Yesterday McCain suggested that he and Obama travel to Iraq to get a first hand look at whatÂ’s going on there.

Obama, who hasnÂ’t been to Iraq since 2006 (when the situation was a weeee bit different) said no thanks.

John McCain’s proposal is nothing more than a political stunt, and we don’t need any more ‘Mission Accomplished’ banners or walks through Baghdad markets to know that Iraq’s leaders have not made the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge. The American people don’t want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military, and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer.

Apparently Obama learned all he need to know about Iraq from watching Olbermann.

I guess the idea of sitting down with American troops, their leaders and the elected government of Iraq isnÂ’t as interesting as a world tour of thugs and killers. Perhaps if McCain had suggested skipping Baghdad and going right on to Tehran to chat with Ahmadinejad Obama would have been more interested.

I hope McCain can get some mileage out this. He can beat Obama up for not wanting to see first hand whatÂ’s going on in Iraq but also for being unwilling to put partisan politics aside for the sake of the country.

Obama '08: Hope, Change and Bitterly Clinging to an Old Narrative.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:56 PM | Comments (56)
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As Rubin notes, it's an odd thing that all these Blame Israel Firsters and terrorist symps keep

Mr Brzezinski said “it’s not unique to the Jewish community – but there is a McCarthyite tendency among some people in the Jewish community”, referring to the Republican senator who led the anti-Communist witch hunt in the 1950s. “They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism. There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.” Although Mr Brzezinski is not a formal day-to-day adviser and stressed he doesn’t speak for the campaign, he said that he “talks to” Mr Obama. He endorsed the Illinois senator, lauding him as “head and shoulders” above his opponents. He said that he was the only candidate who understood “what is new and distinctive about our age”. In turn, Mr Obama has praised Mr Brzezinski as “someone I have learned an immense amount from” and “one of our most outstanding scholars and thinkers”.

Meanwhile, Obama "shifts" his position on talking face-to-face with tyrants and terrorists without precondition:

U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is distancing himself from expectations he would meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and taking a more cautious stand on talking to other U.S. adversaries.

With criticism from Republicans turning harsher as Obama moves closer to winning the Democratic nomination battle against rival Hillary Clinton, the Illinois senator has shifted -- but not abandoned -- his position.

Sen. John McCain, the Republicans' presumptive nominee for the November election, has expressed outrage that Obama would talk to Ahmadinejad, whose country does not recognize Israel and who has branded the Jewish state a "stinking corpse."

"There's definitely been an adjustment in what was initially a pretty categorical position," said Ross Baker, a political scientist a Rutgers University. "As (Obama) has gone around the country campaigning, he has realized he's had to fine-tune his position."

Um, no, it's a repudiation of his former position using semantic games. Before he would meet with any tyrant in a chatty mood "without preconditions;" now he allows he would have "preparations" first, which seem to be what other people call preconditions.

He's a liar and a naif caught well out of his depth.

Posted by: Ace at 04:23 PM | Comments (25)
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And of course he wants to debate Al Gore, and of course the Double-wide Carbon Footprint refuses.

Klaus was speaking a the National Press Building in Washington to present his new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?, before meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday.

'My answer is it is our freedom and, I might add, and our prosperity,' he said.

...

Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the 'climate alarmism' perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.

'Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality,' he said.

'In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet,' he added.

...

'It could be even true that we are now at a stage where mere facts, reason and truths are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda,' he said.

Klaus alleged that the global warming was being championed by scientists and other environmentalists whose careers and funding requires selling the public on global warming.

'It is in the hands of climatologists and other related scientists who are highly motivated to look in one direction only,' Klaus said.

Posted by: Ace at 03:30 PM | Comments (46)
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This morning Purple Avenger uncovered ObamaÂ’s historically dubious claim that his uncle was among the first troops to liberate Auschwitz. It created quite a stir to say the least.

It turned out according to his campaign that Obama simply got the name of the concentration camp wrong.

"Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II – especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

Fair enough I suppose, things like that happen.

I am sure the Democrats and lefties will be in high dudgeon about this. Personally, I am rooting for Purple Avenger to get named OlbermannÂ’s Worst Person in the World! That would be sweet.

I am also sure that the next time McCain or some Republican misspeak the left will be leading the charge to defend them.

Before this whole little episode is wrapped up, letÂ’s take a look at some of ObamaÂ’s other verbal gaffes and ponder why it is exactly heÂ’s considered such a great communicator.

Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.

The death toll was 11.

Marking the anniversary of the March 1965 "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala., Obama, speaking at a church, said his parents got together "because of what happened in Selma." Obama was born in 1961.

Obama told Larry King on CNN -- asked about that anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton YouTube ad, a doctored version of a spot created for Apple computers -- "We don't have the technical capacity to create something like that."

Of course thereÂ’s also the 57 states and counting remark, the claim that Arabic is the language of Afghanistan and many, many more.

