Daily Kos

That is a good statement which I support.

Obama.

Always expecting the worst -- god knows why.

And relying on the AP to jump all over Barack.

Jesus. This is getting old, Kos.

Measured, thoughtful responses vs. shrill, childish rants.

Turn the page.

Don't slam Democrats based on AP paraphrases!

Jesus, is that so hard? Shouldn't you know this by now?

Glad to see the Obama rapid reaction is working, thanks for the correction.

his money with re-instating the draft? All or nothing.

sending enough tough bills to Bush that eventually 1) he either tires of vetoing and accepts a real compromise, or 2) his Republican allies in Congress abandons him.

Why won't the Dems TRY that approach?

either 1 or 2 happens.  Bush won't compromise and Republicans won't abandon him.  The key then becomes crafting legislation that will be vetoed for maximum political gain.

Next time you HAVE to use the candidates own words... BOTH of them not just Dodd... I am so sick of Obama Bashing here... its making me ill.

Here's the big question:

So, there will be no blank check, he says.

Well, what if Bush and the Republicans refuse to take anything but a blank check?

Will the Democrats just roll over again?

Will they be willing to let the funding go unappropriated?

If there's no prospect for timetables to be enacted, how the hell are we going to bring troops home if Congress won't use the funding power?

Shouldn't you really know by now not to trust AP?  I refer back to my original comment

I hope this won't be a recurring pattern.

I wish Democrats would quit talking about Iraq as if we're still fighting a war. We're not. The war was over when Saddam was overthrown and Bush hung up that stupid "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier.

Since then, courtesy of the Neo-cons, we've been conducting a grand nation-building experiment.

The war was won. BushCo's nation-building experiment has failed miserably. Enough is freakin' enough.

...and then turns around and asks people to work within the proverbial system, in the next breath.  Pick a stance, Axelrod!

the Dem strategy should be to make Bush the single biggest user of ink and pens in the history of the Republic.

This is a very simple strategy.
Polling indicates that the country at large would be very happy with this strategy.
This strategy has no downside.

This all leaves one conclusion and it is not that the Dem leadership is spineless but that they think that prolonging the war until Nov 2008 is a good strategy.

We need to let them know that it is a very very bad strategy.

Kos deserves props here.  Others (and I am one of them) criticized him for his earlier post.

Obama's position is separate and instinct from his prediction of how developments may materialize.  Perhaps the latter is not nearly as helpful as the former.

I am an Obama supporter.  In the future, I do hope Barack will focus on articulating the strength of his position rather than musing on the potential outcome of the debate.

I think we can all agree that public sentiment, public policy, and morality are all in our favor.

I think it's between sending enough tough bills to Bush that eventually 1) he either tires of vetoing and accepts a real compromise,

The democratic candidates lose a lot of leverage with swing voters that they might have had.  The republican candidates will have a field day during the election process using this stuff in their attack ads.

It seems the democrats are taking all kinds of advice from Bob Shrum instead of the American people.

Why?

lean heavy on the Republicans in Congress.

They are the only ones right now holding it up.

Let's see how Mr.Audacious Hope votes before we start patting him on the back.

Further, many are confused about what Senator Obama's position on the various and myriad bills that have been introduced regarding funding The MeatGrinder.

Perhaps, just perhaps that is because he's not clear himself on what he is willing to do or support?

KInda got yer ass backwards here guys .

It's up to Obama to be clear and decisive. He has not been.

That's called 'Leadership'...something he has not shown much of in his voting record on FISA and defunding the MeatGrinder.

So go ahead and pile on The Great Orange Satan.

For as we all know Senator Hope is beyond reproach.

process talk and of failing to project a sense of inevitability.  In other words, he's not using the tactics many of us use and would like to see him use.  

Kudos to the nth freaking degree to KOS for posting this, btw, it's a real class act.  
.

today as a similar thing happened with on the openthread regarding Merkley a challenger for Gordon Smith's seat.

New babies at home and a busy schedule catches up with even the most industrious and right minded of internet gurus.  No worries Kos, I still think you are the man.

You relied on AP to write a highly critical post of Obama for a site that has enormous traffic without checking his full comments first?  Well, I hope you don't do that again.  Your criticism in this post is fair, but I wish it had been that way the first time around.

losing momentum but hope that somehow we are gaining from it?

