Libertarian Leanings

Against the foundation tide

One of the top news story back in August of 2007 was Karl Rove's resignationfrom the White House staff. At the time Rove predicted Republican fortunes would improve by the 2008 elections because American fortunes in Iraq would have improved by then.  He was right about the American fortunes but wrong about Republican fortunes.  Back in 2007, in the context of Rove's resignation, I predicted that John Sununu would lose his Senate seat. 

Afterthought:  Having said that, even if General Petraeus reduces the violence in Iraq to zero over the coming months, I anticipate that our junior Senator from New Hampshire, John Sununu, will go down in defeat in 2008.  He's been avoiding the topic of war and it will cost him.

Sad to say I was right.  Though they didn't seem to know it at the time, and perhaps still don't, Republican fortunes were tied to George Bush and the war in Iraq.  Trying to change the subject was not going to work.  It is true there were other factors as well.  The current economic crisis was beyond Republican control.  And, although the President's approval rating was extremely low, it was something that Republicans might have been able influence had they stood with him.

During the summer of 2006 when Karl Rove spoke to New Hampshire Republicans in Manchester, he urged candidates not to avoid the Iraq war as a campaign issue.  He said that Republicans had no reason to be ashamed to stand up for the war, that it was the Democrats who should be under fire for choosing to "cut and run."  As it turned out, Republican candidates opted to distance themselves from George W. Bush, instead.  It didn't work. Republicans suffered huge losses anyway. 

I'd say those losses suffered in 2006 carried over into 2008.  Decisions to avoid talking about Iraq in 2006 allowed the political left to dominate the discussion and define the war issue on their terms.  This was driven home in the presidential debate when John McCain attacked Barack Obama's poor judgment by pointing out that had we followed Obama's advice on the troop surge we would have lost the war in Iraq.  Obama brushed it aside, saying the bigger mistake was to invade Iraq in the first place.  McCain did not reply.  End of discussion.

Success in Iraq is vital to our national security, yet it dropped off the radar for the general election.  When it did arise as a campaign issue it was dismissed as a mistake.  Just as in 2006 when Republicans chose not to back their president and make the case for the war, John McCain chose not to dispute Obama's assessment during the debates.  Iraq should have been a winning issue.  But from 2006 on, the Republicans had decided that it was pointless to argue how we got to where we are in Iraq, and instead, to focus on what we hope to leave behind.  It was a refusal to back George Bush, and it was a huge mistake.

Republicans abandoned the field to our leftist media.  The result has been a relentless campaign under way in a mainstream press reinforced by "foundation journalists."  Its objective is to discredit the war with the purpose of discrediting Republicans.  That it is an ongoing campaign can be seen by the date of a "news" article by the Center for Public Integrity entitled False Pretenses.  Published in January 2008 it claims to report:  "Following 9/11 President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq." 

This is not news, it's not journalism, and it's not true.  It's campaigning under the guise of journalism.  It's a campaign that's been under way since 2003 when Democrats first decided that Iraq was an issue on which they could safely oppose a wartime president, and it's a campaign that has gathered steam since then, just when you might think it would be ending.

There are a raft of non-profit journalist organizations promoting the left, including the Center for Investigative Reporting, Mother Jones, and ProPublica.  Launched in October of 2007 ProPublica is a non-profit news organization supposedly engaged in "journalism in the public interest."  Here is a sampling of the kind of "public interest" journalists they hire. 

"Jennifer LaFleurhas been the computer-assisted reporting (CAR) editor since 2003 for The Dallas Morning News, where she works on the investigative team. She has directed CAR at the San Jose Mercury News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and was IRE’s first training director. She has won awards for her coverage of disability, legal and open government issues. Ms. LaFleur is the co-author of IRE’s Mapping for Stories: A Computer-Assisted Reporting Guide.

Jake Bernsteinhas worked at The Texas Observer, an investigative biweekly, for six years, and as its executive editor since 2004. Earlier in his career, he was a staff writer for the Pasadena [Texas] Citizen and then for the Miami New Times. His work has received numerous state-level and national journalism awards, and The Texas Observer, under his leadership, was named Best Political Magazine of 2005 by Utne Reader. Bernstein is co-author of Vice: Dick Cheney and The Hijacking of the American Presidency (2006).