As ABC’s Jack Tapper put it, Obama is ‘a one man gaffe machine’.

More [Gabe]: It should be noted that Obama has been working up to the Auschwitz gaffe for quite some time. This is from Obama's own website, text of an anti-Iraq war speech he gave October 2, 2002, where he used a slightly different version of the story:

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.

Well that's slightly better than claiming his own family "liberated" Auschwitz, but it's still quite a stretch to say that any "fellow troops"--presumably Americans--were the first to enter Auschwitz or Treblinka. Treblinka, like Auschwitz, was liberated by the Soviets (although "liberation" might not be the right term, the Nazis killed everyone on their way out). It was years before any American entered either camp.

[UPDATE v1.1 -- PA]
v1.0
The Chicago Tribune has a pretty good, and rather lengthy, summary of the Messiah's Memorial Day ummm "misspeakings". The real news here is the amount of column inches the CT devoted to laying this whole thing out. It would have been pretty easy to write that as a single paragraph in the style of a correction and bury it.

v1.1
Now al-Reuters is covering the Auschwitz retraction story. A little terser than the CT version, but still lengthy compared to what could have been written for a total bury job.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:35 PM | Comments (70)
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Morons will find this amusing. I know I did.

Put Below the Fold [ace]: ... as it seems to be auto-loading.

Just an FYI -- try to keep videos under the fold. Too many of them on the main page causes serious loading problems.

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 12:19 PM | Comments (19)
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Another one down.

Iraqi Special Operations Forces have captured a senior Mahdi Army Special Groups leader in the Shula neighborhood in the Ghazaliyah district in northwestern Baghdad. The Shula neighborhood has been a target of US and Iraqi forces over the past several weeks as the fighting in Sadr City has largely subsided.

The Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured what Multinational Forces Iraq called a "mid-level Special Groups leader" along with two associates during a raid on May 25. The commander, who is "affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," is thought to lead a 300-man battalion of Mahdi Army fighters. He has been behind the kidnapping and murdering of Iraqis, and works for the Ministry of Interior.

In related raid, Coalition forces detained a Mahdi Army Special Groups leader in Suwayrah. The operative is described by Multinational Forces Iraq as an "explosively formed penetrator expert believed to be responsible for coordinating and directing attacks on Coalition forces in the Wasit province." The leader sent his fighters to Iran "for paramilitary training."

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (19)
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Hillary Clinton commented on the new project, but noted hopefully that Phil Hartman had been killed during his stint on News Radio.

I didn't mean to make light of Hartman's death. I'm just trying to convey the idea that something must be done.

Beloved TV comedy stars Rosie O'Donnell and Fran Drescher are developing a new sitcom about two women coping with midlife crises.

The two pals hope to star in The New Thirty.

Drescher, who struck TV gold in The Nanny, says, "We play old high school friends who live in the same building in Manhattan, but we're living very different lives."

Very different lives, huh? I wonder who plays the one living the fat, ugly life.

Thanks to Alice.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (64)
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Bumped, in case you missed it. I love this sort of thing. [ace]

...

IÂ’ve heard of people fishing in the ocean, people fishing in lakes and rivers and on a solid sheet of ice. IÂ’ve even heard of people fishing for compliments but I have never heard of people fishing in the basements of buildings beneath the streets of Mid-town Manhattan
Â… until today.

It seems that the many rivers and streams that flowed through Manhattan before it was turned into a vast concrete jungle could not simply be paved over. Those waterways had to be diverted and channeled underneath the buildings that now tower above them.

We had a lantern to pierce the cellar darkness and fifteen feet below I clearly saw the stream bubbling and pushing about, five feet wide and upon its either side, dark green mossed rocks. This lively riverlet was revealed to us exactly as it must have appeared to a Manhattan Indian many years ago.

I'm led down into the basement of a red brick tenement building on E. 13th Street.
I step into a large room, that smells vaguely of water – and six men are sitting around an opening in the floor, holding fishing poles in the darkness.

This is not an urban legend. Even the New York Times tells of a fishing hole in the basement of a mid-town commercial building:

Jack Gasnick, reminisces about the day 15 or so years before, when he caught (and later ate) an almost-three-pound carp in the basement of his hardware supply house at Second Avenue and 53rd Street.

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:10 AM | Comments (53)
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But seriously, I'm blogging today. But after an exhausting weekend which turned out to be almost entirely internet deprived, I'm finding I have to do a lot of reading just to catch up on the news and realize what's old and what's already been posted here.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (10)
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I see an inept candidate.

Is he reading this from prepared notes?

Ed's take at HotAir. I kinda agree, we are remembering the fallen, though I don't think there's anything wrong with using it as an opportunity to honor and thank those who served or serve and are still among us. I wouldn't try to do it in one sentence though, that's a little clumsy.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 08:55 AM | Comments (50)
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