Doesn't sound like a logical plan to me.

How about we gain momentum by winning where we can legislatively and building on our successive victories in order to acheive our overall goal? Isn't that what movements do, and isn't the anti-war effort a movement?

I agree with the idea that each legislation should have teeth, have real consequences to Bush's policies. But what good is that legislation if it has no chance of passing and keeps us from focusing on the legislation that could work?

for taking a little swipe at you. The bottom line is that we need to be fair. There is just too much at stake.

Obama has come out with a tough, thoughtful and comprehensive plan for Iraq. Is it perfect, no, but it is pretty damn good.

will abandon Bush is if they vote down bill after proposed bill until the media is forced to report it.  Americans may then figure out who's really responsible for our troops being mired indefinitely in Iraq and demand that congressional Republicans actually represent their constituents by defying Bush.  

And the only way this can come about is if the Democrats persist, disregarding the naysayers with their rigid and unimaginative We-Don't-Have-The-Votes.

of pulling this kind of stunt.  He burned you last April with another inaccurate Obama paraphrase.  Stop buying his spin.

Thanks for the update.

you can never count on the AP for a completely accurate picture.  I knew that Obama was stating the reality of the situation, and not that he was throwing in the towel.  He promised to always be honest with the public about what is happening, what he is thinking and what he plans to do.  That's what he was doing with this statement, and I know he will continue to fight in whatever ways are possible.

In order for it to happen, we - the American people and the weak and wobbly kneed Congressional Ds - need to put a fire under their fat, bloated with putrid corruption asses.

When they feel the heat,  they will eventually be forced to see the light.

Otherwise, they should all expect and - of course - completely deserve to be booted the hell out of office in November 2008.

In short, what we have here is a test of political will. Who has the guts to hold the line & who folds?

what's with the Gonnas?

I feel like I'm reading a teenager text message.

He still didn't say that he would be willing to use congress' power of the purse to bring the troops home. There was a clear distinction between Dodd's statement and even that longwinded statement by Obama.

strategy.  I don't believe that will ever work.

That is why I don't like that he isn't advocating (or even listing as an option) using the filibuster, sending the bill back, or a Bush defunding method.  It is like he is giving up but saying, keep the pressure on the Repubs.  That really isn't any different from what the last FP post about this said he was doing.

for receiving and posting the full comment. It is the AP writer who is centrally at fault for the misportrayal of Obama's comments, and I hope we all will counter that with giving him due credit for those positions he actually takes. Similarly, I hope Obama supports whatever action in the Senate regarding the supplemental that will be worthy of our praise, and doing so is most definitely needed.

His efforts, either extraordinary or meek, to LEAD the public's opinion by expressing EARLY AND OFTEN his intentions and his logic behind his vote/role on the pending occupation/troop-funding dichotomy...

will, more than his "exit-plan" reveal his leadership and should be scrutinized closely.

Keep returning the same legislation until Bush signs it or we run out of money in Iraq. If it comes to that then propose emergency funding to bring the troops home. We cannot let a Bush veto derail this legislation. He either gets funding with Democratic strings attached or he gets no funding. His choice should only be whether to veto or not to veto, not the what the legislation looks like.

He can push for this now, expecting Republicans to cling to their quagmire, and then make it happen as the new President.

Withdrawing 1 or 2 brigades per month is the fastest they can be orderly withdrawn anyway. Today's NYT article by Jeff Zeleny & Michael Gorden says this "... is about twice as fast as American commanders in Iraq have deemed prudent". Would Jeff and Mike like to substantiate that slur?

Having heard Sen. Obama's speech yesterday, it was quite disconcerting to see a sound byte taken out of context and then used as an opportunity to bash Sen. Obama.  Perhaps it would be best not to take snippets and sound bytes from the MSM and do a little extra work and get the full story before running with inaccurate information.  This is the type of yellow journalism and sloppy reporting that I have come to expect from other media sources.  I look to Dailykos.com for better than that.

That being said, it seems that Sen. Obama is the one candidate that has had the courage to outline a real withdrawal strategy, coupled with an understanding of the moral implications and repercussions that the toll this war has taken on the Iraqi people, the people of the Middle East and especially on our troops. He suggests some specific solutions to reestablish our homeland security by redeploying where terrorists are training and plotting right now and ways that we must still engage in Iraq, in order to clean up the mess we've created.

