Huh?

Military surge in Iraq ends; 150,000 troops remain

The military surge into Iraq that began more than 18 months ago has ended. But 150,000 U.S. troops remain, as many as 15,000 more than before the buildup began.

Black is white, up is down...the confusion continues:

The Pentagon's top military officer said Wednesday that he is likely to recommend further troop reductions in Iraq this fall.

The surge is over even though there are more troops than when it started and the good news is, there will be even more reductions?

• James at Swing State Project looks at the second quarter fundraising reports from various congressional candidates.
• Kit Bond (R-MO) joins the long line of Republicans who are lying about oil spills during Hurricane Katrina.
• Thank you:

  Can I just note that I seem to live in some kind of mirror universe where the fact that Barack Obama has, for months, maintained a modest lead over John McCain in every public poll constitutes bad news for Obama and that the specific reason it constitutes bad news for Obama is that the larger political climate is favorable to Obama.

• John McCain decided it was time to address the NAACP. Apparently the applause was polite.
• George Bush is negotiating with "radicals and terrorists." John Cole sees three possible reactions to this story:

  Option #1 is a pure freak out by the wingnut crowd (if I had to bet money, either someone from Malkin’s enterprise or Commentary will lead the charge), who claim it is more evidence Bush is not a true conservative, all the while claiming McCain would never do something like this. Option #2 is to deny they are actually, you know, negotiating, and Burns is just along for the ride. Option #3 is the tried and true "BUT THE DEMOCRATS ARE WORSE." And the final option is to simply pretend this didn’t happen.

• From the Jesus' General, some advertising advice for Washington state's groping Commissioner of Public Lands.
• It took 15 innings for the National League to lose another All-Star game.

Oh dear. Someone had better tell the conservatives of the GOP base, who don't quite trust John McCain anyway, that he has changed his tune from the other day and now apparently favors adoptions by gay couples.

"Sen. McCain's expressed his personal preference for children to be raised by a mother and a father wherever possible," the statement added. "However, as an adoptive father himself, McCain believes children deserve loving and caring home environments, and he recognizes that there are many abandoned children who have yet to find homes. John McCain believes that in those situations that caring parental figures are better for the child than the alternative."

Hardly a ringing endorsement for adoptions by gays, but certainly a change from two days ago when he unambiguously said, "I don't believe in gay adoption." Of course he may come back tomorrow and say that he meant only if the alternative was being boiled in oil, because after all, when it comes to the straight talker, you never know who he's going to be pandering to next.

No surprise here:

President Bush has asserted executive privilege to prevent Attorney General Michael Mukasey from having to comply with a House panel subpoena for material on the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

A House committee chairman, meanwhile, held off on a contempt citation of Mukasey — who had requested the privilege claim — but only as a courtesy to lawmakers not present.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, rejected Mukasey's suggestion that Vice President Dick Cheney's FBI interview on the CIA leak should be protected by the privilege claim — and therefore not turned over to the panel.

Waxman said they will act in "a reasonable and appropriate period of time," which means the Attorney General of the United States will soon be cited for contempt of Congress...or there will be a flurry of sternly worded letters.

Via Atrios:

Out of all the people to try to honor in an Act dedicated to fighting AIDS, Elizabeth Dole spits in the face of LGBTs by proposing the now-dead Jesse Helms be added to the "Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008."

Joe Jervis reminds us of some of Helms' greatest hits:

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as "so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 2002 announced that he'd changed his mind about AIDS funding for Africa, but not for American gays, because homosexuality "is the primary cause of the doubling and redoubling of AIDS cases in the United States."

Your one stop pundit shop.

Ruth Marcus discusses the scandal that the rest of the media is ignoring. Which scandal would that be, you ask? The one where Bush "Pioneer" Stephen Payne is caught on tape trying to sell access to the White House to an undercover reporter. And now Payne is telling his side of the story.

