McCain in an interview with Katie Couric stated:

COURIC: Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that? MCCAIN: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

They were out there. They were protecting these sheiks. We had the Anbar awakening. We now have a government that’s effective. We have a legal system that’s working, although poorly. And we have progress on all fronts. Including– an incredible measure of security for the people of Iraq. There will still be attacks. Al Qaeda’s not defeated. But the progress has been immense. And to not recognize that, and why it happened, and how it happened, I think is really quite a commentary.

However Macfarland said this on September 29th 2006, months before the surge:

With respect to the violence between the Sunnis and the al Qaeda — actually, I would disagree with the assessment that the al Qaeda have the upper hand. That was true earlier this year when some of the sheikhs began to step forward and some of the insurgent groups began to fight against al Qaeda. The insurgent groups, the nationalist groups, were pretty well beaten by al Qaeda.

This is a different phenomena that’s going on right now. I think that it’s not so much the insurgent groups that are fighting al Qaeda, it’s the — well, it used to be the fence-sitters, the tribal leaders, are stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, and it’s had a very different result. I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they’re finding themselves trapped between the coalition and ISF on the one side, and the people on the other

McCain is allowed his own opinions on Iraq and the surge, but not his own facts

This is going to be bad for McCain

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

It is the first time he has backed the withdrawal timetable put forward by Obama, who is visiting Afghanistan and us set to go to Iraq as part of a tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Obama has called for a shift away from a “single-minded” focus on Iraq and wants to pull out troops within 16 months, instead adding U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan.

Asked if he supported Obama’s ideas more than those of John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, Maliki said he did not want to recommend who people should vote for.

“Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems.”

Maliki, who is due to visit Germany this week, has suggested a timetable should be set for a U.S. withdrawal but U.S. officials have been more cautious, despite an improving security situation.

The White House said on Friday President George W. Bush and Maliki had agreed that a security deal under negotiation should set a “time horizon” for meeting “aspirational goals” for reducing U.S. forces in Iraq.

“The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn’t,” Maliki told Der Spiegel.

A dangerous “slip” on McCain’s part

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Friday that his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, is likely to be in Iraq over the weekend.

The Obama campaign has tried to cloak the Illinois senator’s trip in some measure of secrecy for security reasons. The White House, State Department and Pentagon do not announce senior officials’ visits to Iraq in advance.

“I believe that either today or tomorrow — and I’m not privy to his schedule — Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators” who make up a congressional delegation, McCain told a campaign fund-raising luncheon.

The Reuters piece hints at it. But if Obama is going to be in Iraq this weekend, this is a major breach on McCain’s part. As a knowledgeable insider notes …
If it is true that Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, it is a very serious mistake for McCain to have disclosed it publically. Even for run-of-the-mill CODELs the military gives guidance like, “Please strongly discourage Congressional offices from issuing press releases prior to their trips which mention their intent to travel to the AOR and/or the dates of that travel or their scheduled meetings. Such releases are a serious compromise to OPSEC.” If Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, I can not begin to imagine how much this is complicating the security planning for the trip.

It’s known that Obama is leaving on his foreign trip this weekend and the Journal OpEd page this morning said that Obama could arrive in Iraq “as early as this weekend.” And with a slew of reporters in tow, it’s not exactly highly classified information. But there is a reason definite information about these sorts of trips aren’t released in advance.

Hypothetically, maybe McCain was just guessing. But even so it would still be a serious lapse of judgment on his part.

How can a man who is running on the supposed strength of national security credentials, like McCain is, make such a slip, which could put not only Senator Obama but also his travel partners and others at risk, and still expect people to trust him with the country?

Obama Aides Ecstatic Over $52 Million Haul:

There is a sense of elation in the Obama campaign as it was announced that their candidate raised $52 million in June. It’s a massive haul for the presumptive Democratic nominee — $3 million short of the historic mark he hit earlier in the cycle but much larger than the $22 million that John McCain brought in this past month.

The majority of donations, Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe wrote in an email to supporters, were of the small variety, with the average amount being $68.

An aide to the Senator was ecstatic when asked about the June numbers and said of an earlier Wall Street Journal report that Obama had raised “only” around $30 million: the paper is “embarrassed.”