As far as all the Clinton and Edwards supporters that took the opportunity to cast aspersions as a knee-jerk response, I'm hearing a deafening silence from your candidates.  Does Hillary really think a letter to George Bush from her would get any credible response??  I think not.

And this is the one thing that Obama simply isn't touching.

Congress is under NO obligation to continue to fund the war. If Obama were truly serious about putting the pressure on the Republicans, he'd be taking steps to organize his fellow Democrats to refuse to support or vote for any Iraq supplemental which doesn't contain solid withdrawal dates.

THAT doesn't require a veto-proof majority. That simply requires not voting for these bullshit no-strings-attached spending bills.

Yeah, it's all well and good to talk about more sensible troop rotations and rest periods and so forth, but come on... that's no answer. THAT should be happening ANYWAY. It's not something that Obama and his colleagues should be pitching as some sort of consolation prize when they vote yet again to continue to fund the war.

But what about this:

I tell you what. I think that we want to get everybody on board to bring this war to a close…

Now he's "preemptively capitulating" to everybody!

The nerve of him! Before you know it, everybody will be involved in ending this war, and that's a lot of people: then we'll lose our special status as a whiny few.

I mean, if Obama mobilizes everybody to end the war, what will we be able to bitch about?

But it's still not good enough. Ron Paul is also capitulating to the extra-terrestials, too. So Obama's not pure enough. He's really lost me now.

Snark.

although it's really not much of an apology, it's better than most.

Hopefully, lesson learned?

the "ultimate strategy".  

But in any case, you have a higher duty to accuracy in reporting, and not compound the sloppy work of the MSM.

but all that is going to require some pressure from all of you on our senators and your congressman, you know, who are really important.

It doesn't matter how many letters I write, how many phone calls I make, trying to put pressure on box-turtle-Cornyn, Prom-queen-Hutchison, and my sycophant representative (Michael Burgess) is like trying to force a sociopath to be empathetic.  Their most important priority is licking Bush's boots and keeping their lofty jobs without having to think.

that a number of Congressional Democrats simply will be reluctant to take as firm a position as the Daily Kos community desires.

We must work to change that.

However, we can only begin with a candid and realistic assessment of where we are today.

A reality based community needs to accept that.

Webb and Tester are key indicators, IMHO. Get them on-board and we are in good shape.

and was wielded back with FACT.  both kos and AP.  but I find Mike Glover, who has been pretty even handed through all this, just totally messed this up.

Tim Russert just gave a report that shouldn't shock, but did.  He met with the President today in advance of his speech tonight.  He's going to push for a long-term strategic relationship with Iraq that would put us in the region permanently.  He's likening it to the Korean War (what's the Demilitarized Zone, the whole country?).  And then there's this.

The President kept talking about funding common ground with the Democrats.  Russert asked the President what common ground means?  The President answered, "accepting the Petraeus report."

And then Russert asked about Jim Webb's readiness bill, which would mandate keeping troops in a 1:1 ratio (12 months out, 12 months back) and ensuring that our troops are rested and properly trained.  He answered that if that is done to tie his hands on troop numbers, he would CALL UP MORE RESERVES AND NATIONAL GUARD FORCES.

People should be in the streets tonight.  This man is out of his mind.

Thanks for clearing Baracks name

and your own "KOS"???

Hard to see how parts of the blogosphere never got it.

Iraq is the key issue yet several of the liberal blogs refuse to support the only candidate who got Iraq right.  In a way it makes them as wrong on Iraq as the Iraq war supporters.

I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006. I introduced a plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now.

Kos is making an extremely important point and it happens my diary today touches on this.  Alexis Debat has been outed as a fake after having been a terrorism expert for ABC for a number of years.  His credentials have now been called into question and his name scrubbed from both ABC and The Nixon Center where he was a fellow.  I invite you to take a look.

I really appreciate that you straightened this out.

This is the first time since 1992 that I've been really been excited about a candidate (I ended up being disillusioned within days, because of DODT and Haiti).

I guess that I've become invested enough in Obama's candidacy that when you took a whack at him, I felt like you took a whack at ME!  Not logical, I guess, but that's how it felt.

