The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/us/politics/06mccain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) reports his latest national security fiasco: after telling the Boston Globe approximately six months ago that the President must obey the duly enacted wiretap law, the presumptive GOP nominee now says that the President can do anything he wants to catch the radicals.

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer this evening, Gov. Richardson said that he would decide which presidential candidate to endorse within the next few days.  His comments on procedural issues affecting the campaign, discussed below, may indicate a tilt toward Obama.  

In today's column, the Prince of Darkness states:  "During the two weeks remaining before the important Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, Clinton insiders want to spread the message that Obama represents the radical left-wing politics of George McGovern's 1972 candidacy. . . . But they don't know how to accomplish this. When Clinton herself has launched past attacks on Obama, it has hurt her with voters."

Some obvious problems with this strategy are that McGovern has endorsed Clinton and that she worked for McGovern's campaign in 1972.  Also, running against the party's nominee of 36 years ago is likely to resonate only with the oldest Democrats who have been Hillary's strongest supporters anyway.

However, Clinton seems to be unable or unwilling to provide a strong contrast with McCain on national security.  With recent polling demonstrating that voters understand how the war is hurting the U.S. economy, Clinton may need to attack Obama's views as "far left."

During an interview on NPR this morning, Matthew Dowd (chief strategist for Bush-Cheney '04) said that if McCain and his advisors were given truth serum, they would acknowledge that Obama is a much more formidable opponent than Clinton.  The reasons Dowd gave are as follows:  (1) Obama represents a new generation, whereas Clinton, like McCain, represents a return to the past; (2) Obama's position on Iraq has been clear and consistent; and (3) Clinton will unify the Republican base, but there's no vitriol on the right for Obama.  

Dowd also expressed concern that McCain may be seen as pandering to the right if he has to keep going to right-wing groups to provide reassurance.  He noted that McCain's campaign imploded last year precisely because that type of pandering presented such a jarring contrast with McCain's "Straight Talk Express" brand.

The New York Times is reporting on a "proposal, by Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, [that] would require that troops spend as much time at home as on their most recent tour overseas before being redeployed. Top Democrats said the practical effect of adding time between deployments would be to force Gen. David H. Petraeus to withdraw troops on a substantially swifter timeline than the one he laid out before Congress earlier this week, and would protect troops from serving protracted and debilitating deployments."

This is the way to support our troops and end the war.  Let the Republicans argue that supporting the troops means keeping them in combat continuously until they die.

The military authorization bill signed into law two weeks ago included a provision, added at the 11th hour by GOP extremists without the knowledge of many members, terminating the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction as of Oct. 1, 2007.  The office, run by Republican attorney Stuart Bowen Jr., had "sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces."  Congress Tells Auditor in Iraq to Close Office, James Glanz, New York Times, November 3, 2006. (Thanks to hhex65 for providing a link.)

Republicans made a last-minute insertion into a military authorization bill signed into law two weeks ago that has required the closure of an auditor's office in Iraq that has investigated abuses.  Sen. Collins (R-Maine), who was in the conference committee, wasn't even aware of the insertion.  

In case anyone's interested in adolescent poetry, I'm attaching a few poems written by my son.  The second and third poems address issues of war and poverty.  All of them are moving.