Greg Sargent at Talking Points Memo noted that the June haul puts Obama on track to achieve his goal of raising $300 million during the entirety of the general election - a total needed to match the likely loot of McCain and the RNC. And yet, Obama and his allies at the DNC still lag behind their counterparts. The Democrats have $72 million on hand, compared to the roughly $100 million brought in by the GOP.

“We remain at a massive disadvantage to our opponents,” Plouffe wrote in an email before asking for additional $25 donations. “As I mentioned in my video message earlier in the week, the McCain Campaign and the Republican National Committee finished June with nearly $100 million in the bank.

We can’t stop now. It’s going to take everything we’ve got to defeat John McCain and his allies in November.”

Sorry Will, only if you use the definition of Recession as:

Two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country’s gross domestic product (GDP)

However if you use the National Bureau of Economic Research definition:

The committee places particular emphasis on two monthly measures of activity across the entire economy: (1) personal income less transfer payments, in real terms and (2) employment. In addition, we refer to two indicators with coverage primarily of manufacturing and goods: (3) industrial production and (4) the volume of sales of the manufacturing and wholesale-retail sectors adjusted for price changes. We also look at monthly estimates of real GDP such as those prepared by Macroeconomic Advisers (see http://www.macroadvisers.com). Although these indicators are the most important measures considered by the NBER in developing its business cycle chronology, there is no fixed rule about which other measures contribute information to the process.

Then we are in a recession

HuffPo has the story:

Personal incomes rose 1.9% in May, the largest gain since September 2005, when insurance payments from hurricane damage flooded into bank accounts. The increase was close to the 1.5% gain expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar.

Real disposable incomes (after taxes and adjusted for inflation) increased 5.3%, the biggest increase since 1975, when the government also sent out rebate checks. Read the full report.

Excluding the impact of the rebates and inflation, real disposable incomes were flat.

Click the link to read the rest

Long-Term Agreement Will Fall to Next President

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a “bridge” document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord — blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task — deals a blow to the Bush administration’s plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

In addtion US is considering pulling out of Iraq faster

The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.

One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.

More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month.

There appears to be a lot of truth to that belief

A multi-pronged militant assault on a small, remote U.S. base killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15 Sunday in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years, officials said.

The attack on the U.S. outpost came the same day a suicide bomber targeting a police patrol killed 24 people, while U.S. coalition and Afghan soldiers killed 40 militants elsewhere in the south.

The militant assault on the American troops began around 4:30 a.m. in a dangerous region close to the Pakistan border and lasted throughout the day.

Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

Nine U.S. troops were killed in the attack, a Western official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the troops’ nationalities.

Today Phil Gramm, McCain’s economic advisor stated that the recession is only mental and that America is a nation of whiners

Understandably this did not go over well and Obama struck at McCain and Gramm

McCain of course has tried to distance himself, however he has agreed in the past with Gramm

And when called on that today he avoids answering the question

McCain advisor, Meg Whitman, contradicts herself and McCain’s budget plans

Even ignoring the fact that trickle down economics doesn’t help the average American, and that it will be the rich and corporations that get the benefit, we still see that Whitman contradicts herself admitting that even though good policy is to only give tax cuts when you have spending under control and are running surpluses, McCain will still give them out even if our current spending continues, this disporves his idea to balance the budget and supports the views that he will in fact rasie deficits.

On top of that Wonk Room looks at McCain’s budget plans and says that even if he gutted entire government offices he still wouldn’t cover his tax cuts and military spending plans:

McCain Could Eliminate 10 Cabinet Agencies And Still Not Balance His Budget

The Congressional Budget Office projects that, with the extension of expiring tax cuts, the budget deficit will top $400 billion that year. In addition, McCain has called for some $300 billion in new tax cuts. McCain has not identified specific spending reductions that save much money; earmark reductions, for example, would save only $9 billion, according to the Heritage Foundation. A generous estimate of the savings from McCain’s proposed spending freeze would be $50 billion. This leaves McCain with a budget hole of about $650 billion.

This is an astonishing amount. To put it in perspective, McCain could eliminate the following 10 Cabinet agencies and still come up $100 billion short:

Agency        2013 Projected Outlays

Agriculture        $120 billion

Commerce         $9 billion

Education          $86 billion

Energy               $30 billion

HUD                  $66 billion

Interior            $14 billion

DOJ                  $32 billion

Labor                $14 billion

Transportation     $87 billion

Treasury              $84 billion

EPA                     $9 billion

TOTAL                $551 billion

Basically, even if he were to go cutting crazy McCain is unlikely to come close to covering his deficts.