Michael Grabell has been a reporter for the Dallas Morning News since 2003, covering police, courts and aviation safety and security. He was a member of the newspaper’s team covering Hurricane Katrina and led a six-month investigation into a bus fire that killed 23 nursing home patients fleeing Hurricane Rita. The investigation was a 2007 finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.

Paul Kielhas written for TPMmuckraker, Talking Points Memo’s investigative reporting blog, since 2006. TPM’s coverage of the firings of U.S. attorneys and politicization of the Department of Justice won a George Polk Award for legal reporting.

A.C. Thompsonhas been a reporter for 12 years, mostly in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2006-2007 he was an investigative reporter for SF Weekly. For eight years before that he worked in a similar role for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. His work has also appeared in a number of national magazines. His work received the George Polk Award for local reporting in 2005. Thompson is co-author of the book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights.

Krista Kjellmanhas been an associate producer in the investigative unit of ABC News for almost three years. The Blotter, the investigative unit’s web page on which Ms. Kjellman played a key role, has, during this period, been honored with the Online News Association Award for investigative journalism, a George Foster Peabody Award and an IRE Award. 

My emphasis above.

Naive Republicans believed that victory in Iraq would automatically translate to victory in the election, and maybe in a rational world it would have.  But in this media climate there is a pretty good chance that Republican defeats in this election will end as an American defeat in Iraq, instead.

 

While there is no way be certain that Republican prospects would have been better had they followed Karl Rove's advice, it's hard to imagine that they could have been any worse. But the only way Republicans could have countered the combined media's anti-war message was to force it to cover Republican arguments that the invasion of Iraq was the right course in the War on Terror.  Granted, it would have been a formidable task given the amount of money going into the anti-war message, but the Joe Lieberman example argues that it might have been successful. 

The campaign war chest for the anti-war message is growing, and today, just as in 2006, playing defense isn't going to carry the day for Republicans.  Conservative and libertarian sources of foundation journalism are needed to get a message of liberty out on a continuous basis.

Over the next four years leftist foundation journalists will continue to inundate the American public with "investigative" and "analysis" stories that will conclude, George W. Bush was the worst president in American history.  Republican fortunes and those of libertarian conservatives will suffer along with the President's reputation if those stories are not only rebutted but also attacked as the dishonest political campaigning that they are. 

Vote today

Vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Update:  The unscientific AOL Straw Poll is holding at 57% to 42% McCain over Obama with roughly 238,000 total votes cast.  Don't know what, if anything, to make of that. 

Polls

They're all over the place.  Most show Obama with a commanding lead.  But yesterday the Investor's Business Daily poll, which according to Ed Morrissey was the most accurate in 2004, has Obama over McCain at only 46.7% to 44.6%.  Ed believes it is significant that Obama is below 50% since McCain has been closing in.

At the other end of the spectrum the America On Line AOL straw poll for October 31st through November 4th, completely unscientific, has McCain with a 15 point lead as of this morning, 57% to 42%.  The AOL straw poll allows one vote per email address, and though email accounts don't represent voters, whatever demographic group this is, they like McCain.

I have no idea what to expect come Wednesday morning.  McCain may be right.  We could be in for a long Tuesday night.

Libertarian Leanings endorses John McCain and Sarah Palin

It should come as no surprise to readers that Libertarian Leanings endorses John McCain and Sarah Palin for President and Vice President of the United States.  The Democratic strategy of arguing that John McCain is nothing more than a George Bush clone may resonate with some but not with Libertarian Leanings.  For one thing it is a largely inaccurate portrayal.   More importantly there is at least one policy on which we should all hope that John McCain is exactly like George Bush.  After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the single most important goal of the Bush administration was to protect Americans from future terrorist attacks.  There have been no attacks on American soil since September 11, 2001, proving that Bush was successful on his most important goal.  This is the sort of policy that should be continued.

