Our military has again gone above and beyond in their attempt to bring peace and stability to Iraq. They deserve our praise, respect and admiration. They and their families deserve our sincere gratitude for their many sacrifices. They overcame the obstacles placed before them by the Bush Administration's failure to plan for the aftermath of the invasion in Iraq, as well as the care of the soldiers and their families here at home.

Sen. McCain and his supporters are asking Sen. Obama to admit that Sen. McCain was right to call for more troops in Iraq and that the surge worked - he and the surge reduced violence.

Sen. McCain and his supporters see only two possible responses: either Sen. Obama says the surge worked - thanks to Sen. McCain's courage to stand up to the Bush Administration and the hard work and sacrifice of our military; or Sen. Obama has to say that the surge and our military failed. The truth is more simple than that. Sen. McCain knows this, yet now he is seeking credit for less violence while denying his role in supporting the mistakes that created, or at least failed to prevent, the violence in Iraq in the first place.

Just getting started...

The latest Democratic proposal on drilling failed today.

Pelosi's comments on the bill:

Part of what we must do to bring down the price of energy to the American people is to increase domestic supply. And increasing domestic supply means that we must remove all doubt in the minds of those who wish to drill and those who want the drilling to take place that there are 68 million acres in the lower 48 states where drilling is allowed. Drill Responsibly In Leased Lands.

Republicans opposed the bill because it did not lift the ban on off-shore drilling.

Here is one more nail in the coffin for the Republicans: where in the OCS should the oil companies drill?

We will likely see renewed debate for drilling, and it seems the talking points were recently distributed:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/...

http://www.tennessean.com/...

Searching Google News shows there are over 300 similar articles and editorials just in the past week.

Democrats have responded talking about unused oil leases:

http://www.chron.com/...

But this argument lacks some depth. So I decided do some research.

There certainly is a lot of hype about Obama. He is being portrayed as if he will be the greatest president ever; the solution to all of America's problems; change, something 100 times more than the change we expected after Democrats took control of Congress.

While Obama may make a good president, I don't buy the hype. Yet the hype appears to grow at every turn.

It is easy to promise the moon to everyone, but in the end you have to do more than hand out a few telescopes. Otherwise, hope will fade, momentum will be lost, and change will once again become more of the same.

Unrealistic promises made during the heat of a campaign can easily undo that campaign. Rove was great at making promises to get votes and get people elected. We do not need another Rove, for we all have seen the end result.

So proceed with caution.

The problems we face stand much taller than any one man or woman. Unity, hard work, and difficult if not unpleasant choices will be required to solve them. History shows us that lots of people want change, but few are actually willing to change. I can only hope enthusiasm can be quickly transformed into action in 2009.

I am not a Bush supporter and I do not favor invading Iran. However, I do suspect Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program.

Iran has had a secret nuclear program for 18 years - a program that went undetected by the IAEA. This should be no real surprise, as David Kay stated in 2005:

International inspection, when it works, is best at confirming whether a state is complying with its international obligations. It is not equipped to uncover clandestine weapons programs. When Mohamed ElBaradei says his IAEA has found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, he is speaking honestly as to the limitations of the powers of his inspectors.

By using the recent IAEA report to somehow claim that Iran does NOT have a nuclear weapons program is a little premature. What the new IAEA report really says is that so far they have not proven that a program exists.

This also should be no surprise, since as McClatchy reported "The IAEA has been stymied in trying to discover the project's scope."

There's more....

A compilation of news clips from the past week.

The short version: the surge was simply 'stay the course' in disguise, carried out by a different general who believed Iraq could be fixed.

A slightly longer version:

   * Violence, if down at all, will only be temporary as violence is likely to increase as the surge ends.
   * The Shiite militias have grown stronger and have no interest in playing nice with the Sunnis and relinquishing what they see as their rightful ruling power. Reconciliation is not a goal of the Shia.
   * The US MUST begin to reduce troop levels as the 15 month deployments come to their scheduled and necessary end.

An even longer version with links to articles follows.

Bush and his GOP enablers continue to push the view that we need to hit back against the terrorists and 'fight them over there so we do not have to fight them here'. Pure spin, of course. Except that the enablers actual believe this.

And they are blind to the results so far: Al Qaeda is stronger and growing, Iraq is one big training camp that does more than any bombed-out training camp in Afghanistan ever did. Their response is simply one of denial.

You see, the importance of the WOT for the GOP enablers is not winning the war on terror, but simply fighting. If that were not the case:

-Afghanistan would have remained the focus of US military actions
-Bush would not have passed on getting Al Qaeda #1 and #2
-Pakistan would not be the new Afghanistan
-Adequate forces would have been in Iraq to prevent an Al Qaeda uprising

But why will this GOP WOT fail?

The efforts by oil companies to reduce refinery capacity to increase profits has been mentioned many times before, especially around the 2004 election.

Congressman Pitts is attempting 'feel good/look good' legislation to offer old military bases for use to build new refineries. This will do nothing, because oil companies do not want to increase US capacity: an increase in capacity leads to a decrease in profits.

While oil companies may have a desire to build new refineries, it appeasrs they just don't want to build any in the US.

And they blame Bush for this.

