A round-up of coverage of Senator Obama’s visit to Afghanistan in the US Media.

From CBS News:

The Washington Post:

Obama, traveling as part of an official congressional delegation, landed in the Afghan capital on Saturday morning under tight security amid a surge of Taliban activity in recent weeks. After a briefing at Bagram air base, he flew by helicopter to the northeastern city of Jalalabad in Nangahar province, where he met with U.S. soldiers and local leaders. From there, according to a U.S.-based aide, Obama set out by helicopter for a look at parts of eastern Afghanistan before returning to Kabul for a dinner with senior Afghan officials.

The presumptive Democratic nominee shied away from public comments as his trip began, belying the intense interest in the trip and its political ramifications. McCain used his new weekly radio address on Saturday to attack Obama’s foreign policy credentials and judgment. But as McCain sparred with his rival, the Illinois senator received an unexpected boost from Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki, who told the German magazine Der Spiegel that he looked favorably on Obama’s call for a 16-month timetable for withdrawing most U.S. forces from Iraq.

The Los Angeles Times:

In a speech last week, Obama said that troops should be drawn down in Iraq and two additional combat brigades deployed in Afghanistan, a war he said the U.S. couldn’t afford to lose.

His visit to Afghanistan comes at a time of sharply deteriorating security across the country. Suicide bombings are an everyday occurrence, and the number of foreign troops killed last month was the highest since the start of the war.

The presumptive Democratic nominee and senator from Illinois is part of an official congressional delegation that includes Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). The lawmakers made a brief visit to Jalalabad airfield in eastern Afghanistan, greeting American troops from their respective home states.

At Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Obama and the others met with senior military officials and got a briefing from the commander of American forces in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser. The decision to have the delegation meet with Schloesser probably reflected growing U.S. concern over infiltration of fighters from tribal lands on the Pakistani side of the frontier, which borders Afghanistan’s eastern provinces.

(more…)

My post, my views.

Ok, I may use profanity every once in a while but I usually do not get really angry.

I should have known better than click on that link that Lambert posted (I won’t reproduce it here). And I definitely should have known better than read the comments.

It started with the usual stuff that makes Lambert’s title so right on target: If you don’t support Obama, go f– yourself or any variation of that theme, traitors, etc.

And then I read this and I thought I was going to lose it. Like my title says, I’m still trembling with rage:

“At the end of WWII, all the French whores who serviced the Germans were rounded up. Their heads were shaved, and they were tarred and feathered.

At the end of a war, the victorious side settles its debts. If you helped, you get a reward. If you did not help, you are in serious trouble.
Posted by dataguy”

“I like the shaven head and tar and feathering idea for Clintonistas!!
Posted by Mandy”

And then happily moving on the claiming an absence of misogyny.

Maybe it’s because I’m French and my grandparents were members of the resistance and AGAINST the head shaving disgrace. Most of the shaving was done by former collaborators who suddenly had turned resistant zealots when they felt the way the wind was blowing. But I guess ignorance of history is no problem.

I never thought I’d say this: I hate these people.

Charles: feel free to delete if you don’t think it’s appropriate.

Return to Main

That little bit from Barack Obama’s speech on national service is not in the transcript of his prepared remarks. So just what does Senator Obama mean by this:

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

Just prior to those two lines, Obama was talking about something quite different. He goes from talking about increasing the size of the US Foreign Service and opening consulates that have been shuttered (without telling us how he is going to pay for it) and doubling the size of the Peace Corps to the mother of all non-sequitors:

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

What exactly does Senator Obama mean by a “civilian national security force“? Is he referencing the ATF, FBI, or DEA? Or something new and different say like the Defense of the Revolution Brigades that they have in Cuba and Venezuela where neighbors spy on neighbors? Surely he can’t mean the US Foreign Service and the Peace Corps et al be funded in the billions of dollars. Whatever he is referencing it sounds like a dramatic departure from current practice and current funding. And why did it take the press so long to catch the discrepancy between the speech as delivered and the prepared remarks? Why are the references in the transcript to this Civilian National Security Force deleted or omitted? Should we be worried? He was rather emphatic about it so I doubt that he just got carried away and ad libbed it.

I admit that I do not hang on Obama’s every speech and glean through them with the a fine tooth comb but perhaps I should for the press is not doing its job. It is apparently in the business of unadulterated adoration. If he is proposing something new and different, shouldn’t we be asking questions especially since it sounds rather open-ended and to be frank worrisome for civil liberties.

Here is the full speech on July 2, 2008 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The omission is just past the 16:45 minute mark:

Here is the transcript of the speech from the Denver Post:

As delivered in Colorado Springs on July 2, 2008.

Not quite but we will get to that at the 16:50 mark of the speech. (more…)

A new ad by the Washington State GOP attacking Michelle Obama’s patriotism.

Return to Main

Via the Anchorage Daily News:

The Barack Obama presidential campaign is pouring money into the Republican bastion of Alaska to beat John McCain and to help the Alaska Democrats running for Congress against Ted Stevens and Don Young.

“We’ve taken a look at the political dynamic of Alaska and, as a result, have made Alaska one of our 18 battleground states,” said Obama deputy campaign manager Pete Rouse. “We believe we can win in Alaska and we’re making it a priority.”

Rouse, who was Obama’s chief of staff in the U.S. Senate, has ties to Alaska. His mother grew up here, his aunt lives in Palmer, and Rouse was chief of staff for Alaska Lt. Gov. Terry Miller from 1979 to 1982. He’s well aware Alaska voters haven’t favored a Democrat for president since 1964.

