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Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama, still hurting from the whacking Sen Clinton and the media have given him over his national security gaffe in Monday night’s debate, issued a press release today claiming he is the most qualified of all the candidates on foreign policy.

Counting all Democrats and Republicans running for President, Obama said:

“Look, one thing I’m very confident about is my judgment in foreign policy is, I believe, better than anyone else in this race, Republican or Democrat. And I don’t base that simply on the fact that I was right on the war in Iraq. But if you look at how I approached the problem. What I was drawing on was a set of experiences that come from a life of living overseas, having family overseas, being able to see the world through the eyes of people outside our borders.”

So Obama feels he has better foreign policy judgement, more than anyone else in the presidential race, because he wasn’t in the Senate to actually vote on the Iraq War and he lived in Indonesia for four years starting when he was 10 years old? (more…)

I have been generally trying to stay away from ranting and raving about the current presidential election and its very long and very boring cycle this time. When the two main parties started having debates a full year before the first vote was to be cast I knew that we were in trouble. I have been saying for months that its nice and all to have lots of people interested in being president but those that do not have a shot in hell of the nomination on either side should just fold up shop and go home. The only thing the fringe candidates do is attack the front runners and cause squabbles with in the party which leads to general election fodder for the opponent of whoever gets the nomination.

Now don’t get me wrong I love watching the Republicans trash each other and their current commander in chief. Its the Democrats that I am worried about. It seems to me that there are three candidates with a legitimate shot at the nomination, Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and John Edwards. Edwards maybe a little bit of a long shot but I’ll leave him in. Those other candidates, Gravel, Biden, Richardson, Kucinich, Dodd (am I missing someone?) do nothing but attack the policies and ideas of the so called front runners. I understand that all these people want to be president, but do the Democrats not realize the historical implications of a Democrat winning back the presidency. If they don’t understand the gravity of the situation they should really go home and take up gardening. If they do understand then they should be a little more careful in providing the type of sound bites that can come back to haunt a candidate.

I will not say who I prefer out of the Democrats right now because that’s not really important. What is really, really important is that another blood thirsty, Constitution crushing republican not get in office in 2008. Come my Democratic friends, winning the big one is what is important here so don’t lose sight of the prize.

Scott Ridder, TruthDig, July 23, 2007

The ongoing hand-wringing in Congress by the newly empowered Democrats over what to do about the war in Iraq speaks volumes about the level of concern (or lack thereof) these “representatives of the people” have toward the men and women who honor us all by serving in the armed forces of the United States of America. The inability to reach consensus concerning the level of funding required or how to exercise effective oversight of the war, both constitutionally mandated responsibilities, is more a reflection of congressional cowardice and impotence than a byproduct of any heartfelt introspection over troop welfare and national security.

The issues that prompt the congressional collective to behave in such an egregious manner have more to do with a reflexive tendency to avoid any controversy that might disrupt the status quo ante regarding representative-constituent relations (i.e., re-election) than with any intellectual debate about doing the right thing. This sickening trend is bipartisan in nature, but of particular shame to the Democrats, who obtained their majority from an electorate that expressed dissatisfaction with the progress of the war in Iraq through their votes, demanding that something be done.

Sadly, Congress’ smoke-and-mirrors approach to the Iraq war creates the impression of much activity while generating no result. Even more sadly, the majority of Americans are falling for the act, either by continuing their past trend of political disengagement or by thinking that the gesticulation and pontification taking place in Washington, D.C., actually translate into useful work. The fact is, most Americans are ill-placed intellectually, either through genuine ignorance, a lack of curiosity or a combination of both, to judge for themselves the efficacy of congressional behavior when it comes to Iraq. Congress claims to be searching for a solution to Iraq, and many Americans simply accept that this is this case.

