McCain can always have Karl Rove write another op ed for him.

The Wall Street Journal will publish it.

And it looks like McCain's promise to include George Bush in the campaign has been clarified.

He just meant George Bush Senior not junior.

To paraphrase McCain once said the war would be quick and easy and that we would be treated like liberators. Who is McCain to question Obama's judgement?

This is really a sad commentary on the American public that they would buy into this made for TV candidate. He is about as real as a reality TV series. Traveling around the world will not provide Obama the foreign policy expertise that only comes with experience. 30 second stops for a sound bite is all show and no substance. Having spent significant time in the region I can assure you he could not possibly gain the insight and understanding of the problems, or the local human dynamics.
Although I do not have faith that any administration in Washington could come up with a coherent Middle East policy, I am sure that dealing with people whose values are vastly different than ours requires in depth knowledge of their environment and expectations.
Wake up America. Electing a reality show president is inviting disaster.

Obama: Will say anything to anybody and swear he never changed despite overwhelming proof he did.

I was voting for McCain. But now I see being a POW doesn't necessarily give one presidential credentials. The whole world is following Obama, even our own president. Now, I am too.

Obama plans to take the troops and put them in Afghanistan, so what have we gained nothing, but old wish-wash will recant on Afghanistan as well like he has everything, at least McCain stands for something not swirling with the wind like Obama,,Obama is weak

It is really discouraging to see Americans select their president based upon media coverage and not substance. If you were a shareholder in a major corporation would you want someone as experienced as Obama to be selected CEO?

Obama is violating every protocol of US service by pretending to negotiate policy overseas. There is one President and it isn't Obama.

Some may not like Bush but he has the job. Some may like Obama but he is in over his head and has not done the job he was hired for as a US Senator.

This farce is rapidly turning into a tragedy for US foreign policy.

"This is really a sad commentary on the American public that they would buy into this made for TV candidate." - chuck | Jul 22, 2008 8:47:38 AM

Well actually it's a commentary on all the people in the world, since globally Obama is massively more popular. Maybe that means the American Right are the only ones who see clearly and will save us from the disaster that is Obama, but I hope you'll forgive me, given recent history, if I'm sceptical of that.

Obama is a very observant person, who listens, learns quickly, and then allows his commonsense to guide him when assessing situations. He has gone on this tour to personally assess world situations. You will see great ideas, insightful suggestions, and solutions forthcoming.

Good luck and God Speed to the next President of the United States of America.

From what I understand its not only the surge that brought down violence,But other things first of all we shouldnt even be in this war in iraq in the first place,At least senator obama wants to end the war malaki wants to end american people want to end china euorpe want to end but senator mccain wants to stay mccain said if surged worked we leave now according to him we cant leave face it MCBUSH wants to stay forever, give them back their country mcbush!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Experience...I keep seeing that term bandied about. Why is McCain more experienced than Senator Obama to be president? Just because he is old? He really hasn't been all that successful has he? Graduated 894 out of a class of 899, couldn't keep a plane in the air, couldn't make admiral despite his father and grandfather, cheated on his wife, Keating 5, let's go to war with Iraq, bomb Iran...LOTS of experience there alright.
I think I will just stay with my candidate. He may not have McCain's "experience" but he does have good ideas and the ability to see what the country needs.

Poor Obama, so confused. With 300 foreign policy advisers, no two can agree on anything. Then, Joe Biden does not accompany him, and Joe is his foreign policy guru. While Obama earns his training wheels in foreign policy/national security this week, we can pray he does no serious damage to our troops, the people of the region, and the progress achieved to date.

By definition, a surge is a sudden increase in something; McCain's usage is an increase in troop level.
The increase in troop level cannot be lumped in with the purchase by us of 80,000+ Sunni's --who were probably helping Al-Quada-- to play nice with us.
Neither is the surge a direct link to the deals cut with Al-Sadr to take a time out.
So what do we have left? The surge is a convenient hat-rack to hang a group of unrelated things onto.
An old guy crying over and over; the surge!, the surge!, is like the guy alerting the inhabitants with; the plane!, the plane! on the old TV show Fantasy Island.
Come to think of it, we may be on Fantasy Island!

Attacks are down in Iraq because we are paying (and arming) the insurgents to temporarily suspend their violence. We have been paying insurgents who have killed Americans. Guess what happens when the money flow stops.

how is the world can obama still say he still would have been opposed to the surge knowing what he knows now. we are on a path to victory! and the press does not ask a follow-up to this???

It would be far more interesting to listen to people who process this news than those who merely take this as an opportunity to spit some venom at the candidate they already didn't like, in hopes that someone would take their vitriol for genuine analysis and change their minds.

Obama is not negotiating, does have foreign affairs experience, gets briefings every day assembled by a 300-strong foreign affairs expert group and has yet to confuse Iraq with Afghanistan. So all the people who last week were insisting Obama must make a middle-east trip (to trip up) should put their sour-grapes away.
McCain's foreign experience consists mainly of visiting our troops. While this is laudable, let's not kid ourselves it's not also to garner votes. I think he's a fine man who served his country admirably. But every time he opens his mouth on substantive issues, he sadly demonstrates why he graduated at the bottom of his military class.

Senator McCain wants to simplify things into "I supported the surge and he opposed it".

The trouble is that he also was enthusiastic about starting a war that has cost 4,000 lives and $650 billion.

And he said to cameras that this would be an easy war to win, and that the Iraqis would rebuild their own country.

He isn't getting traction on his surge obsession because people remember all the other times when he was WRONG.

Funny his friends in his media entourage don't comment on this. Favoritism??

Does anyone even realize Osama bin laden and the terriost are from AFGHANISTAN not iraq our president failed us, we should of concentrated more on afghanistan where the real terriost are and stayed the h-- out of iraq, Does anyone care about our troops in afghanistan they need help and more support,Mcain never mentioned afghanistan, Mcain is obsessed with iraq and winning. winning what i ask meanwhile we are not any safer taliban is growing stronger like obama said come on people use your brains!!!!

Violence came down ...but it came down as far as it did not because of the surge as much as the tactics used from Afghanistan in the 1980's... giving money to insurgent types ...and what did we get from that tactic in the 1980's?

oh... a couple of guys names Osama Bin Laden, al zawaheri and their team "the al qaedas"... oh and there friends the taliban.

Great judgement straight out of Mccain's prime in the 80's.

It also had to do with the reports of al qaeda not wanting to be viewed as not being blamed for Muslim intertribal violence...when they need the Muslim community to be focused on the US occupying iraq for their recruitment goals.

as has been reported by the best terrorist experts and afficionados in the world.

Mccain is bad on this issue...cold war mentality won't work... do we need a new group coming out of the insurgents we just gave money and guns to?

all at the low cost of 200,000,000,000 dollars.

Just for the surge.