Good news, bad news and worse news from today's MSM

I've got some good news, so I'll share that first. From The Washington Post today:

BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 -- The American soldier stepped out of the Baghdad nightclub. In one hand, he clutched his weapon. In the other, a green can of Tuborg beer. He took a sip and walked over to two comrades, dressed as he was in camouflage and combat gear.

Inside the club Thursday night, U.S. soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division ogled young Iraqi women who appeared to be prostitutes gyrating to Arabic pop music. A singer crooned soulfully through scratchy speakers to the raucous, pulsating beat -- an action that Islamic extremists have deemed punishable by beheading.

Twenty minutes later, several drunk men coaxed an American soldier to dance. He awkwardly shuffled his feet, wearing night-vision equipment and a radio, joining the women and boisterous young men in an Arabic chain dance around tables covered with empty beer bottles.

Guess what? When American G.I.'s, Marines and sailors aren't fighting wars, they love to party. No big surprise. Been there, done that during the Vietnam War in Uncle Sam's Navy. But when G.I.'s in Baghdad can visit a local club and dance with the Iraqi women, something big has happened. No headlines have yet proclaimed it from the Obama News Media, but victory has broken out in Iraq. President Bush's "surge" worked and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat after six long years of blood, sweat and tears by our glorious fighting men and women.

Now the bad news. President Obama came down to my state to the biggest Marine base, Camp LeJeune, NC, yesterday and gave a big speech on the Iraq war. He declared it over and announced combat will officially end by his royal decree on a date he has set in stone.

"Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end," Obama said.

Of course, like everything Obama says, it depends on what the meaning of "is" is. And his "officials" explained the fine print of Obama's set-in-stone deadline for the Post reporter.

Obama pledged to "proceed cautiously" and to closely consult military commanders, but under his plan, roughly 100,000 troops would exit Iraq by mid-2010. Another 35,000 to 50,000 would remain to help provide security and training -- and, most importantly, counterterrorism operations and advisory missions, which military officials note may include combat.

So 100,000 will leave, but 50,000 will remain for duties that "may include combat." Got it?

Obama's "official end of combat in Iraq" date-setting reminds me a diary entry by a World War II veteran I interviewed in 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific.

G.W. "Bill" Godwin, then 84, was a young Marine medic who went ashore with the Marine assault forces on Feb. 25, 1945, at the beginning of one of the worst battles of WWII. Some general announced three weeks later that the Battle of Iwo Jima was officially over. Never mind that Marines and soldiers continued to fight and die and kill Japanese defenders for weeks more. Godwin wrote in his diary about the day "victory" was officially declared on Iwo Jima:

March 17, 1945: "Today the island was secured (officially)."
March 20, 1945: "I wish to hell someone would tell the Nips that this island is secured. They don't seem to know it. Out of 13 of us who came ashore, only 5 are left."
(Two more of the original 13 were casualities before Goodwin's unit pulled out from Iwo Jima on March 27, leaving him one of only three escaping unhurt.)

But the saddest thing about Obama's speech to the Marines at LeJeune is the word he didn't use. He declared an official victory date in the future, but never used the word "victory." He also never mentioned the word "surge" which would have required him to also mention the name of President Bush, who approved the risky plan of General Petraeus, the military architect of the surge and the Iraq victory, when all the "experts" agreed it was time to cut and run from Iraq. And of course, Obama was the chief cheerleader of all the cut-and-run "experts" way back then.

The New York Times coverage of Obama's speech at LeJeune noted his choice of words.

Mr. Obama presented his plan at the same base where, in April 2003, with American forces nearing Baghdad, Mr. Bush declared that “we will accept nothing less than complete and final victory.”

Victory is now officially out of fashion. Welcome to Obama's world.

And now on to the worse news, the economy. The Washington Post reports today:

The prospects for an economic recovery by year's end dimmed yesterday, as government data showed that the economy contracted at the end of 2008 by the fastest pace in a quarter-century. The worse-than-expected data fueled doubts about whether the Obama administration had adequately sized up the challenges it faces in trying to pull the country out of recession.