The fact is one cannot begin to search for a solution to a problem that has yet to be accurately defined. We speak of “surges,” “stability” and “funding” as if these terms come close to addressing the real problems faced in Iraq. There is widespread recognition among members of Congress and the American people that there is civil unrest in Iraq today, with Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence tearing that country apart, but the depth of analysis rarely goes beyond that obvious statement of fact. Americans might be able to nod their heads knowingly if one utters the words Sunni, Shiite and Kurd, but very few could take the conversation much further down the path of genuine comprehension regarding the interrelationships among these three groups. And yet we, the people, are expected to be able to hold to account those whom we elected to represent us in higher office, those making the decisions regarding the war in Iraq. How can the ignorant accomplish this task? And ignorance is not something uniquely attached to the American public. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the newly appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, infamously failed a pop quiz in which journalist Jeff Stein asked him to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite. Reyes has become the poster boy for congressional stupidity, but in truth he is not alone. Very few of his colleagues could pass the test, truth be told.

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Steven Weber, The Huffington Post, July 24, 2007

We are rapidly approaching a karmic bitch slap, kiddies.

Don’t think ’cause we have iPhones and drive Navigators and run our air conditioners ’round the clock that we’re immune from history’s all-powerful undertow. We are not. We will join the parade of nations who succumbed to the intoxicating effects of their own poetry, who allowed their loins to trump their minds, who permitted hubris and greed to relentlessly infect its population, and their collective egos to swell until the outer skin blistered and popped and oozed life itself, puddling onto the sooty ground that was once home.

We are like them, make no mistake. And if we don’t address what is happening right now in a specific oval shaped office in a specific nation’s capitol, then it will be over and we will be standing around like idiots after a storm and we will look at all the other victims and they at us and we will still be unable to comprehend what has happened anymore than a steer does before it is stunned with a short swift blow to the head. And if you think this is just another liberal blog shouting anti-authoritarian bullshit, you’d be wrong. Because good things go bad all the time. Sweet, pure babies are born and grow into monsters. Republics are hewn by gritty, passionate pioneers of freedom only to have those founders ousted and the nation forcibly occupied and run by fat-assed, profiteering chicken hawks.

Must we wait for the Neo-Cons’ Lee Atwater moment, the deathbed retraction of all their unfair, unethical, inhuman behavior they’ve engaged in? Ain’t gonna happen, chums. Think of what America was and what it has become. And once you grasp that then look only a little farther ahead to what will be. You don’t need a pie chart or a power point presentation. All the work’s been done and done and it is in-fucking-fallible. To see the future one need only look to the past. Look at BushCo and his Neo-Con stormtroopers: the more intense their denials, the more incendiary their threats, the more their eyes pop and their veins swell, the closer they are to their ideological orgasm: Fascism. We either heed the signs and choke it off or run before you get drenched. Constitution of the United States: prepare for the money shot!

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Michael Scherer, Salon, July 24, 2007

0 minutes. CNN host Anderson Cooper welcomes the candidates by admitting his anxiety. “This is something that we have never done before. What you are about to see is — well, it’s untried. We’re not exactly sure how it’s going to work. The candidates on the stage don’t know how it’s going to work either.” He goes on like this for a while. The questions will be asked by normal people over Web video, not by journalists. Democrats will be logging on to the internetting, surfing the series of tubes. Anything can happen.

2 minutes. To demonstrate the danger, Cooper shows some of the 3,000 video questions submitted via wide world web space. There are videos of a singing chicken lady, a kid with giraffes and flamingos, a screaming toddler. There is a guy who says Arnold Schwarzenegger is a cyborg who can stop nuclear war. Cooper tries to calm the viewing audience. “We all know that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a cyborg,” Cooper says, “so there is no need to waste time actually asking the candidates that question.” Huge relief.

5 minutes. Finally, the debate gets going. The first question comes from a guy named Zach in Utah. “What’s up?” virtual Zach says, before asking a good question. He essentially wants to know if any of the Democratic candidates will be any different from all the other pinhead politicians in Washington. “What’s going to make you any more effectual, beyond all the platitudes and the stuff we’re used to hearing?”