Payne said in a statement that he was entrapped and his words misconstrued, and that his later e-mails made clear that there was no quid pro quo. "Over the course of an hour-long conversation in a social setting, isolated comments can be taken out of context," he said.

Michael Gerson does one of his periodic reasonable columns to show he isn't a partisan rightwing hack. Kudos.

Timothy Egan talks about Obama, race, the New Yorker and says:

The furor over this week’s New Yorker cover — the satirical cartoon of Barack and Michelle Obama in Muslim and black-militant poses — boils down to this: We get it, but what will those folks in fly-over country think?

The answer is that they get it as well. Irony, it turns out, does cross the Hudson River. And if they don’t get it, if they see the cover as affirmation of the sludge they’ve heard on talk radio or certain cable outlets, they’re never going to vote for Barack Hussein Obama anyway.

William Murchison gives a rambling defense of Phil Gramm's statement that America is a "nation of whiners," and tries to make his case by whining about whiners. And what started all of this whining? It's the Iraqi's fault!

It has gone on in this vein ever since the homicidal maniacs of Iraq obliged us to go on fighting longer than we had thought we would need to.

Peter Mehlman remembers Dr. Michael E. DeBakey.

Carol Jenkins explains why the Abbreviated Pundit Round-up is necessary.

For today's open thread, the McCain camp keeps trying to run away from Bush...

...and Cindy McCain explains how to avoid traffic jams.

To everyone lucky enough to be in Austin this week for the convention, another event has been added to the calendar. DNC Chairman Howard Dean will begin a nationwide voter registration drive with a rally at Netroots Nation to be held Thursday at 12:00, directly across from the convention center.

This is the kickoff event for Register for Change, a cross country bus tour designed to "build on the overwhelming enthusiasm and voter turnout seen during the primaries" and is a part of "the 50-state strategy and Senator Obama's commitment to running a 50 state campaign."

From Texas, the tour heads to New Orleans - a city that experienced the failings of Republican leadership in Washington firsthand - and then to Shreveport and Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Hattiesburg and Jackson, Mississippi. The second swing, July 25-26, will make stops in North Carolina and Georgia - two untraditional battleground states where voter registration efforts will help lead Barack Obama to victory in November. The tour will hit states in every part of the country, culminating in a swing through the Midwest on its way to the Democratic Convention in Denver.

And if you have any problem finding the rally, just look for the bus...

Update: For those of you who were wondering, yes, it is a bio-diesel bus.

Describing a "striking lack of recollection" by White House and military officials, a House committee announced yesterday that they still can't determine who was responsible for turning Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire into a political pep rally in 2004. Yes, quite the mystery, isn't it?

And while some might characterize the "striking lack of recollection," as lies or obstruction of justice, the committee instead went with:  

..affirmative acts created new facts that were significantly different than what the soldiers in the field knew to be true.

Thank God for oversight, eh?

Your one stop pundit shop.

Sen. Ken Salazar mocks George Bush’s desire to come into Colorado with a pick-axe and determination to tap into 500 billion barrels of oil. If only reality didn’t stand in his way.

David Brooks tells us that scientists will probably never unlock the mystery of human behavior, which means we will never know why the New York Times hired him.

William McGuran wonders why the NAACP isn’t doing anything to stop the genocide of African Americans by the eugenics-inspired Planned Parenthood, who, when they’re not targeting minority neighborhoods in their quest to downsize the population, are teaching teenagers how to have anal sex. Because Mr. McGuran wants women to have a real choice.

Michael Barone compares George Bush to Harry Truman and waxes poetic about success in Iraq, calling Anbar province

...a friendly, peaceful territory.

Coming up next week, Michael Barone visits a Baghdad market with John McCain.

James Rainey says that the furor over the New Yorker cover of Barack and Michelle Obama shows that America is suffering from an irony deficiency. And if you're still angry about that cover, this will make you feel better.

Jonah Goldberg defends those poor, misunderstood oil speculators.

