Regarding the surge in Iraq--who are you more likely to believe, the neocons who started this bloodbath or the Iraqis caught in the middle of it?
Here's an assessment of the surge from the vantage point of those who aren't trying to sell you on its success.  From those living behind more than three miles of 12 foot high concrete partitions that now separate Sunnis and Shia 
Numbers we can't believe in--when John McCain and the neocons cite numbers that show how much violence is down, remember, numbers lie. 
It's estimated that over 1, 200 American soldiers died to make way for a diplomatic surge that never happened.  
The art of cherry-picking war casualties--that number doesn't include all those killed by car bombs, the deadliest form of violence in this war.   
Why, all of a sudden, are these deaths left out?  After careful analysis, only one conclusion emerges;  it sounds better.  
Unlike previous casualty figures, the Pentagon decided to exclude those from the total of "surge" casualties, thus, the numbers now recited by Bush and John McCain feign unequivocal success.  
But that's not all--you also don't hear much about the 3, 336 Iraqi security forces' casualties since 2007.
You also don't hear much about civilian casualties.  Another 22,586–24,159 civilian deaths have been recorded in 2007 through Iraq Body Count’s extensive monitoring of media and official reports. These figures, though undoubtedly incomplete, are the most comprehensive and well-established currently available, and show beyond any doubt that civil security in Iraq remains in a parlous state. Figures for the most recent months indicate that violence in Iraq has returned to the monthly levels IBC was recording in 2005, a year which was itself (until 2006) the worst since the invasion.

You also don't hear much about the non-combatant deaths in Afghanistan.  That number grew approximately 74% since January 2007.  There is undoubtedly a causal relationship between concentrating our military efforts on Iraq and ignoring that other war we started in Afghanistan.  

You also don't hear much about the suicide rate.  An internal Army study that shows 121 soldiers committed suicide in 2007. That's a 20% increase over the prior year.

You also don't hear much about those who started this whole thing in the first place--al-qaeda.   Just 12 months ago, when the surge in Iraq was in full force, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded al-Qaeda had rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 
Essentially, we deserted the war Bin Laden started to wage a war GWB, John McCain and the neocons started.  A war that, to this day, had no valid justification whatsoever.  
The military part of the surge, to Gen. Betraeus' and our brave troops' credit, has helped dig us out of a massive hole that would never have been created had it not been for the blunder in judgment demonstrated by, among others, John McCain.  
The only two choices we had were to max out our troop presence in Iraq or to withdraw.  No one should presume that only one of those choices would have led to a reduction in violence. 
Overall conditions on the ground in Iraq, and in the U.S.- Hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of families forever displaced, millions of others still left with little or no running water or electricity, and here in Washington, a culture of political crime and corruption, a diminished constitution with fewer individual freedoms, and a deep and widespread shortage of accountability and justice.
Health care costs have skyrocketed, our government is both broken and broke.  We're in the middle of a financial crisis, the likes of which this country has never seen, millions of people can't pay their mortgages, many of them have lost their homes, their jobs, and with towering oil prices, they can't afford to drive. Bridges, tunnels, highways and schools across the country are in a state of ruin, not to mention entire communities like New Orleans.  We have zero commitment to renewable energy.  
"But I was right about the surge" says John McCain.    

I'm grateful that the military surge has reduced violence in Iraq.  But it's discomforting to see John McCain, or any politician for that matter, trumpeting it as an unqualified success, and claiming credit for it.   
If John McCain wants to take credit for "the surge", let him. But in doing so, he has to claim responsibility for the entire war in Iraq. Because it was his judgment that led our troops full steam ahead into this, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of America.   He can't just ride on the coattails of a specific period of time--the last 12 months.  He has to own all five years.  
Remember,  success has many fathers.  But failure is an orphan. 
IMHO,  the Iraq body count project is the only visual representation that comes close to depicting that failure.
Here's the link.  

Energy has become one of the most profound social and political issues in our lifetime.  I say that because it affects every living breathing soul.  And what we do now as a country will define our strength as a nation for the 21st century. 
A few weeks ago I contacted Robert Rapier, a highly reputable energy expert, and asked his opinion on the drilling debate.  I did this because congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle seem to be playing hard and loose with the facts.  Robert just posted an informative summation of the issue on his blog and proposed a reasonable compromise.  You can find it here.
IMO, I like the idea but I think any compromise that is made should occur once the Bush administration is out of office. 
I encourage you to send the link to your friends so that they can arrive at a more educated position about the subject.  
And I invite everyone to comment so we can learn even more. 