Libertarian Leanings agrees with John McCain and George Bush.  Eliminating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was key to waging any war on terror that we had a hope of winning.  Saddam did not pose an imminent threat, but he did pose an inevitable threat -- one that would have to be faced sooner or later, and sooner was better than later.  John McCain believes that national security remains the most important issue facing America.  In contrast the Obama-Biden position on the war on terror is driven foremost by compulsion to oppose whatever Bush proposed.  They have vacillated accordingly.

On a purely philosophical level, there is little besides the war on terror that recommends John McCain to Libertarian Leanings.  His support for free markets has been lukewarm at times.  When he rails against the greed on Wall Street he sounds like your garden variety liberal, and by championing campaign finance reform legislation he did not seem aware of the threat it posed to free speech.  But whether you agree or disagree with his policies, you can be sure that he will do what he believes is in the best interests of our country.

Libertarian Leanings agrees wholeheartedly with the choice of Sarah Palin as running mate.  Though critics insist she is unready, Palin has already demonstrated an ability to rise to the occasion, whatever the challenge.  As the administration expert on energy issues, she will be better equipped than anyone to will lead us to energy independence, not only because of her experience as governor of energy rich Alaska, but more importantly because she will be committed to achieving that national goal.  Obama and Biden have revealed their reluctance to pursue energy independence by their promise only to consider offshore drilling.

In the Libertarian Leanings view, Sarah Palin will provide some balance to the Republican ticket.  She will act as counterweight to McCain's tendency towards big government solutions on the order of campaign finance reform.  Libertarian Leanings has no reservations about Sarah Palin's ability to assume the duties of the presidency should unfortunate events make it necessary for her to do so.  She is far better equipped than her counterpart on the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden.  Biden has been in the U.S. Senate for 36 years, and in that time he has shown that he has risen to his level of incompetence.  His monumental gaffes on the campaign trail have been so revealing that the Obama campaign has had to keep him under wraps, particularly in these last days.  To put Joe Biden a step away from the presidency is a gamble with no upside.

Both Biden and Obama were dead wrong about the troop surge in Iraq, arguing that it would fail.  Only later did Obama admit that it succeeded, but in doing so he would not admit that he was wrong.  He said the surge and the accompanying counterinsurgency strategy "succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated."  John McCain anticipated it.  He lobbied for it.  He expected it to succeed.  Obama's error would be forgivable if he were honestly wrong, but his position was all about political calculation.  Obama and the Democrats saw opportunity in public disatisfaction with a war effort that was not going well.  Their reaction was to do everything they could to even further impede the war effort, maximizing the oportunity that would accrue to them.

Libertarian Leanings believes the strongest argument for supporting John McCain is Barack Obama.  Obama's demonstrated flexibility on positions is troubling to say the least.  He never takes the unpopular stance, but instead always takes the side that offers the greater political advantage.  He once said he could no more disown the Reverend Jeremiah Wright than he could his own grandmother, but then publicly disowned him when the political heat became too much to for him to bear.  He publicly pledged to accept public funding for his presidential campaign, along with the spending limits it would impose.  But when his fund raising broke all records, Obama broke his pledge.  The money advantage he would gain by opting out was more than Obama could resist.  And why was his fund raising so successful? 

The Obama campaign has been allowing online donors to use untraceable prepaid credit cards.  That means it is impossible to verify that legal limits on campaign contributions have not been exceeded, and it is impossible to verify that contributions are not from illegal foreign sources.  In order for such contributions to be accepted, the Obama campaign deliberately disabled routine name and address checks that would flag illegal credit card contributions.

This is not the only flirtation with election illegalities.  The Obama campaign gave an ACORN subsidiary $822,000 during the primaries for "get out the vote" services.  ACORN is the voter registration organization that has been convicted of voter registration fraud a number of times and is currently under investigation for voter registration fraud in 14 states.  Both Biden and Obama continue to claim the campaign is not connected with ACORN.  They argue that the $822,000 was spent during the primary, and this is the election.  Besides, they argue, voter registration fraud is not the same as voting fraud.  It's no big deal.

Obama's bipartisan facade evaporated when his campaign kicked reporters from the Washington Times, the New York Post, and the Dallas Morning News off the campaign bus.  Their papers had endorsed John McCain.  Perhaps this reveals Obama's confidence.  With the election seemingly in the bag the facade is no longer necessary, and he can exact revenge without fear of backlash.

