Obama, from the very begining has bee extraordinary. I came to BO with the trepidation expected from anyone who is desperate to win THIS TIME. He, with the exception of his FISA vote hasn't let me down. I'm also sure he will continue as if MCinsane was ahead by 20 points! So now I'm sure I Was Right too!

I do not see how this trip will not prove to be devastating to McCain's presidential ambitions.  Obama's trip kicked McCain's strongest position (on Iraq) out from beneath him by completely undermining his core message.  In the process, Obama showed that his judgment is shared by Iraqi leaders and that McCain is the one that appears to be out of touch.

McCain's camp cannot be happy right now.

They'll continue harping on the fact that "the surge worked" and that Obama opposed the surge, not bothering to acknowledge the fact that, if we'd listened to Obama in the first place, we'd be out of Iraq at this very minute.

The fact of the matter is that the Bush/McCain financiers have made three metric fucktons of money off of this war, and they want Easy Street to continue for as long as possible.  They will eventually come to the realization that their guys are going to lose if they continue trying to keep us in Iraq indefinately; at that point, they'll relent and start trying to corrupt the new majority Democrats in an attempt to hedge their bets.

Good article on the "surge" from Greg Mitchell who runs "editor and publisher along with his own blog
put this up at kos..

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/21/ 151250/646/591/554709

Greg's blog
http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/

...see you in Denver

At his press conference today Obama came off as if he's ALREADY president.

My favorite moment was when he turned to ask Hagel and Reed if they had anything to add and they shrugged and said no.

Keep cheering each other up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/07/22/AR2008072200801_ 2.html?hpid=topnews

AMMAN, Jordan, July 22 -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Tuesday defended his proposal to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq over a 16-month period and send more troops to Afghanistan, despite what he acknowledged was the opposition to any pullout timeline from the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. [skip]

In Ramadi, Obama saw firsthand Iraq's bitter political rivalries. Ali Hatem Suleiman, a top Awakening tribal leader who was at the meeting, said they asked Obama to support the tribes -- and not the Sunni Islamic parties that rejoined Iraq's government over the weekend. They also told him that a security pact with the United States, currently being negotiated, should wait until a new U.S. administration "because the Iraqi parliament does not represent Iraqis well."

Obama asked the tribal leaders whether Iraq's security forces were ready to take over security, said Suleiman. They informed him that while Iraq's forces had improved, the province was still fragile and faced threats from al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"You can pull out and withdraw all the forces in Iraq, but you have to keep the Marines in our province because we still have problems with the Islamic parties and we can face a bad situation at any moment," Suleiman said they told Obama.

They also warned Obama to be cautious with his plan to withdraw U.S. combat forces. "You have think carefully about the area," they told Obama, according to Suleiman. The tribal leaders expressed concern about neighboring Iran gaining influence in Iraq.

"We told him that if your party wins the elections, you have to keep the promise that the United States gave to us, which is to rebuild a new Iraq and to fix the mistakes done by the politicians," Suleiman said.

Will he listen to the tribal leaders?  To the generals?

Or to the Daily Kos gang?

By the way, there is no sign in the polls that this is making an impression here.  He went down 3 in Gallup today, and he's tied with the pathetic McCain on Rasmussen (except McCain favorables remain higher).

And it will not help him that Andrea Mitchell accused him of running fake interviews today.  http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=136003  You can see the video there.

If you guys keep telling yourselves that Obama is perfect, you'll sleep better at night, but it does not mean you're right.

Here's what Ana Marie Cox had to see at Time's Swampland:

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/ 07/obama_explains_it_all.html

[this is the quote she was commenting on]

   "Here is what I will say," Obama said, "I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii'a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct."

   [snip]

   "Well, you were saying that it would not make a significant dent in the violence," Moran said.

   "In the violence in Iraq overall, right," Obama acknowledged. "So the point that I was making at the time was that the political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamic continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that in fact those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work."

Ms. Cox's response:

So... it's not that the surge was successful, it's just that violence decreased and the political dynamic became more manageable. Sure.

Of course, what the relative success of the surge (or whatever) really means is that Obama won't have to talk about Iraq pretty much ever again. McCain has often said he'd rather "lose an election than lose a war," but I don't think he thought he'd be on the winning side of a war and lose the election anyway.

Thanks Eeyore.