McCain advisor Holtz Eakin Steers clear of the third rail

Asked on a conference call with reporters just how John McCain would balance the budget by 2013, his top economic adviser offered the usual recipe.

“Broad-based efforts at controlling discretionary spending, keeping growth rapid and reviewing programs for their effectiveness.”

Of course, with McCain’s proposed tax cuts, that still may not get the country to a balanced budget.

Which is where Holtz-Eakin’s next statements come in.

McCain, noted his adviser, “has a long history of being someone who can reach across the aisle” to address policy issues.

He’ll “solve big problems and provide leadership,” Holtz-Eakin said, staying vague.

Don’t get what he’s talking about?

It’s the issue that dare not speak its name during a campaign — what to do about those entitlements that take up a much larger slice of the federal budget than any earmarks McCain wants to cut.

What Holtz-Eakin was suggesting, of course, is that McCain would work with Democratic leaders in Congress to address the increasingly heavy fiscal load that will come when baby boomers retire and start drawing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The political challenge is saying during the course of a campaign just how you’d balance the budget by addressing this looming challenge. McCain dares not propose increasing taxes on Social Security for fear of offending his tax-averse GOP base. But he also, wisely, fears the wrath of seniors in such key elderly-heavy states such as Florida and Pennsylvania that would come were he to propose cutting benefits.

So instead it’s mostly a wink and a nod — the suggestion, if not outright proposal, that McCain will work and compromise with Democrats on the Hill to offer the needed harsh medicine that can’t be unsealed until after Election Day.

Basically the McCain camp knows they need to deal with costs, and may need to raise taxes, but unlike Obama don’t want to be honest with the public until after the election, straight talk indeed
NYT says that it isn’t going to happen, in fact he’ll increase the deficits

Senator John McCain is pledging once again to balance the budget by the end of his first term in 2013, his advisers said Monday, reverting to an earlier pledge he had abandoned in April when he proposed a series of costly tax cuts for corporations and high earners and said it might take two terms to balance the budget.

It is unclear how Mr. McCain plans to balance the budget, given that fiscal analysts who have examined his economic plans say that his calls to extend the Bush tax cuts while cutting corporate and other taxes would likely increase the deficit.

…

To pay for his tax cuts, the McCain campaign has called for cutting pork-barrel spending and making entitlements less expensive, but fiscal analysts have questioned whether he could save enough money that way to pay for the tax cuts, and cautioned that the spending cut proposals were far vaguer than the tax cut proposals

In addition McCain is talking about a victory dividende from Iraq and Afghanistan, predicting victory by the end of his first term there, as I said yesterday, that is unlikely, however even if he could, the costs from remaining troops in the countries would still weigh on the deficit, and a withdrawl would put him closer to the Obama camp, which begs the question why support McCain over Obama if both want withdrawl?

McCain tries to lie about Obama’s stance on Taxes

The McCain campaign also sent out a memo, reinforcing the point. “This year, Barack Obama returned to the United States Senate twice to vote in favor of a budget resolution which raises income tax rates by three percentage points for the 25, 28 and 33 percent tax brackets,” Holtz-Eakin writes in the memo. “This would mean a tax increase for those earning as little as $32,000. While Barack Obama campaigns on a promise of no tax hikes for anyone but the rich, we once again find that his words are empty when it comes time to act. In both March and June, Barack Obama could have put the force of his vote behind his words. Instead, he decided that ‘rich’ now means those making just $32,000 per year.”

But NBC’s Ken Strickland spoke with a Democratic aide at the Senate Budget Committee who said there was never a budget vote that said: Let’s raise taxes. What the budget vote did do was estimate how much additional revenue would be needed, and then it would go to the Finance Committee to determine how to raise that amount (raise taxes, close loopholes, etc).

What the economists didn’t sign

This morning, the McCain campaign sent out a press release: OVER 300 ECONOMISTS SIGN STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF JOHN MCCAIN’S ECONOMIC PLAN.

The statement leaves out two big chunks of McCain’s economic argument: the gas tax holiday and his promise to balance the budget by the end of his first term — there’s literally nothing in the release that mentions the deficit or national debt

Also the signers include people involved in the current mortgage crisis and enron, not the sort I want setting the economic policy of the country

Back from vacation, only to find horror

Apparantly McCain is going to vow to Balance the budget by the end of his first term

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico.

