He won't be visiting Ramstein Air Base or Landstuhl Regional Medical Center as scheduled. According to a statement from one of his advisers, the visit is off because his campaign is funding this part of his trip.

During his trip as part of the CODEL to Afghanistan and Iraq, Senator Obama visited the combat support hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad and had a number of other visits with the troops. For the second part of his trip, the senator wanted to visit the men and women at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to express his gratitude for their service and sacrifice. The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign.

That's about the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Who cares if his transportation around Europe is being paid for by his campaign? He's a sitting Senator for God's sake. As a spokesman for McCain put it, "It is never ‘inappropriate’ to visit our men and women in the military..."

If he was worried about making a political spectacle of those serving there, especially the wounded, he could have gone without the press. I'm sure the US Air Force has the means to keep unwanted visitors off the base.

Pathetic.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:06 PM | Comments (63)
Post contains 242 words, total size 1 kb.

Star Wars. Action Figures. "Steampunk" sci-fi (retro-futuro sci-fi which imagines the "future" as it might have looked like in the Victorian era).

What happens when you mix them? Well, here's C-3PO and Obi-Wan.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (44)
Post contains 157 words, total size 2 kb.

The Stupid Party gets smart.

Senate Republicans have threatened to block nearly all other bills pending before the August recess if Democrats refuse to vote with them on expanding offshore drilling.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said bills that do not pertain to energy can wait until after the August recess, with gas prices now surpassing $4 per gallon. McConnell and top Republicans indicated Wednesday they would oppose any procedural votes to take up other legislation, which require 60 votes to succeed. Â…

But Republicans are planning to keep the Senate on the energy issue until their demands are resolved. The massive housing-rescue package might be the only other measure that gets valuable floor time before the August recess.

As Captain Ed explains, Harry Reid has been trying to buy the votes of ten Republicans by offering them sops on other issues, in order to stop the stoppage. His previous effort didn't work.

There's blood in the water here. The GOP can either feast or starve.

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 AM | Comments (39)
Post contains 195 words, total size 1 kb.

Sad, isn't it?

It was as easy to catch Edwards as it was to catch Gary Hart. The difference? The MSM used to pose as neutral and nonpartisan back then, and actually bothered to chase stories if they were good stories, without thinking about how the story might hurt their precious Democratic Party.

Not any more.

Mondo: Have you ever seen a more blatant–what we’ve called it–”media blackout” of any story the Enquirer has broken than the Edwards affair?

[David Perel, Editor in Chief of the National Enquirer]: No. Amazing, simply amazing. It wasnÂ’t a total blackout, but very nearly.

Mondo: Why do you think this was?

DP: A couple of things: partly a lack of ability and partly a lack of desire on the part of the media.

Mondo: Do you think it might have anything to do with the fact that reporters on the regular campaign beat get too “comfortable”? Maybe they’re afraid of offending whoever they’re assigned to cover; who is really their meal-ticket?

DP: Absolutely. ItÂ’s a flaw in the system and certainly a flaw in the coverage.

I'm thinking its much more "lack of desire" and not so much "lack of ability." For God's sakes, a presidential candidate and current vice presidential contender is not exactly difficult to track. You could follow him around just by sniffing the wind for the hazelnut-and-rose scent of his personalized unisex body spray.

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (31)
Post contains 256 words, total size 2 kb.

Because they wore the perfect disguise.

They were dressed as reporters.

They would have dressed like Nancy Pelosi but they couldn't fit into Size 0 dresses, and they thought it might be a bit alarming to the terrorists to see a baker's dozen of Nancy Pelosis swarming around them, those freaky Firestarter-eyes staring at them blankly unblinking.

Plus, botox and implants ain't cheap.

Thanks to Che Pizza.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (140)
Post contains 95 words, total size 1 kb.

For a full year war supporters have been pushing the truth on the media, that the surge was working (had worked at this point). We were ignored.

