginia is one of the most likely venues for the great political thaw.
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By Marie Cocco — Phil Gramm’s dismissal of America’s economic suffering has forced him to the political sidelines, but as one of the congressional architects of Republican economics, the mess he made will haunt Americans no matter who the next president is.
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The latest New Yorker cover features a satirical cartoon of a Muslim Barack Obama fist-pumping his terrorist wife in front of a portrait of Osama bin Laden and a burning flag. The image was intended “to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd,” says the magazine. When 10 percent or more of Americans still think Obama is a Muslim, there’s apparently no room for humor—tasteless, offensive or otherwise.
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Flickr / Allison Harger
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Barack Obama has an Op-Ed article in Monday’s New York Times outlining his vision for Iraq. It’s mostly a rehashing of positions he has stated over and over again, but it’s interesting to read the quilt work of stump speeches, debate sound bites and policy papers assembled into one document.
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Satire by Andy Borowitz —
The liberal blogosphere was aflame today with new accusations that Sen. Barack Obama is trying to win the 2008 presidential election.
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huffingtonpost.com
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A defiant new group of Democrats calling itself the Denver Group has started a campaign to make sure the Democratic presidential nomination remains open until August’s convention in Denver, leaving the game open to certain contenders (read: HRC) instead of following the “presumptive nominee Barack Obama” plan.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.
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AP photo / Lauren Victoria Burke
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Just when it seemed they wouldn’t have enough votes to pass a key Medicare bill, Democratic senators staged a dramatic coup by secretly whisking Sen. Edward Kennedy into the Capitol on Wednesday to cast his vote and make his first congressional appearance since he was diagnosed with brain cancer in May.
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Flickr / compujeramey
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That Barack Obama would accept his party’s nomination at Invesco Field was an unwelcome bit of news for network executives who have already budgeted their election coverage. Apparently it costs more to broadcast from a stadium than an arena, and so the networks are threatening to scale down what they traditionally dismiss as a free commercial.
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AP photo / Petros Giannakouris
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By William Pfaff — The endless debate about the U.S. withdrawing its army from Iraq and what will happen to the country once it does tends to ignore much of what we know about how the world works.
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Executive Office of the President of the United States
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You know a legislative compromise is one-sided when the AP headline announcing its passage reads “Senate Bows to Bush.” Democratic advocates of the new FISA bill, passed by the Senate on Wednesday, are still trying to explain what they got in exchange for rolling back a few civil liberties and burying some of the president’s abuses. When they figure it out, someone, somewhere, will surely be listening.
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The Rev. Jesse Jackson quickly switched to damage-control mode Wednesday after Fox News picked up a “crude” and “private” comment that Jackson made about Barack Obama when he thought wasn’t being recorded. Multiple updates.
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The Brave New Films team has launched an initiative against Fox News for its treatment of Michelle Obama, whom Fox has described as Barack Obama’s “baby mama,” in addition to using other race-baiting terms.
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Flickr / throwthedamnthing
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Taking a move from the McCain playbook and latching on to the bogeyman that is Iran, Barack Obama responded to Tehran’s long-range weapons tests Wednesday with calls for tougher economic sanctions against the country, whose missiles are now deemed capable of hitting American bases in the region.
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AP photo / Greg Baker
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By Robert Scheer — You can’t trust the Chinese. I don’t care if you’re talking about those communists on the mainland or the other guys on Taiwan; they just won’t follow the war-games script that our weapons hawks had counted on.
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Flickr / h-angele
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According to Mikhail Gorbachev, John McCain and Barack Obama have more in common than they’d like to admit. Both have refused to address their country’s unprecedented military spending, which the former Soviet leader blames for America’s economic woes. Writing in a Russian newspaper, Gorbachev argued that the U.S. behaves “as if the Cold War were not a thing of the past, and the country were surrounded by enemies.”
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AP photo /J im Cole
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By Bill Boyarsky — Politics is a cruel and disappointing business. This year, Democratic liberals gambled on a young man who offered hope and change. But after those wondrous primary days, they are furious over Sen. Barack Obama’s understandable effort to reach out to an electorate that is, and long has been, planted firmly in the middle of the road.
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By Marie Cocco — Somewhere along Barack Obama’s winding road through the red states, he lost me. It happened when he talked about abortion seekers who are “feeling blue.”
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webb.senate.gov
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He’s hung up his tiara and sash, ladies and gentlemen: Virginia’s Sen. Jim Webb has announced in no uncertain terms that he is officially out of the running to be Barack Obama’s choice for vice president. As Talking Points Memo reported Monday, Webb put out a formal statement declaring that he has made it clear to Obama’s camp that he wants to continue serving as a senator but will still enthusiastically back Obama’s bid for the presidency.
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Barack Obama recently promised to “refine” his withdrawal policy. His detractors called it a flip-flop. Team Obama said revision is different from reneging. The usual lineup of Sunday morning chatterboxes is here to sort things out.
