Today the IOC banned Iraq from taking part in the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

The reasoning is due to improper committees and lack of quorums for meetings that will prevent 7 Iraqi athletes from taking part in the games.

http://edition.cnn.com/...

Well I've just gotten home from the Obama rally, followed by a stop at the movie theater at Sony Center.  I want to diary my experience at the rally and share some eyewitness details for all of you who were not able to attend.  I do apologize that I don't have photos, but by the time I got there it was too dark to use my iPhone camera...

Crossposted at Strategy08

This may make McCain blow a gasket:

Axis of Evil
By Jerome Grossman
President Bush has decided to abandon his long-standing position that his administration would not meet face-to-face with Iran until Tehran suspended its uranium enrichment program.  A senior American official recently participated in talks with Iranian officials, the first such meeting since the seizure of the US Embassy by Iranian militants in Tehran in 1979.

There is one more John McCain gaffe that the media missed from the now famous CBS interview with Katie Couric.

This is the same interview in which McCain claimed the surge led to the Anbar Awakening, which is demonstrably false. But watch below for another gaffe when McCain says Iraq was the first major conflict after 9/11.

Apart from Sen. Barack Obama's trip abroad, the top political campaign story of the past two days has been the accuracy of a claim by Sen. John McCain concerning the "surge" in Iraq.    McCain accused Obama of not knowing his history on this subject -- but Obama forces, bloggers and some media outlets quickly charged that it was McCain whose account of the timing of the  "Anbar awakening" was false.  

It then became a TV story when it was revealed that CBS had edited an interview with McCain on this subject, substituting his answer to the key question (where he allegedly got his facts wrong) with his reply to another one (an attack on Obama).  

But The New York Times' summary today, in seeking "balancing" quotes, did not reveal the background of its key pro-McCain source.

As we all know on, Tuesday night during a CBS interview with Katie Couric, John McCain lied, or was mistaken about The Surge/Sunni-Anbar Awakening timeline in Iraq.

Unfortunately, as we found out CBS News, removed McCain's incorrect answer, kept the original question, then substituted the question, with a different answer.

Yesterday, in response (during the end of McCain's town hall meeting in Pennsylvania), he gave one of his most convoluted/confusing answers yet, on the Surge/Anbar Awakening (and I cried about it all day on Kos, lol)

Fortunately (for us), McCain repeated his bewildering explantion, in front of the Cheese Case (during a unscheduled interview), at the King Supermarket, in the Westgate Mall, in Bethleham, PA.

Remember (probably in embarrassment), he had cancelled a scheduled Press Conference yesterday.

Via TPM, John McCain surrogate Nancy Pfotenhauer:

"Barack Obama and his supporters can try to litigate what came first or what was crucial, but that's really an attempt to undermine the significance and the impact of the American troops and their sacrifice and their effort."

How fucking insulting to our troops, that getting history straight about how and why they're fighting can undercut their efforts. As if they're infantile hot-house flowers that wilt in the bright light of fact. Ugh.

I wasn't planning on posting anything today, have to much to do and other thoughts on my mind.

But yesterday I watched, as many have seen by now, someone who should have a much better understanding, above that of it's citizens, what this countries policies are and their implementation.

McClatchy  has a couple of reports  that hit on a couple of the Points of the 'surge':

CNN just broke this story on their website:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The International Olympic Committee has banned Iraq from competing in the upcoming Summer Olympics games because of what it says is political interference by the government in sports.

An Iraqi Olympic Committee official said the IOC sent letters in Arabic and English confirming the ban.

http://www.cnn.com/...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news for the McCain campaign, but there already is genocide in Iraq. At minimum, around 90,000 civilians have already been killed in the past five years, and those figures are very conservative.

According to Iraqbodycount.org,Iraqbodycount.orgthe number of dead Iraqi citizens is as of this morning between 86,171 and 94,031. Other organizations have much higher numbers of dead Iraqis,including ta study by Johns Hopkins University which estimated as many as 600,000 Iraqis have been killed in the conflict. Regardless of which body count figure is used, the point is that genocide in Iraq has happened, is happening and will happen in the future UNLESS the United States brings its troops home.

Responding to criticism for their unprofessional and unethical editing of a Katie Couric interview with John McCain, CBS News Senior Vice President Paul Friedman said:

The report was edited under extreme time constraints and one piece of tape was put in the wrong order. Fortunately, this did not in any way distort what Senator McCain was saying.

Clearly, Mr. Friedman is either stupid or a liar. Roll the tape:

Perhaps Mr. Friedman can explain how replacing McCain's incorrect claim about when the "Anbar Awakening" began and his mocking of Obama for not knowing this "matter of history," with a contemptible attack on Obama's patriotism didn't distort what McCain said.

The Washington Post has the Silent Posting article buried in the World News section. The article is a four page description of the man's work and the work of his unit known as the "Gravediggers".

Since he was ordered to silence the blog, his fiancee has taken it over and keeps the faithful readers up todate with the unit. The blog was not ordered down due to OPSEC it was supposedly for the fact the one post in question was not approved by a superior officer, the post was about a higher ranking officer wanting him to accept a lateral promotion, which LT G did not want. The Army felt he was ridiculing the officer.

I’ve been doing some serious retroflecting now that we’re nearing the end of the George W. Bush era, and I’m thinking that maybe we who consider ourselves to be environmentalists should actually be grateful to the man for the way that he’s dealt with climate change.

Now stay with me on this.

A title which sums up John McCain's quest for the Presidency.

Clark: Well, they didn't bring more troops out to Anbar. What they did is the Saudis, basically in 2005, gave up on the U.S. policy, and they started working directly with the tribes. I went through the region in 2004 and 2005. I went through each of the Gulf States. I talked to the leaders and they said, 'You Americans are crazy. You're ignoring the tribes.' The Saudis put money behind it. They worked the tribes, and that helped bring the condition which made the Sunni Awakening possible.

Scarborough: So, so General, you are crediting the Saudis with success in Western Iraq. You're crediting Iran with success in Eastern Iraq. I think that's giving short shrift for what the troops did.

Clark: No, I don't think so. I think the troops are a very, very important part of this, but I think you have to look at whole situation in there, Joe.

Source: http://securingamerica.com/...
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Yesterday, John McCain made millions of people crosseyed while listening to him trying to clarify his statement regarding the surge and the sunni awakening. This is what he said:

...at least implicitly.

While Sen. McCain has been going off on a tangent accusing Sen. Obama of selling America down the river for political gain, there is a question that isn't being asked of the senior Senator from Arizona.

"If Sen. Obama is putting politics over the national interest, do you think your friend and Republican colleague, Chuck Hagel, whose policy proposals and words on Iraq have been almost indistinguishable, is doing the same?"