John McCain's comment that Barack Obama "would rather lose a war" in Iraq not only demonstrates his lack of respect and lack of class.

It also demonstrates that McCain still doesn't understand what was wrong with the invasion and occupation in the first place.

The fact is, it's five years too late to be talking about winning or losing in Iraq.

Please, keep talking about the New Yorker Obama cartoon - but on one condition.

Never forget to point out that the racist and xenophobic lies, insinuations and smears that the cartoon satirizes are real; they exist; and they have long been streaming out of the conservative, right-wing and McCain-friendly media.

You people sure know how to stay mad at each other.  You're like a cockney family of ten only with fewer jellied eels.*

Let's do a quick sit rep:

McCain and Obama are in roughly a dead heat, with a slight edge to Obama. The political climate is overwhelmingly favoring Democrats but McCain has a cash advantage. Republicans can't win on the issues but they have proved in the past that they can win using smears.

So what do do next?  I know, let's beat the crap out of each other! That'll be productive.

This is Carville on Larry King, in no particular order, snarling about the Obama campaign:

...don't hide under a NYT editorial...I hate this namby-pambyism...they're whining about negative commercials, whining about the debate.

A sniggering, macho, dick-swinging wanker.

Good morning from Colombo, it's just coming up to lunchtime.  There's a breeze coming in off the sea today, trying to lift the heat that settles down in the afternoon.  It's an organic heat, like the heat you get off an animal instead of heat from the sun.

Beyond a few extra soldiers and police watching the traffic this morning there's not really any noticeable impact of yesterday's bombing and assassination.  There rarely is.  People are used to the background noise of violence, they just get on with their everyday life.

Yesterday afternoon I wrote:

The Ceasefire Agreement has been dead for two years, it's just that neither the government nor the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) want to be the first to officially call it off.

Well, yesterday evening the Government of Sri Lanka proved me wrong and called it off.  Citing thousands of violations on the part of the Tamil Tigers, they announced the formal abrogation of the 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) that had become a hollow joke.

So here we are in Colombo, Sri Lanka, it's been 2008 for 35 hours and we've had our first assassination and our firstbomb attack of the new year already.

A leading Tamil politician, critical of the government's policies towards the Tamil minority, was assassinated after the government reduced his security.  An army bus was the target of the bomb attack, 4 dead 23 injured is the latest.  The Tamil Tigers (LTTE) are denying responsibility.

This will be a short diary, although difficult for me to write.

I was overwhelmed and proud when my last diary titled Al Gore collects 'favorite suit' from cleaners: announcement imminent? made the Rec list.

I am ashamed to have to tell everyone that the information I stated was based on a rumour which I never bothered to fact-check, although I presented it as truth.  To put it bluntly, I lied.

More.

Former Vice-President Al Gore was yesterday spotted collecting what Tipper has formerly referred to as his "favorite suit" from his local Nashville dry cleaners and laundromat, "E-Z Kleen".

More.

I’ve decided to perform a public service for everyone by presenting, once and for all, what I hope will be the definitive analysis on which candidates’ supporters suck the most.

My hope is that this diary will negate the need to actually go through with any primaries, as the suitability of each candidate should be clear from the quality of their support, as defined by everyone else.

Follow me over the fold for some surprising results.

The following article by Theodore Dalrymple just cropped up on the LA Times site:  The case for mistrusting Muslims.

The article makes the case that discriminating against Muslims is completely rational, and accuses the British of undue tolerance of those Muslims in our midst.  I never heard so much rubbish, and I assure you all that us Limeys are keeping a close eye on the little buggers.

As it’s an article about British life by a Brit in a US paper, I need to set the record straight.  Follow me below the fold as I explain...

Oh, my sweet baby Jesus.  Gather round, everybody – it’s pundit-kicking time.

James Bowman.  Remember that name.  Savour it.  He’s written an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that boggles the mind, entitled Getting It Right: David Halberstam and the media’s ethos of irresponsibility.  After reading, sitting open-mouthed and then re-reading his article to write this diary, I feel strangely high on unreality.

He's arguing that journalists are a bad thing.  This, bear in mind, is a journalist writing about journalism in the Wall Street Journal.

I've never heard of this guy before, but he's just joined my top ten list of pompous, smug, fatuous, wrong-headed, fascist enablers.  He writes about the media, and he's a perfect example of where everything has gone so very badly wrong with the US media.

Join me below the fold...

Brothers and sisters,

two great things that I love about this community are that it champions freedom of expression; and that it encourages and challenges us to think up new ways of promoting progressive values.

So, with this in mind, let me tell you why tonight I blog from the bathroom.

My last couple of diaries have been globalization diaries, this one’s a follow-up that might explain my thinking better.  Here’s my schtick: blaming "globalization" for America’s economic ills is a bad idea for a few big reasons:

1. It gives a false, fear-mongering impression that the US economy is under attack

2. It leads to protectionist impulses that will hurt both the US economy and the developing world

3. It lets US politicians (particularly Bush) and US multinational corporations off the hook

4. It is a betrayal of the progressive idea that policies based on wealth equalization and redistribution can have a real impact on people’s quality of life.  It’s a form of surrender to the profit motive.

Read on if you're interested...

I just read an article about globalization that had me air-punching, which doesn’t happen very often.  James K. Galbraith, writing in The American Prospect

Let's ... stop scapegoating the Mexicans and the Chinese, and accept that they must have their role, which they will largely determine by their own actions, in the world in which we all live. [...] Let's concentrate, instead, on getting things right for workers right here.

Galbraith doesn’t only identify a problem, he offers a solution.

We have two Globalization diaries up on the rec list at the moment.  Ironically, both diaries and the vast majority of comments attached take a very non-global perspective.  Both seem to be arguing for greater US protectionism.

One of them states:

It's also important that we don't back away form a trade fight. If a country we deal with makes it incredibly hard for US companies to enter, slap a tariff on their imports until they capitulate -- or take similar measures to force the other country's hand.

The other says:

[...] the importation of cheaper workers, legal and illegal -- all of this must stop."

Hear that whooshing noise?  That was us going past a very big point.

A new facility at Guantánamo Bay, known as Camp 5, Camp 6 and Camp Echo, has "created even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation" for around 300 detainees.  In other words, cruel and inhuman treatment.  And just in case you forgot,

As a party to the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United States has accepted a legal obligation not to engage in torture or other forms of mistreatment.

Social conservatives paint Clinton as a font of immorality, the personification of the disasterous effects of godless sixties liberalism.  When you spend some Google time actually examining the evidence, as I do here, you have to concede that they might have a point.

This diary is another story about human rights getting overlooked in the Global War on Terror.

This isn’t breaking news: the aim is to give a little background and context to an often-overlooked country, one of the most fascinatingly diverse and beautiful countries on earth, whose strategic importance is increasing almost daily.  Apart from its control of important shipping routes, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any nation, is a young democracy that (so far) protects religious freedom, and it is rich in natural resources including oil and gas.