6 minutes. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., answers by reciting the empty platitudes we are used to hearing. “While hope and confidence and optimism are clearly very important, I think experience matters a great deal — the experience people bring to their candidacy, the ideas, the bold ideas that they’ve championed over the years.” Why not bring back the chicken lady? What about the screaming child? How do cyborgs stop nuclear war, anyway?

7 minutes. It’s platitude roll-call time. “People have an urgent desire for change in Washington,” says Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. “We are united for change,” says Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Only Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mixes it up. His platitudes sound like Buddhist koans. “Strength through peace,” he says. “The science of human relations.”

11 minutes. A guy named Rob from Irvine, Calif., asks Clinton if she would call herself “liberal.” She answers with an eloquent and concise history of the word, from its 19th-century roots to the current use by conservatives as a synonym for weakness and big government. “I consider myself a modern progressive,” she says.

12 minutes. Anderson turns to the malcontent standing at the right side of the stage. “Are you a liberal?” he asks. Former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, dodges the question and decides to attack everyone else’s platitudes. “We’re not united,” he says to Clinton. “And I want to take on Barack Obama for a minute.” Gravel looks unhinged. Cooper cuts him off.

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Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, July 23, 2007

WASHINGTON — Oh, as it turns out, they’re not on the run.

And, oh yeah, they can fight us here even if we fight them there.

And oh, one more thing, after spending hundreds of billions and losing all those lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re more vulnerable to terrorists than ever.

And, um, you know that Dead-or-Alive stuff? We may be the ones who end up dead.

Squirming White House officials had to confront the fact last week that everything President Bush has been spouting the last six years about Al-Qaida being on the run, disrupted and weakened was just guff.

Last year, W. called his “personal friend” Gen. Pervez Musharraf “a strong defender of freedom.” Unfortunately, it turned out to be Al-Qaida’s freedom. The White House is pinning the blame on Pervez.

While the administration lavishes billions on Pakistan, including $750 million in a risible attempt to win “hearts and minds” in the tribal areas where Al-Qaida leaders are hiding and training, President Musharraf has helped create a quiet mountain retreat, a veritable terrorism spa, for Osama and Ayman al-Zawahri to refresh themselves and get back in shape.

The administration’s most-thorough intelligence assessment since 9/11 is stark and dark. Two pages add up to one message: The Bushies blew it. Al-Qaida has exploded into a worldwide state of mind. Because of what’s going on with Iraq and Iran, Hezbollah may now “be more likely to consider” attacking us. Al-Qaida will try to “put operatives here” — (some news reports say a cell from Pakistan is en route or already arrived) — and “acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material in attacks.”

After 9/11, W. stopped mentioning Osama’s name, calling him “just a person who’s now been marginalized,” and adding, “I just don’t spend that much time on him.”

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Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, July 22, 2007

Things are getting confusing out there in Genderville.

We have the ordinarily poker-faced secretary of defense crying over young Americans killed in Iraq.

We have The Washington Post reporting that Hillary Clinton came to the floor of the Senate in a top that put “cleavage on display Wednesday afternoon on C-SPAN2.”

We have Mitt Romney spending $300 for makeup appointments at Hidden Beauty, a mobile men’s grooming spa, before the California debate, even though NBC would surely have powdered his nose for free.

We have Elizabeth Edwards on a tear of being more assertive than her husband. She argued that John Edwards is a better advocate for women than Hillary, explaining that her own experience as a lawyer taught her that “sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues.”

We have Bill Clinton, who says he’d want to be known as First Laddie, defending his woman by saying, “I don’t think she’s trying to be a man.”

We have The Times reporting that Hillary’s campaign is quizzical about why so many women who are like Hillary — married, high income, professional types — don’t like her. A Times/CBS News poll shows that women view her more favorably than men, but she has a problem with her own demographic and some older women resistant to “a lady president” from the land of women’s lib.

In a huge step forward for her, The Times said that “all of those polled — both women and men — said they thought Mrs. Clinton would be an effective commander in chief.”

So gender isn’t Hillary’s biggest problem. Those who don’t like her said it was because they don’t trust her, or don’t like her values, or think she’s too politically expedient or phony.

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