Gross domestic product, a measure of the goods and services produced across the nation, shrank at an annualized rate of 6.2 percent in the last quarter of 2008, according to the Commerce Department, far worse than the initial estimate of 3.8 percent and the 5 percent most analysts were expecting. The downward revision means the economy began the year from an even weaker position than previously thought.

...The revised GDP figure helped stoke skepticism among economists who say the White House's projections for the nation's recovery are too rosy. Based on those projections, Obama said he would slash the deficit in half by the end of his term. In its budget outline, the administration predicted that the economy would shrink 1.2 percent this year and grow 3.2 percent next year. By contrast, the consensus among private forecasters is that the economy will shrink 1.9 percent this year and grow 2.1 percent next year.

There's an old saw that says if all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion. So when The Post says the economists are in agreement that Obama's rosy projections about his so-called stimulus plan are too rosy, that means they stink.

Hunker down folks. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Maybe a whole lot worse.

A quiet miracle occurs unreported in the Arab Middle East

If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Now we know definitively the answer to that old puzzler. Yes, it makes a sound, but if it's good news from Iraq, no one will hear it because the mainstream media will suddenly be stricken by nationwide blindness and deafness. Sir Charles Krauthammer has been paying attention as usual, and reports on the good news from Iraq despite the media blackout. They held an election and a peaceful one at that. And we won. Or more accurately, our troops won because it's been their blood, sweat and tears that brought this astonishing miracle to pass, the first peaceful democracy forming in the Arab Middle East.

Preoccupied as it was poring over Tom Daschle's tax returns, Washington hardly noticed a near-miracle abroad. Iraq held provincial elections. There was no Election Day violence. Security was handled by Iraqi forces with little U.S. involvement. A fabulous bazaar of 14,400 candidates representing 400 parties participated, yielding results highly favorable to both Iraq and the United States.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went from leader of a small Islamic party to leader of the "State of Law Party," campaigning on security and secular nationalism. He won a smashing victory. His chief rival, a more sectarian and pro-Iranian Shiite religious party, was devastated. Another major Islamic party, the pro-Iranian Sadr faction, went from 11 percent of the vote to 3 percent, losing badly in its stronghold of Baghdad. The Islamic Fadhila party that had dominated Basra was almost wiped out.

When Mookie and his Al Sadr thugs lose, we win, the Iraqi people win and Iran loses. Of course, it's still possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and Obama can still pull it off.

This is not to say that these astonishing gains are irreversible. There loom three possible threats: (a) a coup from a rising and relatively clean military disgusted with the corruption of civilian politicians -- the familiar post-colonial pattern of the past half-century; (b) a strongman emerging from a democratic system (Maliki?) and then subverting it, following the Russian and Venezuelan models; or (c) the collapse of the current system because of a premature U.S. withdrawal that leads to a collapse of security.

Averting the first two is the job of Iraqis. Averting the third is the job of the U.S. Which is why President Obama's reaction to these remarkable elections, a perfunctory statement noting that they "should continue the process of Iraqis taking responsibility for their future," was shockingly detached and ungenerous.

When you become president of the United States you inherit its history, even the parts you would have done differently. Obama might argue that American sacrifices in Iraq were not worth what we achieved. But for the purposes of current and future policy, that is entirely moot. Despite Obama's opposition, America went on to create a small miracle in the heart of the Arab Middle East. President Obama is now the custodian of that miracle. It is his duty as leader of the nation that gave birth to this fledgling democracy to ensure that he does nothing to undermine it.

Read the whole thing and get the news you missed from the MSM (AKA Obama News Network).

Fighting a lonely war far from home at Christmas

War correspondent Michael Yon, the Ernie Pyle of our day, reports good news and bad news from the frontlines of the war on terror.