The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term.

McCain is making the pledge at the beginning of a week when both presidential candidates plan to devote their events to the economy, the top issue in poll after poll as voters struggle to keep their jobs and fill their gas tanks.

“In the long-term, the only way to keep the budget balanced is successful reform of the large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” the McCain campaign says in a policy paper to be released Monday.

“The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.”

The pledge is a return to an earlier position he’d later backed away from. On April 15, McCain backed off a February pledge to balance the budget in his first term when asked about it by Michael Cooper of The New York Times, who reported that McCain said “at a news conference … that ‘economic conditions are reversed’ and that he would have a balanced budget within eight years.”

McCain advisers admit that the document is a repackaging of previous policies, without dramatic new initiatives. Some Democratic officials had thought McCain might try to make a splash by proposing a bold middle-class tax cut.

Jason Furman, Obama’s economic policy director, called McCain’s pledge “preposterous.” Furman pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office now estimates a 2013 deficit of $443 billion, assuming the Bush tax cuts are extended. And he estimated that McCain would have to cut discretionary spending—including defense—by roughly one-third to bring the budget into the black by then.

“McCain would have to pay for all of his new tax cuts and other proposals and then, on top of that, cut an additional $443 billion from the budget—which is 81 percent of Medicare spending or 78 percent of all discretionary spending outside of defense,” Furman said.

Isn’t balancing the Budget a good thing, you might be asking; yes when you have an intelligent plan to do so, but McCain’s is not feasible.

First off McCain’s plans to cut discreationary spending and pork and closing loopholes won’t come close to covering his spending needs:

And that’s just comparing his spending cuts to his tax plans, add in Iraq and Afghanistan along with other defense spending and the gap gets even larger; on defense McCain seems to want a contradictory spending plan,  merging cuts and increases  on various aspects of the budget, but considering the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, hoping for victory dividends in those conflicts any time soon is probably a fools’ errand.  On top of that our economic news gets worse and worse and worse, with jobs being lost and consumer confidence at record lows, so hoping for an economic boost to bring in high revenues is not likely any time soon.  In fact as gas prices get higher, consumers will have less disposable income, as more goes into the bare necessities.

This leaves McCain only one real route to fulfilling his pledge, while keeping all the other plans he wants, cutting entitlements and other social programs (not to mention cutting the budgets of a lot of government agencies), things like Medicare, Social security, and welfare programs would have to face deep cuts during his “overhauls”, in order to come close to covering the spending gaps.  That would mean further hurting the lower income families and the elderly, the people who depend on those programs for support, those who are hurting the worst from this recession.

One can only hope this is another political pander by McCain.

I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who oppose my decision to support the FISA compromise.

This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn’t have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush’s abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That’s why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.

But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I’ve said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility

The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.

The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I’m persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe — particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I’ve chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention — once I’m sworn in as President — to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.

Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I’m happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples’ attention on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true — not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.

I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I’m not exempt from that. I’m certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too. I cannot promise to agree with you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the country. That is why we have built the largest grassroots campaign in the history of presidential politics, and that is the kind of White House that I intend to run as President of the United States — a White House that takes the Constitution seriously, conducts the peoples’ business out in the open, welcomes and listens to dissenting views, and asks you to play your part in shaping our country’s destiny.

Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That’s ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.

So I appreciate the feedback through my.barackobama.com, and I look forward to continuing the conversation in the months and years to come. Together, we have a lot of work to do.

Refinement refers to the pace of withdrawls, not the 16 month withdrawl table

In a recent article they say that Obama is adding new language on Iraq

“But he has said over and over again we have to be as careful getting out as George Bush was careless getting in. So he will redeploy our forces responsibly, at a rate that our commanders say is safe and sustainable.”

Letting commanders have a say in the pace of withdrawal is new language from the Obama campaign.

Umm No it isn’t:, he said it in March as well:

Obama says he will listen to generals about the war

BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com

Trying to help Barack Obama appear ready to be commander-in-chief, nine former generals stood at attention today as the Democratic White House hopeful walked in to a news conference against a backdrop of flags at the Chicago History Museum.

The generals said they think Obama has the judgment and temperament to be commander-in-chief.

Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak, who served as Air Force Chief of Staff during Operation Desert Storm and who introduced Obama to audiences during the Iowa Caucuses, said Obama was so steady he should be called “No Shock Barack” or “No Drama Obama.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s rival campaign hastily threw together its own conference call to start 25 minutes after Obama’s news conference. In Clinton’s event, generals supporting her explained why they think she would be the better commander-in-chief.

Obama lamented the early retirement of Admiral William Fallon, who has clashed with the Bush administration over its policies toward Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think it’s a loss,” Obama said. “I think he provided a balanced view of the region. I’m sorry to see him go, but I guess I’m not surprised.”

Obama said that while President Bush has said that he follows the advice of his generals regarding Iraq, when they give the president advice he doesn’t like — cautioning against the War in Iraq, for example — Bush doesn’t listen to them.

“There were generals at the beginning of the conflict that said this is going to require many more troops, will cost us much more … those generals were pushed aside,” Obama said.

Responding to comments made by a former advisor who said Obama might shelve withdrawal plans after getting elected, Obama said he would listen to his generals but, “I will not equivocate in my strategic belief that we need to withdraw … one to two brigades per month — that will be the operating pace that I come into those conversations with.”

Obama tried to deflect the importance of race in the campaign, the day after he won 90 percent of the African-American vote and a quarter of the white vote in Mississippi, according to exit polls.

“There will be some voters for whom the fact I am African-American means I’ve got to work a little harder to make the case,” he said. “In fairness to Sen. Clinton, there may be some voters who require her to work a little harder to make the case because she’s a woman. But there are probably some who give me the benefit of the doubt because I’m black and there are probably some who give Sen. Clinton the benefit of the doubt because she’s a woman.”

Obama called former U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro’s comments that Obama’s race is helping him in this campaign “ridiculous.”

And Obama mocked the notion that his high level of support among African-American voters might turn off white voters.

What percentage of the African-American vote would pundits like him to get that won’t bring criticism for having too much or too little support in the African-American community, he asked.

Four generals in the Clinton conference call praised her help for veterans, work on Arlington Cemetery and other issues, calling her “steady in the saddle.”

Steve Schmidt is altering the structure of McCain’s camp

Moving to put his imprint on the campaign, newly-installed McCain chief Steve Schmidt sent a memo this morning to the campaign’s 11 regional campaign managers alerting them that he was going to hire a political director and field director to bring more structure to campaign’s political operation.

The regional plan, hatched by Rick Davis, delegated significant authority to the field operatives, empowering them to make decisions and allocate resources in their assigned states.

In the memo, Schmidt suggests that they won’t have the autonomy they once did — but also that their positions aren’t being completely eliminated.

“These individuals will work with all of you and with [deputy campaign manager] Christian Ferry to increase our capacity to reach out to voters, build coalitions, identify supporters, and ultimately turn them out to the polls on Nov. 4,” Schmidt writes of the new political and field directors. “We will be enhancing our headquarters political capacity to provide additional resources to you and your regions.”

Veteran Republicans were baffled by McCain’s attempt to outsource authority over tasks typically overseen by a political director and field director in the traditional campaign model. McCain strategists explained it as the logical outgrowth of what worked best for them in the GOP primary, letting local aides and advisers on the ground determine the plan of attack.

Now, Schmidt, a veteran of the highly-disciplined Bush-Cheney school of campaign organization, is making clear that he wants more central control.

“The organizations you are leading are providing important coordination in the field between all the various aspects of our campaign — whether that is political organization, finance, surrogates, communications, coalitions etc,” he writes. “In the days ahead, we will be working to enhance and strengthen the coordination between all these aspects of the campaign.”

Republicans in and out of McCain’s campaign expect former Rudy Giuliani campaign manager Mike DuHaime to take over one of the two new slots. A veteran field specialist, DuHaime has been working closely with the campaign headquarters and the regional managers for the past few months in an advisory capacity with the RNC.

McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia

The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”

Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita’s payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.

According to the Justice Department, the payments “were reviewed and approved by senior executives” of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 “that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization.”

Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain’s Ohio Victory Team.

While Lindner was CEO of Chiquita, the company began sending money to the AUC through its shipping subsidiary Banadex. A report by the Organization of American States states that Banadex also engaged in arms trafficking, helping to deliver 3,000 Nicaraguan AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the AUC in 2001. According to federal prosecutors, when company officials realized the arrangement was illegal, they switched to making the payments in cash.