Newt Gingrich was on Meet the Press today. I believe he and Senator Chris Dodd created a good contrast to the different beliefs that exist. I cannot say that Dodd ‘won’ the debate. I can say that Gingrich "sounded good", that is I believe many people (especially those who have difficulty separating pundit talk from facts) thought he sounded good. Unfortunately, in my view he was wrong.

It is not because he is a conservative and I am not. It is not a Democratic vs Republican difference. I am not a political scientist nor a historian. Gingrich, in my view, simply fails the common sense test. He and other like-minded Republicans are driving the Country further from a solution.

With Iraq, the US Attorney scandal, missing emails, political briefings at federal agencies, this one seems to have gone unnoticed:

Bush has succeeded in creating OVER $3 TRILLION in new federal debt since his inauguration:

04/26/2007 8,817,823,126,234.99
01/22/2001 5,728,195,796,181.57

New Debt:  3,089,627,330,053.42

Annual interest payments have also exceeded the $400 BILLION mark.

Those who oppose reducing troop levels in Iraq need to understand:

• There were not enough troops in the beginning
• There are not enough troops there now
• The surge did not bring enough troops
• There will not be enough troops in the future

Those who oppose the efforts of Democrats to reduce troop levels next year are probably in two camps: those who want to reduce troop levels, just not before Bush says it is ok; and those who want US troops to remain in Iraq for a long time to be used to ‘spread’ democracy elsewhere in the region.

Supporters of the surge and opponents of the Democrats reduction plan are not being honest with the American people.

The Lancaster New Era newspaper in Lancaster PA, in the heart of Republican territory in south-central PA, has dropped Ann Coulter's Column.

link

To Our Readers: The Lancaster New Era has halted publication of Ann Coulter's syndicated column, following her crude characterization of presidential candidate John Edwards as a homosexual, at a public appearance on Friday.

Coulter's use of name-calling, sarcasm and overstatement in her columns too often distracts from the arguments she seeks to make. Her writing leads her political opponents to respond with name-calling and vitriol. The quality of public discusisons falls below that which Lancaster County residents expect in the opinion pages of their daily newspaper.

Lancaster County residents of whatever political view - conservative, moderate or liberals - deserve intelligent discussions of issues. Ann Coulter no longer provides that.

Are there any other newspapers who have dropped her column?

Secretary Rice was on This Week today, saying Congress should not micromanage the Iraq War.

From an Ap Story

"I would hope that Congress would recognize that it's very important for them to have the oversight role," Rice said. "But when it comes to the execution of policy in the field, there has to be a clear relationship between the commander in chief and the commanders in the field."

The problem, Dr. Rice, is that for the first 4 years there was no Congressional oversight and that allowed flawed policies to go unchecked. During those 4 years, the relationship between the commander in chief and the commanders in the field has been a one-way relationship: giving orders and not listening or wanting to listen.

Why is it that those who loudly claim 'we support the troops' also support sending troops into battle to die; look the other way while the VA is underfunded to make the budget look good; ignore the conditions at Walter Reed until the Washington Post writes an article; choose to listen to policy theorists and PHD's will little or no military experience at places like the AEI - even after they have been wrong again and again - rather than seasoned generals; support a second escalation after the first one did not work out as planned; support adding 20,000 troops to stop a full blown insurgency that generals originally said would require 100,000 troops to prevent; allow significant equipment shortages resulting from OIF/OEF to go un-addressed for years; support extended tours and shortened times at home - why is that considered supporting the troops?

The New York Times today published a story about General Franks' August 2002 CENTCOM briefing slides.

The briefing shows that post-war Phase IV was to surge to 270,000 troops and then expected to decline to 5,000 troops by 2006. Many media outlets are keying on this last fact - 5,000 troops by 2006. But I do not believe that to be the full story, and there are many holes that need to be filled in.

Via News Hounds

FOX News Channel has announced that it will air "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West,"

    "(a) frightening new documentary by filmmaker Wayne Kopping ....

    What he found, is something FOX News believes every American should know."

The film, which is actually a year old, will be shown four (4) times this weekend to help Republicans scare their base to the polls. Along with plenty of footage accusing Democrats of not getting it (an O'Reilly favorite) and Dick Morris' sickening new anti-Democrat smear commercial, FOX is pulling out all the stops to support their party.

Not much to add, but wanted to make sure everyone here was informed.

Santorum is still running ads. They are local cable ad buys, not the broadcast networks.

The latest ad brags about how he has worked with Democrats (including Hillary) to pass legislation and how  sometimes it is better to work with Democrats than fight them.

It is amazing how elections bring out changes, or at least the perception of change. Of course, Santorm's campaign has said they are going after undecideds and independents with the latest ad buys. I guess so, because working with Hillary would not exactly fire up the base!

I believe this election is a choice between 'Stay the Course' and 'More of the Same', and not just in Iraq and Afghanistan.

National debt, lack of oversight, too much executive power, a government that seems no longer "for the people" but rather "for the few", too much influence of ideologues, too many lobbyists, a weakened middle class, a civilian leadership at the Pentagon that needs to go, late night deals for votes, provisions secretly inserted into bills, 'new language' that appears in the House/Senate conference.

I do not see how one can want change, but vote Republican.

It seems to me that a Republican vote is a vote for 'More of the Same'. Republicans have given Bush just about everything he wanted, and I do not see how keeping them in power will change anything. Bush will likely see a Republican retention of power as 'more political capital' and a mandate to continue on his course.

That is about what this election is for me. What about you?