Afternoon Break. Obama is in Iraq or enroute.

::

No pictures or video footage has emerged, yet. As soon as it is available, I will post it here. But news correspondents are reporting from Baghdad, so the assumption is that Obama is there or enroute. Due to the high security of this trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, information is pretty much mute at this point.


today show


msnbc, andrea mitchell

::

A Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy

This is a lot of folks in your ear.

Every day around 8 a.m., foreign policy aides at Senator Barack Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters send him two e-mails: a briefing on major world developments over the previous 24 hours and a set of questions, accompanied by suggested answers, that the candidate is likely to be asked about international relations during the day.

One recent Q. & A. asked, for example, whether Mr. Obama supported the decision by Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to include a timetable for American troop withdrawal in any new security agreements with the United States. The answer, provided to Mr. Obama with bullet points, was yes — or “a genuine opportunity,” as he put it in a speech on Iraq this week.

Behind the e-mail messages is a tight-knit group of aides supported by a huge 300-person foreign policy campaign bureaucracy, organized like a mini State Department, to assist a candidate whose limited national security experience remains a concern to many voters.

“It is unwieldy, no question,” said Denis McDonough, 38, Mr. Obama’s top foreign policy aide, speaking of an infrastructure that has been divided into 20 teams based on regions and issues, and that has recently absorbed, with some tensions, the top foreign policy advisers from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. “But an administration is unwieldy, too. We also know that it’s messier when you don’t get as much information as you can.” continue

::

Ready to be "scurred" to death from the GOP, again?

When you are behind in most polling. When your age is a hindrance and not a help. When your 25 year plus man is plowed under the truck for calling Americans "whiners" about the economy. When you are perceived as being clueless of the economy. And when your main albatross around your neck is a man by the name of George W. Bush. What are you going to do?

This is easy. Scare the public to death.

We already understand the drill of what is going on here. First off, Bush and revitalizing the drilling for oil is nothing more than a political ploy to help McCain. When Bush signed the G.I. Bill he publicly thanked John McCain, but the fact is that McCain was against this bill, stated so publicly and did not vote for it.

The economy is so fractured by the run of the mortgage crisis, who knows when the bottom will fall out. The jobless claim is up over 360K, inflation is rising, and consumer confidence is at its all time low.

How can the GOP/Republicans fight this? They have been in charge. Bush has sunk all of our assets into this war in Iraq and we are printing paper money with practically no value. The U.S. dollar is vastly weakend abroad, many from around the world are coming to the United States for shopping, travel deals because of this. And China is right dab in the middle of our economy because they are our banker, we owe them a lot of money folks, alot.

So, what do you do if John McCain?

You play the only card you have left. The perception that you are aces in foreign policy and to use the terror trick, to scare the American public to the polls in November. Remember, John McCain Campaign said a terror attack would be good for the GOP. Sure, in this age of surrogates gone wild, they denounced that statement, but none the less, that is what they think and believe.

Now, McCain just stated the following:

"Al Qaeda is on their heels they are not defeated," he told auto workers in Warren, MI, speaking of Iraq. "I also predict that they will make an attempt as we get into the election season to make more of these spectacular kinds of attacks which they’re still capable of doing. The suicide bombers, et cetera. Would not surprise me and we’ve already found out that they’re going to try and step up their attacks and try and do things in a more spectacular fashion so that they can erode the support of the Maliki government."

This brings me back to 2004 and the weekend before the election when the Bush Administration released the Osama bin Ladin tape. Remember that one? That folks, pushed many undecides to vote Bush.

This is 2008, it is time for this trick to be retired for good.

::

Battleground State Fight



Obama on criticism of Michelle....



and....

Who is being vetted for VP? read here...

Obama Goes Global: Visibility in Over 35 Countries.....

Obama's meetings: Heads of state, and opposition

Rumor, Obama speech at Victory Column in Berlin...

and, last night's Evening Wrap Up, here....

ok, I am in slo-mo today, how is the day going? it is hot and humid in the chicagoland area.....

Home Page