The war in Iraq has ended. Violent elements remain, but they no longer threaten the very fabric of Iraq. The Iraqi Army, police and government continue to outpace the elements that would prefer to see Iraq in chaos. Iraq is no longer an enemy. There is no reason for us to ever shoot at each other again.

That's the good news. Now the bad news from Yon, who always tells it just like it is.

But Afghanistan is a different story. I write these words from Kandahar, in the south. This war here is just getting started. Likely we will see severe fighting kicking off by about April of 2009. Iraq is on the mend, but victory in Afghanistan is very much in question.

While Americans sleep tight in their beds, this time of year U.S. soldiers sit shivering through the frigid, crystal clear nights at remote outposts in places most of us have never heard of and will never see.

Often they head out into the enveloping darkness, to hunt down and destroy terrorists, who continue to kill innocent Afghans, Americans, Aussies, Balinese, Brits, Indians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Spanish ... in short, anyone who opposes their violent tyranny. Their greatest weapons are ignorance and terror. Witness the latest unprovoked attack on our friends in India.

These enemies have no wish to reconcile with their fellow countrymen, or compromise in any way that would diminish their control of the lives of the ordinary Afghans who don't share their feral vision of life. They throw acid in the faces of little girls whose only crime is that they go to school. So we must continue to send our toughest men to confront them eye to eye, while performing the difficult balancing act of not alienating those who intend us no harm. This is particularly difficult in Afghanistan, a proud nation with a deep tradition of antipathy toward outsiders - even those who are here to help, though I am finding many Afghans clearly do not want us to leave.

The hard work is especially difficult when our troops are spread perilously thin. Over the last nearly two weeks I've spent time with teams whose nearest ground support is too far away, and too small anyway, to help them when they get into serious trouble, which happens all the time.

Some of these groups are too far out for helicopters to reach within any reasonable amount of time, and so their only choice often is "CAS," or Close Air Support: jets with bombs. Sadly, despite the extreme precautions I have seen our people taking in Iraq and now Afghanistan, we are bound to make some mistakes, which the enemy exploits to full potential. In fact, there are reports that I believe credible that the enemy is actively trying to bait us into bombing innocent people. Such is the savagery of the Taliban and associated armed opposition groups (AOGs).

In Part Two of Yon's report on the war in Afghanistan, he writes about a little-known element of the coalition forces, Lithuanian Special Forces.

U.S. and Afghan soldiers in Zabul Province give high marks to the Lithuanian Special Forces, who like to ride these captured Taliban motorbikes (photo at top) to sneak up on, and chase Taliban fighters. The "LithSof" are on their way to becoming living legends: Both Afghans and Americans report that the Taliban are afraid of the Lithuanians. Stories about them are filled with dangerous escapades and humor.

Americans say that the Lithuanians are sort of a weaponized version of Borat, who think nothing of sauntering around a base in nothing but flip-flops and underwear. "They look like mountain men. They never shave, sometimes don't bathe, and often roll out the gate wearing nothing but body armor and weapons. Not even a t-shirt," an American soldier told me. The Lithuanians may be a little bit nuts, but the Americans love to have them around because Lithuanians love to fight, and when you need backup, you can count on them. That contrasts starkly with many of the NATO "partners."

Maybe when your country spends almost a half-century with the Soviet boot on its neck, its first generation of free soldiers know what freedom is worth - and that you sometimes have to fight for it.

Try to get that mental image out of your head, Lithuanian soldiers riding Taliban motorcycles wearing nothing but body armor and weapons.

If you'd like to do something to support our troops and their loved ones at Christmas, here ya go:

The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund

SoldiersAngels

The United Warrior Survivor Foundation

Naval Special Warfare Foundation

Operation Enduring Christmas

Operation Support Our Troops

How to turn victory into defeat in the Middle East

A disturbing and sober assessment of what President Barack Obama has promised to do in Iraq, exactly what he promised throughout the campaign, cut and run. Substitute retreat for victory.

