CNN has learned Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama has arrived in Afghanistan.---CNN, (duh)

---UPDATE--- (per turneresq's suggestion)

US Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has arrived in Afghanistan, at the start of a campaign-season international tour.

Mr Obama flew to Kabul as part of a US congressional team. He is expected to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

He is later expected to visit Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain.
---BBC

Alternate title:  McCain pulls a Plame on Obama's plane

"I believe that either today or tomorrow -- and I'm not privy to his schedule -- Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators" who make up a congressional delegation.  John McCain at a campaign fund-raising luncheon. -- Reuters

For the record...  Webbies will be well aware that 'to flame' means to post inflammatory remarks about a person.  From this day forth, webbies should be aware of the following:

plame
\ˈplām\
Function: verb
Definition:  to publicly disclose information regarding a political opponent with the motive of endangering the opponents well-being while simultaneously hindering his/her ability to expose mistakes or manipulation (see Iraq war).  Disclosure is often presented as an 'innocent' off the cuff remark and/or through plausibly deniable sources that can always be pardoned.  
Etymology:  Early Netroots to flame Middle Netroots to politically flame    
Date:  Ancient cavemen and more recently the GOP.

As I think about the absolutely horrific gaffe by John McCain today, that has literally put the lives of 3 US Senators, masses of US Government employees, and journalists at risk, I asked myself, What Would Karl Rove Do?

I firmly believe the Karl Rove would turn this into the "I voted for it before I voted against it moment".  He would attack John McCain only perceived strength, national security, by hammering away at it ruthlessly.  

For better or worse, I am not sure the Obama campaign is willing to take these steps.  However, follow me after the jump to what I believe are the 5 easy steps that would literally end the campaign in mid July.

Looks like they want Iraq to go away by November.  Declare victory and begin leaving.  We suggested that long ago:

Statement by the Press Secretary on Iraq

In the area of security cooperation, the President and the Prime Minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals -- such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq.

More, after the fold.

Update:  

"The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," Gore said.

(Update: I have the whole speech text in Update IV)

[Obama Comments in Update V)    

Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.

Gore sets 'moon shot' goal on climate change

Gore will be giving a major speech today on energy security, climate change, and the economy, which he correctly sees as interrelated.

Update: But some Dems are running scared already.

We need to have Al's back on this.  Some Dems are grumbling:

The Hill: Some finding Gore’s timing inconvenient

More, after the fold.  

I just wanted to note the incongruity of McCain giving an education speech on a day when Obama was delivering a major speech on national security.  

This is coming after a day in which the press was focused on the Afghanistan / Iraq back-and-forth, and on a day when that focus is unlikely to change.

I think McCain largely ceded Obama the narrative for the day, in which Obama made a powerful speech about the need to reorient our national security strategy toward defending against nuclear, biological, and information infrastructure threats to our society.

The more Obama gets to make big speeches with merely tart press releases in response from the McCain side, the more he will begin to close the gap on the Commander-in-Chief question.  

GOP often brag that they are national security experts... but excuse me

crossposted from unbossed

This is about privatization. About five years ago, IT privatization was all the rage in the federal government. For reasons that have always escaped me, pro-privatization groups argued - successfully (and this is the part I find unbelievable) - that contracting out an agency's IT work is a no-brainer and would lead only to good.

Snarkily the title of McCain's response as reported on Huffpost, over maps of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.  The person who chooses the pictures and graphics for HuffPost is a genius.

SEE
Seth Coulter Walls on the back and forth between Obama and McCain camps:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

It's rare that someone hopes their words will recall Nixon's, but I think McCain really hopes some will believe McCain has a "secret plan" for peace.

I've come alot closer to my full support of Obama, I just don't ever make total decisions when elections are months away, I also don't just look at the single person trying to give their resume, I look at how they present themselves, smear and slam are big no no's, and I look at who they bring close to them in their campaigns and try and figure out, if they win, who will they surround themselves with while in office ( and I hit the nail on the head, which I do for a living, as to the bush crowd, not exactly reading the future but seeing alot of what was to come do so! ), especially as to Federal Representation and the Presidential Office, more towards my Representation on who I would Hire.

