McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said Obama needs to "understand that his words matter." This is in response to Barack Obama:  "I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement," he said. "I am absolutely committed to ending the war."  

Bounds' words were without apparent irony.

Some words that do matter:

"Mission Accomplished."  (5/1/03)
"Bring 'em on"  (7/2/03)
"The Army we have"  (12/9/04)
"Last throes"  (5/31/05)
"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran"  (4/19/07)
"I don't care if we're there 100 years."  (1/4/08)

Baghdad car bomb kills six, wounds 14

Seven killed in Iraq bombing

Militants shot dead two off-duty policemen

Iraqi special forces kill one militant, detained eight others

37 armed militants arrested, 24 bombs defused in Baghdad

Gunmen assassinate Shiite official in Iraq

Roadside bomb wounds Iraqi Islamic Party official

Two bodies found in Baghdad, one found in Mahaweel on Friday

Roadside bomb wounds policeman in central Baghdad

In April there were 52 American’s killed

In May there were 19 American’s killed

In June there were 29 American’s killed

A total of 4114 American’s have been killed since the war in Iraq began.

Could somebody please tell me exactly what it means when we hear the media and our government saying that violence is down in Iraq?
Killed Link

The following two paragraphs are indicative of the problems and heated divide the United States and the Democratic Party finds itself in. They are from the late Benazir Bhutto's book, "Reconciliation-Islam, Democracy, and the West", Copyright 2008 by Benazir Bhutto, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY, 10022 pp. 109-109, Chapter 3-Islam and Democracy: History and Practice.

There's no reason to get hung up on the use of the word "refine." It means nothing, and it's no surprise.

Obama's statement this week is telling for another reason.

I've always said I would listen to commanders on the ground. I've always said the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability," he told reporters in North Dakota.

"That assessment has not changed, and when I have a chance to meet with some of the commanders on the ground I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies," he said.

Accoring to Obama, "the need to maintain stability" in Iraq now determines when the US should pull out. This, he claims, is what he has always said.

Counseling and medication weren’t enough to help Laef Fox recover from his grim war experience in Iraq, and drugs and alcohol didn’t work either, so he tried making a movie instead.

There's a new Documentary out, that was shown in a premeir private showing on July 4th in Denver.

The media-manufactured meme of a supposed Obama flip-flop on Iraq has distracted us from the real problem with Obama's Iraq policy: its consistent ambiguity.

In a sensible, strongly-worded, but practical commentary in The Nation today, Tom Hayden, who has supported Obama since endorsing him back in January, lays out the problems that have always existed with Barack Obama's Iraq policy.  And he provides useful suggestions for progressive supporters of Obama to keep the pressure on him on this, and presumably other, issues.

Read the whole thing, but the highlights are below...

Everybody has wondered when Obama was going to push back against the flip-flop meme that the media was tarring and feathering him with. Paul Krugman today went so far as to suggest that it had Rove's fingerprints written all over them. But Obama has begun pushing back against the flip-flop meme by releasing a fact sheet on Iraq. The fact sheet points out that Obama has the same positions on Iraq now that he did several months ago. You can read the fact sheet here.

A former Army medic made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war has died of an apparent overdose, police say.  Joseph Patrick Dwyer died last week at a hospital in Pinehurst, N.C., after battling PTSD.  He was 31.

A diary here mentioned him a couple of days ago but more details have emerged since then, and here they are.

The photograph, taken in March 2003, showed Dwyer running to a makeshift military hospital while cradling the boy. The photo appeared in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts worldwide, making Dwyer a symbol of heroism.  But he tried to deflect praise back to his entire unit.

It would seem that anonymous viral emails are finally catching up technologically with the rest of the world. My Limbaugh-loving father, who normally would never forward to me anything political, forwarded the following link to a You-tube video to me and some other family members, with the comment  "This guy has it right."

http://www.youtube.com/...

It shows an actor in a chair claiming to be "Joe American" who has a plan to solve our energy needs and maybe bring peace to the world (seriously). It is my habit to always answer such viral emails when I get them from friends and relatives. But I thought I would post it here first, on the off chance that somebody might set me straight if any of my assertions are glaringly off, since I would be "replying to all," some of whom have never heard my opinions concerning energy, or politics, for that matter.

The New York Times just can't lay off the GOP's Kool-Aid. Take, for example, their story ("In Montana, Obama Tries to Rally Support on Iraq ") about Barack Obama's Fourth of July in Montana:

Mr. Obama’s statements about Iraq on Thursday continued to reverberate. First, he said he might "refine" his plan for withdrawing troops after meeting with military commanders in Iraq this summer. Later, he emphasized his commitment to removing combat troops within 16 months of his taking office.

Wonderful. Pray tell, where might that reverberation be taking place? Oh, I see -- it's reverberating in the very same article:

One day after Mr. Obama said he would consider refining his plan to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months, he offered no timetable for withdrawal as he criticized the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, which he said "has not made us more safe and has fanned anti-American sentiment all around the world."

Was this some detailed policy speech worth of such misguided over-analysis? No. He was speaking at a barbeque -- not the Council on Foreign Relations.

As the campaigns transition into the general election it's becoming clear that Obama used the anti-war left as a means to an end in the primaries.

This diary is going to be short on links and long on my personal opinion.

What I have begun to notice is this: It is in the Traditional Media`s (if we are going to use this, can`t there be a easier to type version that MSM was so famous for?) best interest to keep this campaign close. They need the ratings, which drive more advertising dollars to their coffers.

Is Obama a flip-flopper? Has he been shifting to the right since the end of the primaries?

Let's take a look at Obama's positions on the issues now and then.

Battleground Choice:
Lesser Evil or Positive Good?
Obama on the War and National Security

By Carl Davidson

Progressives for Obama

The broad base of Obama supporters, particularly its insurgent antiwar and youth contingents, are both mobilizing and being mobilized to create a firewall between their candidate and all the forces of 'rightward drift' that could sabotage Obama's candidacy.

Parts of the 'forces of rightward drift' are the attack ads of the GOP and the right that have little to do with Obama's platform. Part comes from the DLC 'Blue Dogs' and the corporate lobbyists who have compromised the party into defeat time and again. But still another part resides in some flawed and conflicted thinking within the positions of the candidate himself.

In recent weeks, Obama has modified some positions and, it is claimed, moved to the center. Actually, what he has done is taken more nuanced positions. His problem is that too many people, including most of the MSM and a whole lot of posters on this Board either won’t take the trouble to actually read and understand what he is saying or are mentally deficient and unable to understand any position that is not stated in black and white terms; that is, is not ideologically pure. Let us consider:

We had a really nice 4th. I live in a small town, just north of Dallas, and we have a little parade every year.  You may know what it I am talking about.  The fire department color guard with the flag. The High School marching band. The World War II vets in an old convertible.  The Lions Club.  Our town's winner of Miss Teen Texas.

And new this year, the mothers of soldiers who graduated from our High School and have now died in Iraq.

The first episode of the groundbreaking new live webcast "In Their Boots" aired on Wednesday, 2 July 2008, with host Jan Bender as he explored the lives of the Babin family as they care for their wounded veteran son Alan. That first show "Beating the Odds" was part 1, the second part to be aired next wednesday, 9 July 2008.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Rice said she was "proud" the administration decided to invade Iraq. Believe it or not that's not the only quote from the interview that's worthy of "last throws", "bring it on", or "Mission accomplished" status. She goes on to insult the entire Muslim world with an incredibly ignorant comment. Follow me over the jump for the details.