William Rusher, veteran analyst, lays out the facts and the likely conclusions of Obama's plan.

The first big step of Barack Obama's administration, and quite possibly its defining achievement, will be abandoning America's military involvement in Iraq. Obama can argue, quite plausibly, that he has a mandate from the American people to do exactly that.

He certainly has made no secret of this intention. In September of last year, he asserted that "the best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year, but now." And on May 16 this year, he spelled out his plan: "Nobody's talking about bringing them home instantly, but one to two brigades a month. It'll take about 16 months to get our combat troops out."

He has since been elected president of the United States, and there is no reason to suppose that he has changed his mind. So it is as predictable as anything in politics can be that we are indeed going to pull out of Iraq. The long effort to bring about a sensible solution to the problems of the Middle East is over. The Americans who died there, at the behest of our government, died in vain. The very short list of wars that America lost is about to receive a notable addition.

Whether the American people intended this result is certainly open to argument. But nobody can contend that Obama's decision is devoid of justification. He has been perfectly candid about his intention and has plenty of political support for it. Where it will lead, however, is -- to put it mildly -- open to debate.

The American withdrawal from Iraq will amount, for all practical purposes, to an American abandonment of any hope of influencing developments in the Middle East. There is no way we can pull out of Iraq and yet hope to retain any serious clout in that crucial region. Its vast supplies of oil are not essential to the United States (since we have other sources for it, at home and in the Western hemisphere) but are absolutely crucial to our allies in Western Europe and elsewhere. Control of those supplies by local powers in the Middle East, let alone more distant meddlers like Russia and China, will drastically alter the global balance of power.

How Obama intends to cope with this new strategic situation isn't clear. If he has a plan, he certainly hasn't revealed it. The European powers are in no condition to step in and impose the political stability that the Obama plan will wreck. And the notion that the local powers could do so by themselves is laughable. Within months, the whole region will simply be a plaything for troublemakers in Moscow and Beijing.

God help us. What happens in the Middle East matters to the whole world and to the U.S. I lived through the results of "declare victory and leave" in Vietnam. This loss will be much worse. It could spell the end of America's long-held and hard-fought position as leader of the free world.

Remembering a vet who gave all

I wrote the following remembrance on Sept. 11, 2001, a Veteran's Day to truly remember.

We're probably remembering our veterans with a bit more emotion this year than on previous Veterans Days, which I guess is always the case when America observes the holiday at a time when our men and women of the Armed Forces are engaged in combat.

At the Veterans Day observance at the Richmond County Veteran's Memorial Park in Rockingham on Friday, speaker Hugh Lee, a World War II veteran, reminded us of the Americans and our allies locked in combat in Afghanistan with a new type of enemy, the forces of terrorism.

But though this is a different type of war than any we've ever fought before, at core it comes down to the same bottom line - men and women have to go into harm's way to stop Osama bin Laden and his terrorists, just as they did to stop Hitler and Tojo 60 years ago.

Five WWII veterans were honored at the dinner at VFW Post 4203 with high school diplomas they never received when they went off to war so long ago. I'll have to agree with Tom Brokaw on this one point if nothing else, the WWII vets may well have been "The Greatest Generation," which is what he titled his book on that era.

But as I strolled through the Veteran's Memorial Park and looked at the monuments to WWII, Korean and Vietnam War veterans, my own thoughts went back to one of our Vietnam vets who gave all.

Lonnie Hoopaugh from Norman was a childhood friend, a classmate of mine through the 12th grade. I remember the first day of the first grade - back before they had kindergarten - and the teacher asked how many of us knew the alphabet already, pointing to the strange characters displayed at the top of the blackboard.

I didn't even know what the alphabet was, much less know its characters, and neither did anybody else in the class. But Lonnie raised his hand. The teacher only smiled and didn't ask him to recite the alphabet. If she had, I don't know what Lonnie would have said.