Good news for the dems:

Four months have passed since John McCain effectively captured the party nomination, and the insiders are getting restless. Top GOP officials, frustrated by what they view as inconsistent messaging, sluggish fundraising and an organization that is too slow to take shape, are growing increasingly uneasy about the direction of the McCain presidential campaign.

While the practice of second-guessing presidential campaign decisions is a quadrennial routine, interviews with 16 Republican strategists and state party chairmen — few of whom would agree to talk on the record — reveal a striking level of discord and mounting criticism about the McCain operation.

“It’s not just message or not having just one single meta-theme to compete with Obama,” said a veteran Republican strategist with close ties to McCain’s top advisers. “It’s not just fundraising, which is mediocre. And it’s not even just organization, which is [just] starting or nonexistent in many states.”

“McCain’s campaign seems not to have a game plan. I don’t see a consistent message,” said Ed Rollins, a veteran of Republican presidential campaigns. “As someone who has run campaigns, this campaign is not running smoothly. But none of this matters if they get their act together.”

Indeed, some Republican officials who spoke to Politico noted that there is still time for the campaign to find its footing and that no campaign is without its detractors. But the bulk of those interviewed expressed serious concern about what has appeared to be an aimless campaign so far, one that has failed to take advantage of a four-month head start on Democrats and has showed little sign of gaining traction.

“Here is where the problem is: We had a nomination gap between when McCain was nominated and the Democratic race completed,” a swing state Republican Party chairman said. “I think [campaign manager] Rick Davis and his team did not have an understanding of how the grass-roots, organizational part of the party works. They did not use what the [Republican National Committee] had done, or how groups like the [National Rifle Association] could have helped the McCain campaign locally.

“They are just now opening up campaign operations in most states. The RNC was ready to go in most states in March,” the state chairman continued, listing off grievances ranging from the campaign’s “dictating” the members of various RNC committees to the state party’s having been “threatened” that, though McCain “couldn’t afford not to play in our state,” the campaign would not “recommend us for resources” if the state party did not abide by its requests.

One frequent criticism surrounds the widely held perception that the campaign has failed to define or convey a consistent narrative against Obama — something that many Republicans insist should have begun right after Obama captured the nomination.

“What’s the political strategy when you allow your opponent, who has just had a grueling four months, time to catch their breath, regroup, fundraise and start to define himself?” asked a Republican strategist who helped lead a past presidential campaign. “It’s politics 101.”

Several consultants from past GOP campaigns were even more frustrated by what they viewed as a reluctance to attack — textbook strategy for an underdog.

One GOP consultant said that if McCain wanted to define Obama as “too inexperienced, too liberal and too risky” then “why wouldn’t your message every day have something to do with these three problems?”

Other insiders expressed frustration that there is a lack of consistency in defining McCain as well, pointing to the recent launch of an ad touting his challenge to the president’s position on global warming — at the same time that McCain traveled to Texas to advocate lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling.

“It’s hard to see a thematic message,” said another GOP strategist who has worked on past presidential races. Several Republicans said it remains unclear whether McCain will run on experience or attempt to redefine Obama’s message of change.

Some critics cite a litany of minor but nevertheless maddening incidents as evidence that the McCain campaign is failing to execute the basic blocking and tackling maneuvers that mark successful teams.

They point to the late February McCain appearance in Cincinnati, where a conservative radio talk show host repeatedly invoked Obama’ s middle name, Hussein; the controversies surrounding endorsements from two conservative megachurch pastors; an event last week in Santa Barbara, Calif., where McCain sat on stage between California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a local activist who ended up deriding McCain’s energy policy; the orchestration of a poorly received June 3 New Orleans event held the evening Obama earned the nomination.

All are mentioned as examples of the campaign’s inability to get even the little things — such as basic vetting or event staging — right.

It’s “a lot of embarrassment that is mechanical,” said the strategist close to the McCain campaign.

Part of the frustration comes from inevitable comparisons to the precision-engineered Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign — an almost impossibly high standard to meet, since that organization had four years to prepare and considerably more resources at its disposal.

The Bush campaign had methodically spoken to state Republican chairmen prior to the 2004 general election, going so far as to inquire what lessons learned from 2002 should be applied in 2004. The level of communication this year, said several GOP state leaders, did not reach that standard. The McCain campaign had not included some key state chairmen in political planning, and a few were anxious over what they said were lax swing state preparations.