Without exception Barack Obama has taken the position that offers the greatest political advantage.  The "nuance" in his stated positions all comes down to political opportunity, and in that regard he epitomizes the Democratic party.  Should Obama win as expected, and should the Democrats expand their majorities in congress, we can be guaranteed that their prime order of business will be to innoculate themselves against the effects of future elections.  It has been amply demonstrated that political advantage is the only thing that matters.  Obama's questionable but successful tactics will find widespread support among Democrats.

Libertarian Leanings supports John McCain and Sarah Palin.  They have promised to put country first, and they each have the record of doing just that.  I urge readers to get out and vote for the McCain-Palin ticket.  It may be the most important vote you ever cast.

Tightening up in New Hampshire

According to Rasmussen's presidential polling, Barack Obama's 10-point lead in New Hampshire has now been cut to four. 

The presidential race in New Hampshire has grown closer, with Barack Obama now leading John McCain 50% to 46%, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state.

At the beginning of the month, the Democrat held a ten point lead over his opponent, which shifted New Hampshire from “toss-up” to “leans Democratic” in the Rasmussen Balance of Power Calculator. In the eight polls prior to October, Obama has held the lead in five, McCain in three.

Voters in New Hampshire are divided on who they trust more on the top issue of the economy, with Obama holding the edge, 46% to 45%. While 43% agree with Obama’s idea that spreading the wealth around would be good for everybody, 44% disagree.

Voters trust McCain more on national security and the War on Terror by a 53% to 43% margin.

It speaks volumes that the economic meltdown has not worked more to Obama's benefit than it has.  Why is there still a race?  Well, for one thing, reality may finally be sinking in.  Obama is an attractive candidate whose election would send a positive message to the world about the kind of country the U.S. really is.  The fact is, that message has been sent.  Obama is a great symbol, but now people are beginning to recognize that Obama, the man, has next to no resume, and what little there is on it does not resonate with poeple.  Mix in his gaffe prone running mate who warns that a crisis is waiting to pounce within the first six months of an Obama presidency, and voters become understandably worried.  They ought to be.  We have a disaster waiting to happen.

McCain edging closer

A Rasmussen report on swing state polling shows McCain gaining on Obama.

Fox News/Rasmussen Reports polling this week in Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio shows a slightly improved situation for John McCain compared to a week ago. However, the underlying dynamic of the race still favors Barack Obama.

The biggest change is found in Florida where it’s now essentially even with McCain at 49% and Obama at 48%. A week ago, Obama was up by five points and the week before he held a seven-point lead. The current polling shows McCain’s support at its highest level since mid-September.

McCain also moved slightly ahead again in Ohio with a 49% to 47% advantage over Obama. A week ago, those numbers were reversed and Obama had the two-point advantage. As in Florida, the current poll shows McCain at his highest level of support since mid-September.

"Malicious" McCain

An L.A. Times editorial today calls John McCain "malicious" for comments he made about ACORN's ongoing voter registration fraud. 

John McCain committed a malicious misrepresentation in the last presidential debate when he claimed that ACORN, the liberal activist group, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

As ACORN acknowledges, it has collected voter registration forms with bogus signatures. But even when they aren't winnowed out by election officials, transparently invalid registrations don't lead to fraudulent voting. Even the most lax poll worker wouldn't allow "Mickey Mouse" or "John Q. Public" to cast a ballot.

There's a case to be made for cracking down on errors and, yes, fraud in election procedures, and the FBI reportedly is conducting a preliminary investigation of whether ACORN, the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, encouraged its canvassers to falsify signatures. But wild claims like McCain's undermine reform efforts and make it harder to hold ACORN accountable for its real faults, including providing a financial incentive for canvassers to fake signatures.

The Times thinks this debate about election fraud is is a very complicated.  While dismissing voter fraud as virtually impossible -- this is on the strength of its dubious prediction that Mickey Mouse would be prevented from voting if he turned up at the polls -- the Times laments Democrats' too easy dismissal of the possibility of fraud.  Listen to this beauty of a sugggestive sentence that pretty much says nothing while reaffirming a supposed evil in Republicans.