Suddenly it's the new Conventional Wisdom. In a matter of days.

Proof? Even Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom watch -- confessed by Newsweek reporters to simply be the "conventional wisdom" of liberal reporters talking to each other -- now says so.

Et tu, Howard Finemann? As was once said of Walter Cronkite regarding Vietnam, "If we've lost Newsweek, we've lost America."

Graphic taken from Newsbusters, who have a bit more.

The MSM has vigorously denied the success of the surge on the few occasions they bothered to mention it -- mostly they just censored the story, and removed it from the front (or even middle) pages entirely, lest the public get the wrong idea.

Now suddenly they are all falling over themselves to admit it did work, hoping, I guess, to keep the pain to a minimum, like pulling off a Band-Aid quickly.

But there is not particular recent event proving the surge worked. This has long been known. It's been working for a long time. If liberal reporters are all flatly admitting it worked now, that means they've strongly suspected it's been working for a long time. As in -- at least six months, if not more.

And they've known it's worked for some shorter period. How long? At least a month, almost certainly two, probably three or more.

So where can we find an accounting of their own behavior? Why have they refused to even hint -- or speculate -- that the surge was working for so long?

To borrow another Vietnam-era quote: What did they know, and when did they know it?

And -- The cover-up is always worse than the crime.

The MSM castigated itself -- or rather, castigated the Bush Administration and a few select scapegoats (like Judth Miller) in the guise of castigating itself -- wondering how it had gotten the case for the Iraq War so badly.

I trust, of course, the self-criticism machine is ramping up again to give the public a full accounting of their selective, cherry-picked reportage and twisted intelligence as regards the surge. I'm sure we'll soon have an apologia from the MSM for lying to the public so wantonly and for so long.

I'm sure of a lot of things. I'm insane.

Oh, I'm not even bothering to take issue with the claim that McCain's surge success helps Obama. For one thing, I'm not certain they're wrong. (But I'm beginning to think they are.)

For another -- Baby Steps. I think it helps them psychologically accept the loss of not losing a war by believing it helps advance the cause of their war-losing champion. So let them deal with their grief as they will.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (27)
Post contains 492 words, total size 3 kb.

At least the media has stopped pretending the surge didn't work and is now arguing about why it worked. Or, rather, why things just happened to get better simultaneously with the deployment of the surge troops and surge strategy. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:47 AM | Comments (30)
Post contains 320 words, total size 2 kb.

All very obvious, but that doesn't mean it's not important to write:

AM I the only one who's noticed the silence? Mere months ago, left-wing bloggers and demonstrators were wailing Support our troops, bring them home! seven days a week.

Now their presidential candidate has announced that he won't bring all those troops home, but will simply transfer combat forces from Iraq to Afghanistan - expanding that war. (He's discussed possibly invading Pakistan, too.)

And the left's quiet as a graveyard at midnight.

Where are the outraged protests from MoveOn or the DailyKos? I thought the extreme left felt sorry for our service members in harm's way and wanted to reunite them with their families.

What happened?

We all know exactly what happened. The left has nothing against foreign wars (as long as they don't have to fight in person). They just want to pick our wars themselves.

The problem with Iraq wasn't that America toppled Saddam Hussein, but that George W. Bush did it. I've been saying it for years: Had Bill Clinton done the job, the left would've celebrated him as the greatest liberator since Abraham Lincoln.

...

So here are three straightforward questions for all the march-in-step lefties who howled, "Support our troops, bring them home!" before their new messiah decided that war's not so bad, after all:

* Given that your candidate acknowledges the need for more combat troops in Afghanistan, will you enlist and do your part? Or do you expect other young Americans to continue to bleed in your place?

[etc.: Chickenhawk argument continues.]

I know, I know: Educated people like you are too smart and too important to serve in uniform. The military's for dummies, for losers. Serious players stay home and blog and bitch over double espressos.