“Rather than trying to pull me in and make me an intricate part of the team they just told me what they wanted done, and said if you don’t play ball we won’t play ball,” one state chairman said.

Those chairmen noted that the conservative base is far less riled, and significantly smaller, than its liberal counterpart. For this reason, GOP leaders generally believe they will have to be more efficient to overcome Obama’s advantages.

“You are going to hear a lot of complaints from state party chairmen,” one chairman said of his colleagues. “They are used to the Rove-Mehlman model. They were very good at finding the place they needed to win, down to the county they needed in Ohio.

“They are used to millions being raised for them, they’re used Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman providing a lot of infrastructure for state parties,” the chairman continued. “What people are being told is we are all on our own.”

A few state chairmen, including Jim Greer of Florida and Rob Gleason of Pennsylvania, two key battleground states, said they were satisfied with the McCain campaign thus far.

“They jumped right in here, and they have been very receptive to our ideas, as we have been to them,” said Gleason, though he added that Pennsylvania could be more the exception than the rule because of its position as the largest blue state that could turn red.

For its part, the McCain campaign argues that the growing pains are unremarkable and reflect both the shift from a state-by-state operation to a national campaign and typical armchair quarterbacking.

“Rick [Davis] is getting exactly the same heat from state chairmen that presidential campaigns get at this period of time in the race,” said a McCain senior adviser.

But the campaign has also acknowledged some mistakes. In an effort to lessen the load on Davis, communications guru Steve Schmidt has been called off the trail to help manage the Arlington, Va., headquarters.

The move of Schmidt to a more hands-on role has been well-received within the GOP consulting community. “It’s the smartest move they’ve made in months,” said Chris LaCivita, a Republican strategist. “Schmidt knows you’ve you got to be aggressive in campaigns, and he knows how to get the job done. I just hope it’s not too late.”

At least one veteran GOP strategist said McCain still has time to straighten out his campaign. Stuart Spencer, Ronald Reagan’s longtime political consultant, said that “now is the time frame when you have to get your house in order.”

The concern during the Democratic primaries was that the fighting would give McCain an insurmountable head start.  Fortunantely however he seems to have squandered those months and allowed Obama the time to setup his campaign for the General.  In addition as far as the ground game is concerned Obama’s fight with Clinto through all the states had the ebenfit of forcing Obama to build up an infrastructure in most areas of the country and gave his staff some much needed training in waging a difficult campaign.  So Obama’s team is now battle tested and running on all cylinders, while McCain’s campaign is still setting up its own structure having wasted its headstart.  A good position for Obama and the dems to be in.

False because any oil drilled from ANWR (or offshore) will take years to reach the market and will only increase supply by a tiny amount

Says an Aide

The Washington Post reports that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is now traveling in a new “Straight Talk Express” campaign airplane. It “features a special area” with “a couch and two captain’s chairs” where “McCain will conduct group interviews with the press.” But not all reporters covering McCain can enjoy this new lap of luxury. Top McCain aide Mark Salter said “‘only the good reporters’ would get to sit in the specially-configured section for interviews. ‘You’ll have to earn it,’ he said.” So how can these reporters “earn” a seat? Never challenge the Senator, as McCain biographer Matt Welch explained in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times:

[McCain is] very open to people. You can come on the bus, everything is great but if he knows or if his team knows that you have a hostile line of questioning or you have a long and well documented critique, they’re not going to talk to you. […]

As a human, he’s haunted by the notion of honesty and about honor and truth. He wishes that he could speak the truth all the time. He doesn’t. I don’t think he speaks the truth any more than any other politician really, no more, no less.

Obama has been talking about having a withdrawl from Iraq over 16 months

A gradual, responsible withdrawl he calls it, however Kristol is trying to setup grounds for a spin to coincide with his return from Iraq

Huffpo has more:

KRISTOL: The voters tend not to punish political leaders for adjusting their views especially if they come towards the voters. The next big flip for Obama, this will make Brit even more astonished, will be on Iraq. He’s going to go to Iraq, meet with General Petraeus, decide the “Surge” is working and walk back from his immediate, unconditional withdrawal. Suddenly it’s going to be, well…we’re going to be very careful…gradual, honorable withdrawal - Obama said the other day, an honorable conclusion to the Iraq war.

Very interesting of Kristol to try and pass this off, however its been the Obama line for a while