But the most recent polling shows McCain with only a small lead over Obama in Alaska. Obama inspired a lot of excitement in the February Alaska Democratic caucuses, said Rouse, while McCain finished in last place among the state’s Republican primary voters. Rouse also argues voters here are open to Obama’s message of change.

Rouse said another factor in the Obama camp’s decision to launch a major campaign effort in Alaska is a desire to help the Democrats who will be further down the ballot from Obama in November.

(more…)

It is certainly true that fact-finding missions have always come before major policy addresses. With Obama, it appears to be inverse though as is generally the case with Obama, what does it matter? He always changes his views even though he protests that he isn’t changing anything at all. He has always been on message. Still it is hard to regard Obama’s upcoming trip to Europe as anything but a major campaign rally. Generally, presidential candidates of any country when they venture overseas during a campaign treat such visits with circumspect respect. Meetings with foreign leaders are par for the course and are held behind closed doors. There are even addresses to forums, primarily chambers of commerce or economic associations that are not open to general public. Obama is going to change that.

Marc Ambinder in the Atlantic writes:

Obama’s trip to Europe will be a huge event…maybe as big as his convention, maybe as big as a debate. Sheer curiosity will translate into enormous crowds, even as most of Obama’s events will be small and pooled. The European press will go ga-ga, uncritically. If Obama does speak at the Brandenburg gate — and it’s unclear whether he will at this point — you could envision a crowd of more than 200,000 watching and cheering him.

I have no doubt that if Obama were running for President of Europe, he would win in a landslide. But he is not, he is running for President of the United States and delivering an address to foreign crowds represents a dangerous politicalization of an American campaign. What if Obama loses in November, something still in the realm of possibilities, what then becomes of US-European relations?

Return to Main

Here is an overview of who is spending money where. This has been compiled from various sources including CNN, Advertising Age, Media Hot Line, ClickZ, Internet Age and Ad Week.

Here’s a state-by-state breakdown of campaign television spending in battleground states: Michigan: McCain, $2.6 million to Obama’s $1.6 million; Ohio: McCain, $3.2 million to Obama’s $1.7 million; Pennsylvania: McCain, $4.2 million to Obama’s $2.7 million. Additionally, McCain has dropped $1.5 million into Missouri and another $1.9 million on national cable. These are the totals to date.

Obama has spent $60,000 in Alaska; $3.5 million in Florida; $1.3 million in Georgia; $1 million in Indiana; $100,000 in Montana; $1 million in North Carolina; and $1.8 million in Virginia, according to a new analysis by TNS/Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN’s political television advertising consultant. In terms of Internet advertising, the Obama campaign spent $329,100 in May. Obama’s campaign did purchase ads on an impression-basis in May. It spent $54,000 on CNN.com and $30,000 on Politico for CPM-based ads. Those buys were a validation and amplification of earlier strategies. Between January and April, it spent $24,000 on CNN.com and $36,000 on Politico. This ad spend is aimed more at getting supporters to sign up that to distribute a political message.

For the week of July 8 - July 14, the McCain campaign had media buys in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. The McCain Campaign is spending the most money in Michigan ($393,566.58), followed by Ohio ($373,357.71) and Pennsylvania ($310,630.01). In addition, the RNC is running ads on McCain’s behalf in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

(more…)

The McCain campaign tracks Obama’s own Iraq quagmire. This ad is Internet-only. It runs 8 minutes.

What amazes me is how often Obama stutters and is left gasping for air.

Return to Main

Perhaps this is old news but I just caught this report from The Hill where Obama is quoted as having told the Black Congressional Caucus in a closed session meeting that he bit his tongue refraining from criticism of Senator Clinton.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he bit his tongue “many times” during the fierce primary battle with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). Two sources said that Obama’s comments came after Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), a Clinton backer, told the Illinois senator that the Democratic Party needs time to heal.

“I bit my tongue many times. Many times. I bit my tongue many times during this campaign,” Obama told his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) last week during a private meeting. He repeated the “I bit my tongue” phrase three times during the meeting, the sources said.

The comments suggest that Obama believes that he did not unfairly attack Clinton but held back after feeling the sting of political barbs.

(more…)

So much for the man with the midas touch, Obama’s campaign seems to reaching its financial limits. Via Time magazine on The Half Billion Dollar Man:

Is Barack Obama worth $500 million? The Democratic Party is betting he’ll help bring in about that much — if not more. As the public face of the party, Obama is responsible for both his own campaign’s fund-raising and for that of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) — a combined estimated goal of $450 million. He has also pledged to help Hillary Clinton with her reported $20-million debt to various vendors, and congressional Democrats are hoping that Obama’s financial coattails will be tens of millions of dollars long for their own electoral purposes.

These are staggering sums for someone who was still paying off his student loans three years ago. But the freshman Illinois Senator shattered so many records in the primaries — raising nearly $300 million in 16 months — that he has become a victim of his own success in the general-election expectations game. The public has become numb to his staggering sums, as have his donors, a danger for a campaign seeking to make folks feel involved. After all, how much of a difference can an extra $25 make in a pool of half a billion?

Donors, especially on the Democratic side, may be getting a little burned out. More than $1.04 billion was raised during the primaries for the 24 presidential aspirants from both parties. Of that, $651.2 million went to Democratic candidates and $390.4 million went to Republicans. Sensing donor fatigue, Obama’s e-mail appeals have slowed to about one a week, versus several a week at the height of the primaries. But Obama needs to keep up the pace: essentially, he must repeat his primary feat, add more than 50% and do it in a quarter of the time. “It’s a huge task that we’ve got,” said one top Obama donor. “I wouldn’t define it as concern, but there’s a realization of the enormity of what we are trying to accomplish, and everybody is intensely focused on the task at hand.”

(more…)