Inhabitants of the left-wing blogosphere, have you no shame? Was your pacifism nothing more than a hipster pose? Bush is on the way out - are your principles leaving with him? Have you stopped to wonder if BHO might not be your LBJ?

You told us that "War doesn't change anything," and "War is never the answer." Shouldn't you be lobbying your candidate to give peace a chance?

Shame, shame, shame. You've elevated hypocrisy to an art form.

How about a new slogan: "Support our troops: Enlist!"

I'm not a big fan of the chickenhawk argument, but the left has long made it. And I asked similar questions a hundred times in the past: Fine, you're against the Iraq War. But you claim to be in favor of the Afghanistan War and even, on occasion, in favor of the Great Overmountain Invasion of Pakistan. So, um, Chickenhawk? How's blogging from Kabul?

Since their reason for not serving -- while insulting others for not serving -- has always been "Because I don't support this President and I don't support his wars," well, now that your Beloved Leader is supportin' some war, how about taking that long-delayed trip to the recruiting station? (And not with pink spray paint this time, either.)

Thanks to RobG.

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (30)
Post contains 553 words, total size 3 kb.

I don't want to knock USAToday too much for an editorial I agree with, but it is ironic that USAToday is bashing Obama for not admitting the surge worked, when, as far as I know, this is the very first time USAToday admitted it themselves.

Why then can't Obama bring himself to acknowledge the surge worked better than he and other skeptics, including this page, thought it would? What does that stubbornness say about the kind of president he'd be?

In recent comments, the Democratic presidential candidate has grudgingly conceded that the troops helped lessen the violence, but he has insisted that the surge was a dubious policy because it allowed the situation in Afghanistan to deteriorate and failed to produce political breakthroughs in Iraq. Even knowing the outcome, he told CBS News Tuesday, he still wouldn't have supported the idea.

That's hard to fathom. Even if you believe that the invasion of Iraq was a grievous error — and it was — the U.S. should still make every effort to leave behind a stable situation. Obama seems stuck in the first part of that thought process, repeatedly proclaiming that he was right to oppose the war and disparaging worthwhile efforts to fix the mess it created. Hence, his dismissal of the surge as "a tactical victory imposed upon a huge strategic blunder."

The great irony, of course, is that the success of the surge has made Obama's plan to withdraw combat troops in 16 months far more plausible than when he proposed it. Another irony is that while Obama downplays the effectiveness of the surge in Iraq, he is urging a similar tactic now in Afghanistan.

As for the surge not producing sufficient political reconciliation in Iraq, it's true that efforts to integrate Sunnis into a Shiite-dominated political culture are only inching forward. But reconciliation takes many forms, and Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's military attacks against rogue Shiite militias in Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City were a hugely important signal to Sunnis.

Perhaps it's too much to ask that Obama risk being taunted by headlines such as "Obama says Bush was right." But for the nation to move forward on its single most vexing debate, it would help if the next president could admit the obvious — whether that's Republican John McCain conceding that it was a terrible blunder to invade Iraq in the first place, or Obama acknowledging that the surge has worked better than he expected.

Americans don't expect their president to be right all the time. They do expect him to change course when he's proved wrong.

Does the media ever get out of preening hectoring mode? USAToday briefly notes it too was wrong, and I'm glad for that. But there's something unseemly about the MSM having been this wrong for this long and, rather than give us the big multipart front-page series on How the War Was Won deserved by the country, our troops, and the simple journalistic idea that big events should be well-documented, USAToday once again only admits the surge worked in a story about something else entirely.

They can only admit the surge worked, it seems, when they can simultaneously demonstrate their superior judgment and integrity as compared to someone else.

I don't think this is churlish. USAToday is quite right that Obama couldn't stand to admit "Bush was right." But is USAToday much more forthcoming?

Posted by: Ace at 09:23 AM | Comments (21)
Post contains 589 words, total size 4 kb.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:44 AM | Comments (30)
Post contains 8 words, total size 1 kb.