Republicans claim to be concerned about widespread fraud, but aren't bothered if their alarms discourage Democratic-leaning blocs from voting.

What the Times doesn't bother to explain is how Republican concerns about fraud will persuade anybody to stay home on election day, be they minority voters or anybody else.  But voter discouragement is the ulterior motive that the Times devines in this "complicated" debate.  Naturally, at the Times it's a given that Republicans only "claim to be concerned" about fraud. 

So the L.A. Times comes out with a lukewarm acknowledgment that voter registration fraud is, well, maybe not such a good thing.  And yes, we really ought to try to prevent it.  But, in this soon-to-be-most-perfect-of-all-worlds (assuming as the L.A. Times does that Obama will win the election), actual voting fraud simply can't happen.  Voter registration fraud can run  rampant.  Who cares?  The real crime, actual voting fraud, is an impossibility -- according to the editors at the L.A. Times.  And according to editors at the L.A. Times, John McCain reveals his malice by disagreeing with them on this point.  But then, editors at the L.A. Times think this is a very complicated debate.

The McCain letter

During the second presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, Barack Obama repeated the charge that deregulation was the cause of the credit crisis that has triggered the global economic meltdown.  He said,

"Sen. McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator. On the other hand, two years ago, I said that we've got a sub-prime lending crisis that has to be dealt with.

I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman [Ben] Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it.

A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got to reregulate, and nothing happened.

And Sen. McCain during that period said that we should keep on deregulating because that's how the free enterprise system works."

Contrary to Obama's charge, Senator McCain and nineteen other senators urged the Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby to take up legislation, not to deregulate, but instead to provide stricter oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  An image of that letter follows.

According to Obama's Senate webpage, Senator Obama did in fact write a letter to Paulson and Bernanke as he claimed.  But the import of Obama's letter was to urge them to convene a summit.  Said Obama, "The summit should consider best practice loan marketing, underwriting, and origination practices consistent with the recent (and overdue) regulators’ Proposed Statement on Subprime Mortgage Lending. The summit participants should also evaluate options for independent loan counseling, voluntary loan restructuring, limited forbearance, and other possible workout strategies." Obama complained at the debate that he wrote his letter but nobody did anything about it.  "Nobody" includes Obama.  By writing his letter he was essentially jumping on an already moving band wagon.   On top of that, he wrote his letter nearly a year after the McCain letter urged legislative action.  Unlike Obama's letter, the McCain letter resulted in action.  Unfortunately, Democrats were the ones who geared up for action, and once again they blocked improvements to oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Update:  New Hampshire residents, please note that John Sununu was one of the nineteen other senators who recognized the risk posed by Fannie and Freddie.

Gliding through the contradictions

Consensus has it that Obama won the debate last night.  The Wall Street Journal admired Obama's ability to glide over the contradictions in his positions.

One of Mr. Obama's gifts is his ability to glide over contradictions with the greatest of ease. He spent minutes explaining that we spend "$10 billion a month" in Iraq that should be spent here in the U.S. But a short time later he was promoting what sounded like a surge in Afghanistan, and vowing to spend even more money to assist "the economies" of Eastern Europe. He also proposes to provide free health care while claiming he'd cut more spending from the overall budget than his new ideas would cost. If Mr. McCain lets that last claim go unrebutted, he deserves to lose.

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard thought Obama put on a nearly flawless performance.

John McCain had a very strong debate tonight. It's too bad for him that it came on a night when Barack Obama was nearly flawless.

Fred Barnes observed that there was nothing unrehearsed about the debate.  The debate format was "town hall" in appearance only, as debate moderator Tom Brokaw picked the questions and allowed only a select few to be read by people in the audience.  It was the Tom Brokaw show.  No surprises, no controversy, no problem for Obama.

The candidates were queried on a narrow range of foreign, economic, health care, and environmental issues--the stuff they talk about every day at rallies and fundraisers. These didn't come close to what voters at a real town hall meeting might have asked. There was no mention of abortion, immigration, moral values, same sex marriage, guns, their role models, their view of the presidency, or their religious faith.