But one thing Lonnie never was as long as I knew him was bashful.

He was a little guy, short as a Banty rooster, which may have been why he made up for his lack of stature with a boldness and swagger. And that's at least one reason Lonnie is no longer with us. His older brother Wade, who still lives in Norman, told me in recent years that in 1968, Lonnie only had a little over a year left in his hitch in the Navy to serve and was stationed on a ship on the West Coast where he could have stayed and avoided the Vietnam War.

But Lonnie volunteered for the Navy's most dangerous duty, riverboat patrols in Vietnam. The "Brown Water Navy" as it was called, had the highest casualty percentage of any unit in that war, with 70 percent of its members either wounded or killed in Vietnam.

In January 1969, I had just arrived in Vietnam aboard the USS Mullinnix, DD-944, a destroyer, to begin a tour of gunline duty in support of our troops inland. I didn't know it until I returned to the states, but that was the month Lonnie was wounded and killed.

Lonnie was manning a .50 caliber machine gun on the fantail of his riverboat when a B40 rocket came arcing in and landed at his feet. He was evacuated by helicopter, but later died of his wounds.

Wade told me he has often asked himself over the years: Why did Lonnie die? Why did he volunteer to fight in our most unpopular war? The Vietnam War is still regarded as something far lesser than the conflicts that preceded and followed it, mainly because it was the first war America lost and hopefully the only one we ever lose.

If we learned nothing else from Vietnam, we learned how not to fight a war. We learned that Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara shouldn't have been picking targets and setting rules of engagement in Washington, D.C., while men and women were dying in Vietnam.

Civilian authority over the military is indeed part of our constitution, but I pray LBJ will be the last commander-in-chief who handcuffs our military by making such critical decisions for them.

So far, President George W. Bush is following the lead of his father in the Persian Gulf War, letting the military do the fighting while he does the leading. If we can remember the hard-learned lessons of Vietnam, perhaps there will never be another war like it.

My prayer this Veteran's Day is that President-elect Barack Obama doesn't dishonor the blood our men and women in uniform have already shed for victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraq War vet challenges Obama for anti-war stand

You've heard of Joe the Plumber. Now here's Sgt. Joe Cook, a wounded Iraq War veteran whose video is the most-watched on youtube in this campaign. He has a challenge for Obama.

And here is Sgt. Cook on Fox News with Shepard Smith.

Two "Joes" outranks one "Colin": McCain-Palin win!

Out of commission on my home blogging computer for almost a week and I missed blogging. Hopefully all is fixed now. Did some "troll" hit me with a bug? Possible. You're not paranoid if folks really are out to get you. And Obama and his trolls and leftwing nuts are playing very dirty.

Question: Do two "Joes" outrank one "Colin"? Out here in redneck country, the answer is HELL yes! Between Joe the plumber and Joe the Biden (Charles Krauthammer said Biden is a Republican plant and I think he's right) the two "Joes" have been playing havoc with Obama's coronation. Joe the plumber is a hero because he doesn't want Obama spreading his hard-earned wealth around to the 40 percent of folks who don't pay taxes in the first place. And Joe the Biden is the unlikely hero who opened his big mouth and admitted Obama ain't ready for prime time. Vote for Obama and get your international crises early and often! Who's up first? Ahmanutjob in Iran? Chavez-Khrushchev in Venezuela? Big Daddy Kim in North Korea? Putin-Stalin in Russia?

And what's a Colin Powell endorsement worth? Not squat to us rednecks who never liked him in the first place since he talked President Bush the 1st into pulling the plug on the first invasion of Iraq just when we had Saddam Hussein by the short hairs and shoulda finished him off.

If not for Colin Powell getting squeamish about victory, there would have been no war in Iraq.

And tell me just one thing the man accomplished as Secretary of State in President Bush the 2nd's first term. I'm waiting. Just like I'm also waiting for someone to tell me exactly what kind of executive experience Barack Obama has. Still waiting. Time's up. Same answer. Big zero.

