Turning Point

Much to the consternation and I'm sure shear disappointment of the McCain-loving mainstream media, what happened this past weekend with the Iraqi PM endorsing Obama's withdrawal plan is nothing short of a turning point in this campaign. While McCain and his media cohorts will continue to extol the false notion that the surge has worked--just because you say it over and over again doesn't make it true--the facts on the ground (yes, those facts) dictate that the Iraqis want us out and we want out, so why not make everyone happy and get out! Call it a time "horizon" or a timetable or whatever you want; we're done and over with Iraq.

And the McCain campaign knows it. One strategist told Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic, "We're fucked." That's a simple way of putting it, but basically it's right. Especially in light of McCain saying in 2004 that if we were asked to leave he would honor that commitment. Even after the Iraqi PM's spokesman claim that Maliki was misquoted, the Times has obtained the audio version, and a straight-forward interpretation shows that there is no confusion at all. In fact, Maliki, not the magazine, brought Obama and the words "timetable" and "withdrawal" into the conversation!

With Obama in Iraq today, after having a successful trip in Afghanistan over the weekend, the media will be swirling around him like vultures, prepared to pounce at any slight mistake or even the whiff of a mistake, so that they can then run a 24/7 Obama Campaign Death Watch on the cable shows (a la Jeremiah Wright). Except, it won't matter. The pictures of soldiers cheering Obama as he enters a mess hall, coupled with presidential-like meetings with top government officials, will out shadow anything the McCain media attempts to stir up.

This is all to drum up the big finale on Friday. The speech in Berlin. They're estimating that up to 1 million people could attend. Ask yourself: can you imagine McCain getting that many to attend a speech? No, not 1 million for McCain. Maybe a thousand or a hundred. Or maybe just no one at all. The Europeans know who the next president of the US will be. And now so do we.