Rather than an unrehearsed town hall meeting, the Commission on Presidential Debates let NBC anchor Tom Brokaw to select the questions. The result was questions that reflected what interests an East Coast newsman. Nothing wrong with that, except this was supposed to be a town hall debate in which the concerns of average folks would be front and center. They weren't.

David Gergen of CNN said it was Obama by a nose.

Barack Obama showed once again that he is more articulate and a better debater, able to weave together arguments and themes with great skill. Once again he was also steady. But he was hardly on fire and he didn't give us much more insight — or new ideas — about the economic crisis now gripping the country.

So, my scores tonight are lower than last week:
McCain B
Obama B plus

Rich Lowry commenting at The Corner said plausibility was enough to win it for Obama.

I thought McCain was good. It's as passionate and well-informed as he's ever been on domestic policy. His debate briefers did their job well. I think he repeatedly scored points in the first hour, but they were jabs rather then crosses—blows that Obama could absorb. If McCain were running in a year when his party wasn't getting crushed by a series of calamites, he might be winning this race. But tonight obviously wasn't enough. Obama, meanwhile, just has to appear plausible and he did. In fact, he's a kind of genius at appearing plausible. If the Nobel committee had a prize for appearing plausible, he'd win it every time.

In my own view of it, Obama didn't win the debate.  McCain lost it.  Granted, winning it was a tall order for McCain, but I think it was possible if he had been able to make a couple of important points. 

He had to lay the current financial meltdown at the feet of Obama and the Democrats where it belongs by hammering home the point that it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who resisted regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  He had to argue that Democrats caused the spike in foreclosures, which caused the credit crunch by encouraging an explosion of risky loans.

McCain also had to give an answer to Obama's charge that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.  Nobody ever argued that it did.  In spite of the mainstream media campaign against the war, there are still a great number of us who believe military action against the Saddam Hussein regime (or his sons') was inescapable, and that waiting for that threat to fully develop was not in our best interest.  By refusing to answer that charge McCain concedes the point.

One final thing McCain could say.  He could ask those lefty Obama supporters why they're not distraught over Obama's promise to refocus the war on terror to the Afghan front.  Is it because they now believe in the war, or is it because they've always believed Obama is lying when he says he is committed to fighting it?

Iraqi reaction

Iraq the Model speaks of a growing concern among Iraqis over the outcome of the U.S. elections.

I mentioned this past summer that pressing priorities in Iraq made Iraqis show little if any interest in the upcoming U.S. election. That was the case when November seemed too far to worry about. We’re almost in October now and things are changing.

Comments made by MP Sami al-Askari are evidence of such a trend. As an adviser to Prime Minister Maliki and member of his Da’wa Party, al-Askari’s comments are definitely indicative of what’s being discussed in that small circle and probably reflect Maliki’s own viewpoints.

As recent as June, al-Askari’s position echoed Maliki’s approval of a 16-month timetable for withdrawal. But three months can indeed make a difference. “Iraqis are better off with Republicans,” al-Askari said in an email to Kathleen Parker at NRO last week.

Iraq Pundit provides some Iraqi reaction to the Palin-Biden debate.

Regarding Iraq, Palin was right when she said Biden was waving the white flag of surrender. But she could have said more. Biden repeated something that Barack Obama has been saying for a while now. Obama has been saying that he will end the war in Iraq, and that Iraq has a deficit and it should pay its own bills.

During this Eid holiday week, Iraqis at social gatherings have expressed their anger at such statements. First, they ask how can Obama end a war? It would be more accurate for him to say he will end U.S. involvement in a war. Because once the U.S. leaves, the terrorists will continue to murder Iraqi civilians, about whom Obama has said he does not care. By saying he will end the war, it sounds like he will leave behind a clean, peaceful place. He really should be honest with the American people and tell them his plan would lead to the opposite of his words.

Iraqis are furious about the Obama idea that Iraq should pay for the damages to the country. Over and over again I heard Iraqis say that it looks like the U.S. came in, damaged a country and now expects Iraq to pay the bills. If Obama wins next month and keeps his promise, U.S.-Iraqi relations will definitely deteriorate.