David your wrong again, the McCain machine sent out press notices about the Palin family and her daughter’s pregnancy.

McCain’s people did this to Palin’s family the press just did the job they are hired to do. Some do it with grace and others do it in the gutter, but hey that’s how the press works.

The NY Times had it right on Palin’s record, and the McCain/Palin team now have egg on their faces.

She says she’s pro-life and there’s no reason to doubt this.

Thus she would’ve carried her fifth child to term no matter what.

Then why’d she take a prenatal test? While the risks are small, they’re not zero, so why would you take ANY risk when you know it’s not going to affect your decision?

If you talk to the MILITARY folks, it’s a very different story. They will point out that the Sunni Awakening, or the Sons of Iraq, by the Sunnis, started before the surge, and allowed at least Anbar and probably parts of Diyala and Baghdad to be pacified. This is because these Sunnis were no longer in the insurgency, they were patrolling the streets in return for pay from our military.

The other thing that occurred coincident with the surge was the stand-down of the Mehdi Army. With the most powerful Shiite force no longer causing mayhem, that was also a huge win.

But neither of those things were caused by the surge, they were totally orthogonal to it. And those were the things that caused the vast majority of the improvement that we’ve seen.

Another factor in the improvement has to be the ethnic cleansing that took place. Now that Sunnis and Shiites come into contact less, there’s less chance of violence. That comes at a terrible cost though.

Of course our military does a great job, I’m not saying anything against them. But if the civil war were still going on, does anyone believe that even 160,000 troops would be enough to tamp it down in a country the size of Iraq? I sure don’t. Look to General Shinseki who at the start said we’d need at LEAST 250,000, and that was just for the invasion. To tamp down the civil war you’d probably need at least 500,000.

So Barack Obama was right on the surge, and John McCain was wrong. We spent a lot of extra money on those extra troops, and mainly we policed Baghdad better. The Iraqis could have, and should have done that themselves, which is what Obama has been saying.

Sadly, now the Shiites in the government are targeting the Sons of Iraq by putting them in jail. They don’t want any Sunnis to be armed to challenge their authority. This thing isn’t over and can still blow up in our faces, people.

Feeling down? Blue? Rather ruffled by mean-spirited, angry Republicans?

There’s a cure: get out and volunteer for the Obama campaign!

It works! (I’ve tried it.)

Exactly, why, I’m not saying we should not do something, after all our government encouraged them.

However 1 billion is way to much, I hope this has to go through Congress and that they have the spine to whittle it down to a say 100 million or less even.

Containment is a valid point, then we should be putting a HUGE amount of pressure on the European governments to get more involved.

But why should we?

A billion dollars is a lot of money even in this day and age. I’m an active member of several organizations trying to get increased funding for breast cancer, prostate cancer, and other serious diseases. Even a small fraction of a billion dollars could make a big difference in those diseases. On one rare form of cancer I’m involved with we recently managed to get a $40,000 grant for one research project and we were thrilled!

Georgia is a country with a poor human rights and corruption record (sources: HRW and Transparency Int’l), and they have been trying to prevent the secession of two regions that simply don’t want to be ruled by them. So they’re not exactly wearing the whitest of hats in this conflict.

US foreign policy (really ALL countries’ foreign policy) should be based on advancing the interests of their citizens. Period. We should not be firing one shot, risking one soldier or sailor, or spending one penny of our Treasury unless we can explain exactly how that advances our security, liberty, or prosperity. And for a BILLION dollars we need to do a LOT of ’splainin’.

LOST

REPUBLICAN VALUES

LAST SEEN WITH DWIGHT EISENHOWER

IF YOU HAVE SEEN THEM PLEASE KEEP THEM CALM BY READING THE FEDERALIST PAPERS.

RESPONDS TO THE WORD, “BULLY,” JUST CLEAR YOUR THROAT AND SAY, “BULLY GOOD!”

CALL JOHN MCCAIN DAY OR NIGHT

REWARD THANK YOU

I apologize for being snarky, r.e.: containment.

It’s called containment.

With all the economic problems we have here and the cost of a two front war how on earth can this much money be justified.

Oh, c’mon! Please get some perspective! Today’s political campaigns are mild and polite compared to campaigns of the past. In the campaign of 1828 Jackson’s wife was referred to as an “adulteress” and his mother was accused of being a prostitute.

In the campaign of 1800 Adams was attacked as a “hideous hermaphrodite”. Jefferson, in turn was accused of sleeping with his slaves (which as we know today, was true!).

In the campaign of 1876 Hayes accused Samuel Tilden of suffering from venereal disease.

In the 1884 campaign Blaine accused Cleveland of fathering an illegitimate child, and Cleveland accused Blaine of being “The Constitutional Liar from the state of Maine”

One could easily go on and on. The Republicans are complete amateurs at mockery and ridicule. In other postings I’ve criticized Americans on not knowing their own history, but this is acase where we should be thankful they don’t know history because it might give them ideas!

it’s the media who have shamefully exploited Ms. Palin’s children.

The media are the media – we all know what they do. And Palin is a politician with a journalism degree, so she knows exactly what she’s exposing her children to by taking on this role. If she doesn’t she’s too stupid or naive to hold office.

Matthew Scully’s the name.

Sophist for hire’s my game.