So liberal pollsters and liberal media keeps on lying like a rug and Sarah and John are gonna shock 'em all in two weeks. I love the smell of burning nutroots rage on the morning of Nov. 5.

CinC Choices: Win Iraq War or 'Cut and Run'

Military expert Barack Obama talks about our troops in Afghanistan "air raiding villages and killing civilians."


The differences between how John McCain or Barack Obama as Commander in Chief would handle the war in Iraq are quite clear. Both say they want to draw down forces in Iraq and increase forces in Afghanistan, but how and when reveals their stark differences in approach.

Michael Gordon, New York Times correspondent in Iraq, interviewed both candidates on their plans as Commander-in-Chief of the Iraq war.

They ... provided telling clues about how much flexibility the next commander in chief would grant to his generals, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top American general in Iraq who has been named to lead the Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama, who noted that General Petraeus wanted “maximum flexibility” in setting withdrawal schedules, said he “pushed back” when he met with the commander in July by making the case for sending more forces to Afghanistan, which the Democratic candidate views as the main battleground against terrorists.

Mr. McCain, who argued that a favorable outcome in Iraq is vital for American strategy in the Middle East and its overall efforts against terrorists, repeatedly invoked General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy and said he would be inclined to give General Petraeus considerable latitude in setting force levels in Iraq.

So Obama says he "pushed back" during his sole meeting with Gen. Petraeus, when the architect and leader of the successful surge that turned the war from defeat into victory asked for "maximum flexibility." Translation: Obama told Petraeus "It's my way or the highway."

McCain, a decorated war hero and Naval air wing commander, says he will give General Petraeus "considerable latitude" to finish victory.

At the heart of the dispute is Mr. Obama’s 16-month schedule for withdrawing American combat brigades, a timetable that is about twice as fast as that provided for in a draft American and Iraqi accord. Would that deadline spur the Iraqis to overcome their political differences and enable the United States to stabilize Iraq at far lower troop levels, as Mr. Obama asserts?

Or would it tie the hands of commanders and undermine political progress when the security gains in Iraq are still fragile, as Mr. McCain contends? How would Mr. McCain try to promote political progress and better governance in Iraq, when he insists that circumstances on the ground, not the calendar, should determine the pace of reductions?

“The danger with Obama’s rigid timetable is that it may not allow U.S. commanders to react to events on the ground,” said Toby Dodge, a specialist on Iraq at the University of London and a former adviser to General Petraeus.

Obama, who has zero military experience and zero executive experience, tells Gen. Petraeus the troops are leaving in 16 months. Period.

Mr. McCain has argued that reductions should be determined by political and military circumstances, a stance taken by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told reporters in June that he favored a “conditions-based approach” that would allow the United States to continuously assess and adjust to events on the ground.

Obama "military strategy" is that an American withdrawal of troops will "force" the Iraqi government to take political actions he demands.

In addition to using troop withdrawals to try to encourage change, Mr. Obama said he would end efforts to train the Iraqi military if Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government did not take adequate steps to integrate the largely Sunni members of the Awakening movements into Iraq’s security forces.

While McCain points to progress already made militarily and politically by Iraqis has been in response to our troops winning on the ground.

By contrast, Mr. McCain argued that the improved security had finally given the Iraqis the confidence to move forward politically and economically, improving their working relationship with the American military and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Baghdad. Threats to cut off American training or deadlines for removing combat brigades, he argued, would only prompt Iraq to become more dependent on Iran or turn to militias for security.

“For a long time, people have said threaten them with this, threaten them with that,” Mr. McCain said. “Instead, Petraeus, Crocker and others established a relationship with the Iraqi government so that they did do de-Baathification, they did do an amnesty, they passed a budget. The United States government hasn’t passed a budget.”

Democrats in charge of Congress haven't passed a budget in peaceful America, while Iraqis have done so in the middle of a war. So which government is dragging it's feet and which one is moving along faster? Iraqis have put Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's Congress to shame.

