Policy and the End of the Bush Administration

Spencer Ackerman has a spectacular article up about the State Department’s new policy document “Counterinsurgency: A Guide for Policy-Makers,” which is going to be published in November. The policy handbook has a lot of interesting things to say.
The handbook seeks to provide a framework for considering whether Washington should intervene in foreign countries’ counterinsurgency operations, [...]

The Press is Biased Against Who Now?

Barack Obama. At least, more of his media coverage is unfavorable than John McCain’s.
The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of [...]

McCain on the Awakening

As I briefly noted yesterday, John McCain is having some trouble with his Iraq messaging. All he wants to say is that everything good in Iraq is a result of his surgerific good judgement and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Yesterday, when asked about Obama’s views on recent progress on [...]

McCain, Obama and the Surge

Perhaps John McCain’s biggest strength this election has been his advocacy of the surge in Iraq. McCain’s story is now that the surge had never happened we would have “lost in Iraq.” Furthermore, McCain claims that Obama has been denying the success of the surge.
“Our troops will come home with honor. And we won’t be [...]

Is McCain Becoming John Kerry?

One thing that has struck me recently is the degree to which John McCain’s campaign seems to be falling into some of the same traps that ensnared John Kerry in 2004.
On the surface, it seems remarkable that McCain could become Kerry. For one, he’s a Republican. Democrats are unwilling to attack his military service like [...]

Turns Out, Maliki Said It Afterall

So, after the Maliki government, through the occupation authority, tried to claim “mistranslation” on his Obama/timeline comments, it turns out they were full of shit. Not only was the translator for the interview Maliki’s, but the New York Times has gotten the audio and confirmed Maliki’s comments.
“Unfortunately, Der Spiegel was not accurate,” Mr. Dabbagh said [...]

McCain Chooses Empire

Just last week, John McCain’s advisers were saying:
“John McCain has always been clear that American forces operate in Iraq only with the consent of that country’s democratically elected government,” Michael Goldfarb, a McCain spokesman, told the Huffington Post.
Now, after Maliki’s bombshell that he agrees with Barack Obama, McCain has this to say:
“His domestic politics require [...]

Maliki Embraces Obama

“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.
- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

John McCain is suddenly is a very tough position. In the campaign thus far he has taken two positions on Iraq. One, that a timeline [...]

Not a Timeline, but Sounding a lot like Obama

TUCSON, July 18 – President Bush and Iraq’s prime minister have agreed to set a “time horizon” for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq as security conditions in the war-ravaged nation continue to improve, White House officials said here Friday.
The agreement, reached during a video conference Thursday between Bush and Prime Minister Nouri [...]

Obama Defines the Middle

For all the hand wringing on the left about Obama’s supposed rush to the center, people seem to be really missing what has happened, especially on foreign policy. Obama hasn’t moved to the middle. He has redefined it. When the history of the 2008 campaign is written I have a feeling that the last couple [...]