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antiwar.com
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What’s the big deal about the new FISA “compromise”? Simply put, it legitimizes warrantless spying on Americans while papering over one of George W. Bush’s worst abuses. Daniel Ellsberg would like your help in stopping it, provided you can set aside 60 seconds of your Monday.
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By William Pfaff — The relationship among the three principal centers of world power of the past half-century is now at the edge of fundamental change.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — He has been crafty in the way he has sought the political middle ground. He has emphasized his “values” and touted his patriotism, his call to service and his faith. That is quite different from backing off from his core promises.
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Do the socially progressive ideals that jump-started 20th-century reform movements have lessons relevant to the concerns of 21st-century America? A new book makes a strong case that they do.
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By Eugene Robinson — The fact that African-American patriotism is never simple doesn’t mean it’s in any way halfhearted; to the contrary, complicated relationships tend to be the deepest and strongest.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Barack Obama keeps trying to end the wars over culture and religion, and good for him. The 1960s are so 40 years ago. But Obama’s opponents, as well as some of his friends, won’t let him do it.
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Flickr / Jurvetson
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Capping off a week of disappointments for his progressive supporters, Barack Obama backed away from the idea of a timely withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, a signature plank in his campaign. “And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground,” explained Obama, “I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.” Update: Obama clarifies.
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By Joe Conason — Despite all the feigned outrage fanned by the mainstream media and the right-wing noisemakers, Wesley Clark—retired four-star general, former supreme commander of NATO, wounded and highly decorated veteran of ground combat in Vietnam and a military man to his core—assuredly did not denigrate the war record of John McCain when he talked about the Republican candidate on television last Sunday.
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By Amy Goodman — I was on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado this week when Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter asked me, “Is Obama a sellout?”
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The “Countdown” host is as frustrated as can be with Barack Obama’s newfound enthusiasm for the dreaded FISA bill, but luck has provided the senator with a second chance to walk the “tight rope,” and Keith Olbermann hopes he takes it.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — As we head into the Fourth of July weekend of patriotic bluster and beer swilling—but before we are too besotted with ourselves—might we also for once consider our imperfections? Why not take a moment to heed the cautions of our founding father, George Washington, whose true legacy will most likely be ignored during the flag-waving weekend?
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Flickr / BohPhoto
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Barack Obama says he was erroneously “tagged as being on the left,” a reputation that served him well during the primaries. Now that he has the nomination secured, the candidate is trying to reinvent himself as a centrist. Take his endorsement Tuesday of one of George W. Bush’s signature policies, the “faith-based initiative.”
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AP photo / Alex Brandon
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Canadians admire Barack Obama more than any other politician in either the U.S. or Canada, according to a recent poll. But there’s plenty of envy to go around. According to the same survey, a majority of both Canadians and Americans think Canada has a superior health care system.
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The McLaughlin Group takes a look at why, as John McLaughlin claims, Sen. John McCain is “emerging upward”—at least in terms of the press’ treatment of the Republican “maverick,” whom one media source praised for his “zealous, unbending beliefs,” even as another touted his willingness to thumb his nose at ultraconservatives and compromise when necessary. Pat Buchanan, however, is adamant that the McCain “love affair is over.”
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AP photo / Danny Johnston
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Monday brought yet another round of political Mad Libs, which proceeds as follows: 1. (Insert surrogate name here), adviser to (candidate)‘s presidential campaign, slams (rival candidate) for lack/excess of (personal quality) on (major media outlet); 2. (Rival candidate) blasts (surrogate), hints that such antics reveal opposition’s true character; 3. (Candidate) distances self from (surrogate), who goes on to apologize and perhaps step down; 4. Repeat as necessary.
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There’s a great deal riding on this November’s presidential election—and, clearly, not just for Americans. Link TV has put together a new feature called “Dear American Voter” to tell those who will be able to cast their vote in the U.S. what their choices might represent for the rest of the world.
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independent.com
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Critics and challengers of Naomi Klein’s work had better take a close look at her latest book, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” before launching their attacks. This is one writer whose research and documentation are so exhaustive that would-be detractors will not only find her analysis to be dauntingly watertight, even if they don’t share her views about the unnatural disasters enabled by free-market capitalism, but they might also discover that some of her source material seems strangely familiar.
Transcript available here.
Posted on Jun 30, 2008
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It seems a critique cannot be leveled against John McCain without first paying homage to his time as a prisoner of war. Even Barack Obama is careful not to offend. So it was somewhat surprising on Sunday to hear another veteran, Gen. Wesley Clark, rebuff McCain’s war heroism: “Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”
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By William Pfaff — The Bush government was elected in 2000 on a platform including vigorous opposition to the United States Army’s doing “nation-building.” What a difference a five-year-long military disaster can make!
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Immigration: Time to Choose Sides
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