And a crying shame is what it would be if the next Commander-in-Chief makes our troops cut and run from a hard-fought victory in Iraq.

Gen. Petraeus: Ignored Hero of Iraq War

You mighta missed it on the news yesterday. It certainly didn't lead off on TV or get a big headline in The Washington Post or New York Times.

General David Petraeus, commander of our troops in Iraq, passed the baton to General Ray Odierno and moved on to a higher command post.

Petraeus was not a household name in the dark days of early 2007 as he took command of the war in Iraq. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were leading a baying pack of hounds, quite sure they had President Bush treed at last as they took turns with the whipsaw blades.

Then came Petraeus and the surge, which Bush supported virtually alone in his own administration and with slim backing in Congress. A senator from Arizona whose political obituary had already been written by the mainstream media was one of the few lonely voices pushing for the surge.

But as 2008 dawned, Jewish pundit Charles Krauthammer commented that he might have to revise his view on the resurrection of the dead because reports of the death of John McCain's campaign for President turned out to be greatly exaggerated. The same could also be said of the war in Iraq, because as McCain's fortunes improved, Petraeus was performing a resurrection miracle in Iraq, while at the same time performing mass reverse resurrections on Osama's thugs. Harry "The war is lost!" Reid and Nancy "Cut and run!" Pelosi grew strangely silent about the war.

Obama stubbornly refused to admit the surge had actually worked until he grew so desperate about Palin-McCain that he asked Bill O'Reilly to let him end his boycott of Fox News. And when O'Reilly pressed him about the surge, Obama cheerfully said with a straight face that the surge had "exceeded our wildest dreams!" Our dreams? I may have to revise my view of Hillary and Bill being the World Champions at telling whoppers.

Maybe it exceeded Obama's worst nightmare, but more recent events have probably taken that rank in the shapely form of one Sarah Palin.

But where is the hero's welcome home, the ticker-tape parade for Gen. David Petraeus, the hero of Iraq? I suspect he'll never get that well-deserved honor. He and his troops coming home will get roughly the same thing us vets from Vietnam got, indifference or even worse.

At Petraeus' change-of-command ceremony Tuesday in Baghdad, Secretary of Defense Williams Gates did give him an appropriate tribute.

"Darkness had descended on this land; merchants of chaos were gaining strength. Death was commonplace, and people around the world were wondering whether any Iraq strategy would work.”

"Slowly, but inexorably, the tide began to turn, our enemies took a fearsome beating they will not soon forget. Fortified by our own people and renewed commitment, the soldiers of Iraq found new courage and confidence. And the people of Iraq, resilient and emboldened, rose up to take back their country."

Is there an echo in here? As I read that quote, I thought I heard a faint, shrill voice somewhere in the background cying out some nonsense about this being the day the oceans will begin to recede and all the ills of humanity will begin to heal. I was probably just hearing things.

I guess I'll know for sure whether my ears were playing tricks on me when the returns come in on the first Tuesday in November. Because that day, the people will decide whether they're on the side of Gen. Petraeus and McCain or Obama and the "General Betray-Us" move-on crowd.

Caspar Weinberger Jr., son of Reagan's Secretary of Defense, is one of the few joining Gates in extending a hero's tribute to Gen Petraeus.

Here’s to General David Petraeus. He never betrayed us. Indeed, he saved America’s war in Iraq. Maybe not single-handily, but there is no doubt whatsoever that without General Petraeus’ bold move to push for more troops to turn the tide against the insurgents, which has paid off handsomely, America would have been severely weakened both at home and around the world.

Obama's Iraq Deception: Leave troops in war

Move America Forward PAC released an ad this morning slamming Senator Barack Obama for his disgraceful political games with the U.S. military fighting for our freedom in Iraq.

