Honestly, I think Iran and Syria will recognize the politics involved and calculate their response accordingly. Remember, about a month ago Putin claimed that US advisors were present in Georgia during the military engagement and it didn't even register on the US public's radar. This will likely be the same. Americans generally don't pay much attention to foreign policy matters. The current economic worries only intensify the national pasttime of navel-gazing.

Whether this is an attempt by the Bush administration to change the topic from the economy to foreign policy is really irrelevant. Nothing is going to get voter's attention away from their individual economic peril. Most Americans, sadly, will just view this incident something like the Syrians deserved it. The facts or implications will get little consideration.

Second thought: Bush/the Republicans are manufacturing an internatinal crisis by picking on the "most likely to respond by invading Lebanon and inviting war with Israel" country...all the while provoking Obama to take a calm posture in the face of this crisis rather than a bellicose one. Remaining calm will in effect be some sort of campaign secret code for "he's really a Muslim" or some such crap.

Third thought: Bush is definitly drinking again.

If the reports are true (as they appear to be) then the US has only added gasoline to the fire.

He can cut mesquite and fish for pond-raised catfish until eternity. My only hope is that he goes deaf and doesn't hear a rattler.

McCain: "you should see me do it with make-up..."

This makes me want to have a good Sunday Scrub. Ick.

He's backed his bad decision of Palin like that...

As tempting as it may be to say that there aren't that many educated republicans, I've run into a fair number who like Obama much more than McCain, especially after the Palin pick. Whether the number is significant, I have no clue, but quiet support from that segment of the republican party certainly wouldn't hurt the Obama vote count.

My guess is this is a very subtile racist suggestion to scare white male voters; something like Obama is going to take their hard-earned money and give it to lower-income African Americans and Hispanics and whomever else.

Perhaps this Joe the plumber fear tactic is actually a thinly veiled racist attack.

I think this might be the case because wealth redistribution policies usually target the upper classes, not the middle class. The latter are generally the beneficiaries of such redistribution.

So if there's a redistribution it has to go down to the lower income groups. I mean why do we need to redistribute upwards? The upper income bracket has already benefitted from 8 years of positive wealth accumulation, er, wealth redistribution.