The discourse on this blog is becoming increasingly mean-spirited and hostile. As an Obama supporter, I want to spend my time getting the word out to potential volunteers and voters in a way that respects their intelligence and gives them a reason to hope that  democracy can survive -- even flourish -- in the USA. Everyone has their preferred method of communication and based on what I've seen on Dailykos today, I guess this one in not mine. Thanks to everyone who is trying to make a difference.

"No money until the troops are home".  Obama won't say it.  Hillary won't say it.  Dodd won't even say it.  Kucinich said it and said it and said it....

I also appreciate Edwards recent condemnation of the senate.  We need someone in the senate that is not running for president to step it up big time.

(shameless diary pimping:)

Earlier today I caught the AP at it again in my diary
worst AP headline of the day for their headline
"Iraq Report Gives McCain a Boost"

obama supposed to say on this? If he screams de-fund the war from the top of buildings , will it bring repubs into the fold?

As far as a straight out filibuster by the dems blocking funding which only requires 41 votes.. well, I heard a liberal caller today on Ed Schultz say that his wife is in procurement for the military and the last time the supplemental was being held up by the dems; they put an immediate freeze on shipping MRAPs to iraq.. you know, the vehicles that save soldiers lives..

anyone that has skin in the game, ie. a loved one in Iraq, can want the war over, and I do, but I want  my son riding in one of those MRAPs until we do pull out.

anyone making this out to be simple.. is ignorant.
Kos has clearly taken every opportunity to single out obama on the war, ignoring that dodd told olhbermann last nite the same exact thing about not having the votes.

Kudos to Kos for recognizing his mistake. Maybe he should give the one true anti-war candidate who is not named kucinich the benefit of the doubt next time?

http://www.dailykos.com/...

one could almost think that the AP writer deliberately wrote the headline in the most provocative (i.e. misleading) way he could get away with to garner the exact reaction he got from some of the more reactionary on the anti-war left... almost as if he were creating more stories for himself, say, when certain  bloggers go nuts and start attacking Obama for something the AP writer insinuated he said, then the AP writer goes back and covers the story of Obama losing support in the blogosphere...sounds like a melody I've heard in these parts before...

good diary...

http://www.mydd.com/...

that were submitted in response to the original diary. I'm wondering how many of those who blasted Barack Obama yesterday based on false information will come back today and acknowledge they got it completely wrong  or take back what they said. I didn't see the original diary until now but these comments were just over the top. We'll see today what people are really made of based on their reaction to the new diary. At least Kos acknowledged his mistake and has taken responsibility for it and corrected it.

will you let Stoller know about this?:

The Obama campaign has sent me the full remarks

Because one of his latest trashings of Obama was along the lines of "they don't email me as much as Dodd, Hillary, and JRE".

Them And Never Will.

AP Is In The Rethugs Pocket.

Hey buddy

, you say let's turn the page. I say standup. There are no leaders in Congress. Did you ever really want the nomination? Your chances are blowing in the wind and I support you. I'll see you in St Pete on the 30th of this month. We need a heart to heart bud.  This is all slipping away.
Just another geezer in paradise.

Did anyone see the the ABC News report that Hillary, she of the tapped out donor base, is arranging a sit down between key Congressional leaders from various Homeland Security related committees and homeland security vendors in NYC next week?

This is why independents can't stomach her.  It is the Government for sale.  Just donate to Hillary.

What does KOS have to say about this little two step, planned to happen like seven days after 9-11 memorial services?  Tom Delay couldn't have done it any better.

Look for this story on NBCNEWS.COM.  It posted Tuesday night.

Kos could not wait to bash Obama...uuugh. Pathetic and lame. Kos lost me for the last time when he praised Chris Dodd for his "leadership" on the issue of revamping our embargo policy towards Cuba. All this without noting that it was OBAMA who first came out with the policy initiative on Cuba, for which he was called "inexperienced" right here on this blog. The same people who called Obama green were praising Dodd for parroting Obama's position.

Amazing.

Kos....you apparently think you are bigger than you really are. Don't let your appearance on Meet The Press get to your head...step back and see what a mess you are creating. Next time you want to bsh Obama, at least do it with FACTS.

I applaud the fact that you can own up to your mistake. I truly believe that Sen. Obama wants what is best for all Americans and he has a good plan to get us out of Iraq. Obama in '08!