BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

It seems that the battle lines have been drawn … between McCain and Obama.  Today the focus is on Iraq.

As has been reported Senator McCain invited Senator Obama, more or less, to tour Iraq with him.  Naturally, Senator Obama declined the invitation.  Why would he want to go to Iraq with McCain?  I can’t think of a reason, and apparently, neither could Obama.

But, lest we think the “no, thank you” would end the battle, the jousting and jockeying for key policy positions seems to be in full force. 

From McCain’s camp there comes criticism of Obama for making up his mind about Iraq without having visited.  Well, I doubt that the majority of Americans who are now against the war have been to Iraq either.  It doesn’t take a mental giant to understand that we broke it without cause… or for a concocted reason… and like Humpty Dumpty all the glue in the world isn’t going to put it back together again… at least in the short term.

After a strong push from Sen. John McCain’s allies, the war in Iraq has moved back to center stage in the presidential election, with McCain attacking Sen. Barack Obamafor making up his mind about the war without visiting the war zone and Obama charging that McCain has yet to learn the lessons of President Bush’s mistakes.

“The next commander in chief is going to have to make decisions that will either lead to peace and security in Iraq or chaos and conflict,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, sounding a theme that Republicans have pushed all week. “The voters need to know how the candidates will make that decision. And the fact that there are 2-year-old Iraqi children who weren’t born the last time Obama was in their country raises questions about what he is making his decisions on.”

Oh, please.  Two year old children have been born in gang infested areas of Los Angeles and I doubt either candidate has visited South Central LA lately.  But, it doesn’t take a visit to know that something needs to be done to bring an end to gang violence. 

We know Obama isn’t going anywhere with McCain.  That’s a given.  So, Obama’s team fights back as it seems likely that Obama will visit Iraq on his own.

Obama aides said yesterday that the senator from Illinois is now considering a trip to Iraq as part of a long-deferred foreign tour. But they made it clear that he intends to assess how best to withdraw U.S. forces, not to reconsider whether they should be withdrawn. And they responded that none of McCain’s trips to Iraq has been illuminating enough to dislodge his commitment to Bush’s war policies.

McCain visits Iraq to figure out how to conquer the enemy… something that isn’t going to happen.  Obama’s trip will be designed to see how to best bring our men and women home.  Both campaigns think their Iraqi policies will bring voters.

But new public opinion polling suggests the war is more a wild card than a slam dunk for either side. While voters still see the invasion of Iraq as a mistake, they are divided about the current course of the war and where to go from here. McCain continues to be favored as the candidate most trusted on the issue — albeit with a statistically insignificant edge. But most Americans favor Obama’s central position, withdrawing combat forces.

Well, it’s a long time to November politically speaking.  No one can suggest what will happen in Iraq between now and then.  Well, they can suggest what they would like to see happen.  Unfortunately, while we play the wait and see game with the lives of our men and women in Iraq, the war goes on and the present administration seems to be sitting on their hands passing time until they can pass this war on to another administration.  The hand-off by the Bush administration in January to the president-elect will be the only “Mission Accomplished” they can count on.