Looking at my past postings on Daily Kos there are far too many times when I have ridden the wave of emotion to intellectual oblivion. This was no different when it came to Obama's FISA vote. Some time has passed and the musings of rational thought have managed to creep back into my head. I was advocating "cutting the funds" to the Obama campaign and even the notion of writing a candidate in come November. It is obvious these are grave mistakes if too many people were to go this route. While Obama's FISA vote is inexcusable at best, like myself, he is far from a perfect man. It only took seconds for me to think of a McCain victory to realize the true tragedy this nation faces should the so-called "straight talk" express be parked at the White House on inauguration day.

As we are all aware, John McCain has made it his business to ensure that we are all perfectly up to date on just how badly Iran wants to nuke the United States.  However, between his Bomb Iran song and shipping cigarettes to kill Iranian civilians, it looks like McCain forgot to check the threat out for himself.

[W]hen ABC’s Charlie Gibson asked McCain yesterday if an Israeli strike against Iran would be "jusified" in light of Iran’s recent missile tests, McCain said that he couldn’t determine "the nature of the threat" from Iran[.]

When last we met we had a conversation about the challenges the Air Force faces in providing a capable bomber force. We discussed the age of the existing bomber fleet’s backbone, the B-52, the limitations of the B-1, and the fact that the B-2s is limited by the age of the aircraft’s electronics from participating in the "network-centric warfare" model most appropriate for the 21st Century military.

We also examined the probability that future air-defense systems will likely soon raise the threat level to a point where existing US aircraft will no longer be able to operate safely in the highest threat environments.

So what are we to do?

Today we’ll consider several options, including some that change the nature of the heavy bomber fleet in very fundamental ways.

As Congress prepares to vote tomorrow on the FISA Amendments, there's one thing you should know:  law or no law, your privacy is likely to be violated, and in ways the media haven't yet reported.

I say that because, as a federal employee and homeland security specialist, I attended "security" training that urged employees of my agency to spy on Americans.  I described my experience a few weeks ago at a conference in Washington, D.C., where I was on a domestic surveillance panel that included Babak Pasdar and Eric Lichtblau.

Putting them back where they belong comes from an Op-Ed written by James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher in the New York Times today, 7-08-08.

They led a bipartison group, the National War Powers Commission, they concluded:

I come today with a message many of you will not want to hear, particularly in a time when we are looking forward to ending a war...and in a time where we are already struggling to provide enough money for military funding, the last thing you want to hear from me is that we need to send a couple hundred billion more to the Air Force—and that we need to do it soon.

Nonetheless, we have a problem we need to fix.

Of course, I hate to present a problem without a solution...and today I have two ideas that can help with the problem—and maybe save the taxpayer a mess of money in the process.

Y’all ready?
Then let’s go...

YES Magazine, Summer '08 Edition, has a number of really good articles, and an interview, that should be read and obsorbed as to some of what we should be putting into public discussion as we try to turn this ship of state around and head in a direction that should already have been. These articles touch on a number of important issues, Very Important, not only for us, as a country, but our place in the world and for the world as a whole. They are also a matter of our Security and the Security of the planet

This one with Shultz might sound abit familiar for any who heard him talking when they returned from this conferance, but this is an Extremely Important subject and not only for us, and our National Security but the Security of everyone.

This diary examines the question of the smartest thing for Obama to do if it is true that FISA would nonetheless pass even were he to throw his entire weight behind opposing it.

(Given that politicians are concerned foremost with their own electoral fate, and that the Dem leadership has been working on this bill for months, I think it is reasonable to assume that Obama probably would be unable to stop this juggernaut.)

I try to argue that Obama is uniquely vulnerable in a way that Democrats running in local races are not to being wounded on issues of national security (he's running for commander-in-chief and he's a young black "crypto-muslim commie"). Thus, I will argue that we should cut Obama some slack because his choices most likely are (1) oppose FISA and sustain potentially serious political damage or (2) don't oppose FISA and receive political benefits. In either case, FISA passes. I try to stress that Obama is facing a strong headwind of beltway bias and has to court low-information voters. And I remind Kos readers of the many times Obama has shown great courage on the issues of national security. In other words, Kossacks, be pragmatic first and foremost, and don't require that Obama fight a battle that he will likely lose and that would harm his chances in the war.