RE:  huffpost article:  New Yorker Reporter Banned from Obama Press Plane...
Rachel has made the clarification that the reporter wasn't actually banned.  "Excluded" replaces the word "banned".
Here's the article.
I admire that she took the time to re-assess what she had originally written.  Sometimes changes are warranted, sometimes they're not. 
The important thing is she took the time to think about it.
Very professional.    
 

I still believe the war in Iraq and the war on terror are two separate things.   But since there is so much focus on Iraq now, I came across this recent assessment of the surge.  It's from an Iraq point of view, something we don't hear often enough.  
Violence is down in Iraq but I find it troubling to call our misadventure there a success.   Lowering the level of violence does not change the fact that had this administration been competent and strategically smarter, we wouldn't have had any violence in Iraq to lower.  
There are those who would do the same thing again--they say it was worth it because Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator.  Maybe so, but he was a brutal dictator with no weapons of mass destruction.  None.  He didn't pose a threat to the United States, nor was he associated in any way at all with Al Qaeda.  
There are those who only want you to look at what they consider the "successful" part of the war in Iraq--the surge and forget about the vote to wage the war in the first place.  It's lasted five years but we only want you to consider  20% of our judgment, not the other 80%.   
It's like they're cherry-picking history and saying, see, we were right.  
Wrong.
  

I've noticed that some of the writing in McCain's speeches has improved.  Some of the commercials are actually pretty good.  Specifically the ones that focus on John McCain's biography, military history and his character.  
But the campaign strategists knee-cap their own efforts by attacking Obama with Bush/Cheney/Rove-like lies, half-truths and misleading tactics which omit relevant facts.  
For example, the McCain campaign ran a  commercial that blames the high price of gas on Obama.  It's identical to President Bush blaming the high price of gas on the democrats.    When John McCain writes an op-ed that attacks Obama in every paragraph, touts the success of the surge and parrots Bush talking points, they sound like the same old neocons that have led us astray over the last eight years.  
They spent a lot of time putting together a video that focuses on the media's infatuation with Obama--and their constant coverage of him.  
But with every sentence, every commercial, every speech, every attack, every complaint, McCain and his strategists seem to be more obsessed with Obama than the media is.
And now, it appears that Maliki advocates a withdrawal plan more like Obama's than Bush or McCain's.  
Here again, though, the McCain strategists make the mistake of not even acknowledging this and then they try to reframe the whole Iraq debate by repeating over and over again-- the surge is working, 
Sounds like George Bush to me.  
The more they do this, the more they sound like the neocons. 
If I were John McCain, I'd be asking my communications strategists to stop pushing Bush rhetoric, stop talking about Obama, Obama, Obama,  and start talking about me.  
If they insist that it's important to draw contrasts, point out that they haven't really established a "stand alone" John McCain, or a well-grounded, independent McCain brand to draw a contrast with Barack Obama.  
If they say they just need to hammer away what's essentially coming off as "Republicans vs. Barack Obama, it is, tell them putting millions of dollars behind the wrong communications strategy can make a political campaign fail faster.   
  

The surge may be working.  But it's not as successful as John McCain says it is.
Juan Cole had some alarming casualty figures in his recent article.  
"Despite all the talk about Iraq being "calm," I'd like to point out that the month just before the last visit Barack Obama made to Iraq (he went in January, 2006), there were 537 civilian and ISF Iraqi casualties. In June of this year, 2008, there were 554 according to AP. These are official statistics gathered passively that probably only capture about 10 percent of the true toll.

That is, the Iraqi death toll is actually still worse now than the last time Obama was in Iraq! (See the bombings and shootings listed below for Sunday). The hype around last year's troop escalation obscures a simple fact: that Obama formed his views about the need for the US to leave Iraq at a time when its security situation was very similar to what it is now! "

This is sensationalism at its worst. The truth is that there are only a limited number of seats on Obama's press plane and the New Yorker was only one, among many media organizations, that had to sit this one out. But Rachel Sklar turned it into a "retribution" piece.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/21/obamas-revenge-emnew-york_n_113969.html

IMHO, this is the kind of reporting that isn't journalism. You can arrive at your own conclusion and let her know, as I did.

[ed.note: The original version of this post contained Ms. Sklar's personal email address. It was edited out of the post because posting people's personal email addresses without their permission violates site rules -- the editors.]