Obama urged Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki "not to rush" into a troop withdrawal plan until he himself takes office. This has been interpreted by most as an attempt to make sure that if he is elected President, he is the one to declare victory in Iraq and end the war.

Obama's spin team issues an angry denial; accidentally reveals the truth! Read more on the MAF PAC BLOG

Petraeus vs. Obama: 'President' Obama's military wisdom?

"Petraeus vs. Obama" asks political leaders to acknowledge the truth about the surge. The ad highlights Senator Obama's refusal to acknowledge that the surge in Iraq was successful, despite countless reports from General Petraeus that we have made significant progress.

‘McCain created his own surge’

I read a poll the other day that said 48 percent of voters admit they’re tired of reading and hearing about Obama. So am I. So let’s take a look at the other guy, you know, “the old, wrinkled white guy” as Paris Hilton described him. Kyle-Anne Shiver at American Thinker writes about Sen. John McCain with a flashback to last year when he was virtually a solitary voice in Washington, calling for a “surge” of troops in the Iraq war.

On April 19, 2007, Harry Reid, new Senate Majority Leader, had stood upon our Capitol steps and declared for all the world, especially our enemies, that this "war is lost." Congressional Democrats were acting like banshees demanding withdrawal timetables for Iraq, and pronouncing the surge a failure before it ever had a chance to succeed.

And as Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, a certain junior Senator from Chicago and a chorus of others demanded defeat for our troops, McCain looked liked a defeated presidential candidate.

In June 2007, the press were all but writing obituaries on McCain's presidential campaign. The campaign was basically broke, donors were looking elsewhere, and it was a time for reassessment.

When his political chips were down, McCain created his own surge.

…John McCain decided to leave the whole mess behind, and embarked on a no-fanfare trip to Iraq to spend the 4^th of July with our troops. As one of the most vocal initial backers for the troop surge in Iraq, McCain continued to believe that premature withdrawal would be devastating, not only to the people of Iraq and the Middle East, but to our ability to fight the war on terror around the globe.

John McCain flew to Iraq to celebrate Independence Day in the privileged company of those he has always loved best, his fellow men and women in America's Armed Forces.

In July 2007, McCain and the troops were both beginning a surge to turn events upside down, politically and militarily, despite the nay-sayers.

Then Kyle-Anne Shiver flashes even further back to 1967, the year I dropped out of college and joined the Navy. The Vietnam War was raging and young Navy pilot John McCain was shot out of the sky and ended up in the famed Hanoi Hilton, the worst POW camp in North Vietnam.

Over the course of five years in a Hanoi prison, two of those years in solitary confinement, John McCain discovered his inner strength, his maverick spirit, and his determined will to never succumb to a loss of what makes us human. Our free will.

Every time I hear John McCain speak now, I am reminded that he has faced this horror. When I see that he walks stiffly, I know it's because his leg was broken in October 1967, and he didn't wind up in an efficient, well-equipped American medical facility. He ended up in a Hanoi prison instead. He was told that if he gave them military information they might fix his leg and his arms. Instead, the "medical treatment" the communists gave him nearly killed him. His body has never properly healed.

Every voter, in my opinion, ought to read Senator McCain's First-Person Account of his captivity, published in May 1973, now available online.

When the North Vietnamese learned they had the son of the naval admiral, who was about to be given command over our entire Forces in the Pacific, they wanted John McCain to accept early release.

When McCain's father took over as CINCPAC, the communists tried to persuade John again to accept this favoritism.

McCain refused, saying he wouldn’t come home until all prisoners were released. Five years later, the POWs came out together, bloody but unbowed.

I prefer John McCain's idea of patriotism. Love of God and Country first. Before personal gain. Before personal glory. Before personal gravitas. Before politics. There are some things upon which there simply can be no compromise. For John McCain, the non-compromising item appears to be personal integrity.

McCain's Country-First life is a winner. I'm not sure we deserve him, but I sure do hope we get him for our next Commander In Chief.

Me too, Kyle-Anne, me too.