If you ate a hot dog at Ebbets Field in the mid 1950’s, do not, I repeat, do not read Doug Kriegel’s look at the good old days.

• It seems that Markos isn’t the only person who wonders if Charlie Crist is trying to marry his way into the VP slot. Earlier today on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell was conducting a roundtable discussion with Republican strategist John Feehery and Democratic strategist Steve McMahon on Bush’s announcement that he would lift the Executive ban on offshore drilling. After Feehery noted Florida Governor Charlie Crist’s new-found support for drilling, McMahon said:

  MCMAHON: Governor Crist changed his position on oil for the same reason he got married. Can you tell me what that reason is?

  FEEHERY: Hey, I think he got married for love and I think he’s getting, I think he changed his position because the people of Florida want lower gas prices.

  MCMAHON: For the love of John McCain, because he wants to be Vice President.

• Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) said today that he was not interested in being Barack Obama’s running mate.

  There are people that are spending a lot of time, one, looking for candidates, and ... trying to promote themselves as candidates. And I'm in neither category.

  But he didn’t say never, did he?

• The world’s oldest blogger has died. Perhaps someday John McCain can learn how to get online and he can take over the title.
• The New York Times hearts Joe Lieberman.
• The sound you hear is that of Hell freezing over: Obama may out raise John McCain in Orange County. -DemFromCT
• The terrorist watch list has hit 1,000,000 names. - Kagro X
• Grist has a nice weekly roundup of "greenish news from the capitol".  Check it out. - Plutonium Page

From the New York Times:

President Bush intends to lift a presidential moratorium on drilling for oil and natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf, the White House said on Monday, hoping to prod Congress to act to clear the way for exploration along the country’s coastline in response to soaring energy prices.

Not that it will do anything to lower prices at the pump. Said Bush:

One of the factors driving up high gas prices is that many of our oil deposits here in the United States have been put off-limits for exploration and production. Past efforts to meet the demand for oil by expanding domestic resources have been repeatedly rejected by Democrats in Congress.

Bush didn't mention the leases on 68 million acres that oil companies are currently sitting on.

Update: Reaction from the Obama campaign:

"If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks.  But most experts, even within the Bush Administration, concede it would do neither.  It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for thirty years. Senator Obama believes Americans need real short-term relief, which is why he has proposed a second round of stimulus with energy rebates for working families. And over the long-term, Senator Obama understands that our national security and the survival of the planet demand a real strategy to break our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, new sources of energy and by vastly improving the energy efficiency of our cars, trucks and our economy.  He is ready to lead such a transformation," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

Today John McCain will deliver a speech where he will say that:

...he has earned the trust of Hispanic voters by championing an immigration reform bill that nearly killed his presidential bid.  [...]

"I took my lumps for it without complaint. My campaign was written off as a lost cause. I did so not just because I believed it was the right thing to do for Hispanic Americans. It was the right thing to do for all Americans."

But McCain is ignoring one little detail; he thought that it was the right thing to do until he realized that the issue was killing him among conservatives, so he lurched to the right and flip-flopped on his own bill.

• Oh really?

  Mr. McCain, who with his wife, Cindy, has an adopted daughter, said flatly that he opposed allowing gay couples to adopt. "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption," he said.

  Do you think McCain came to this conclusion during his affair with Cindy, or after he left his wife and three children to marry her?

• Colorado must be trending more blue than we thought.
• The McCain campaign, still trying to downplay Phil Gramm calling America “a nation of whiners,” said that people aren’t interested in what campaign surrogates are saying and that it’s the candidates’ words that count. Then why did McCain issue 16 press releases, reacting to what Wesley Clark had said about him?
• Atrios is in awe of the investigative skills at the Washington Post.
• And speaking of the Washington Post, they believe that George Bush has finally learned how to compromise with Congress. And if you missed all that compormising, you’re not alone.
• More and more the Supreme Court is relying on history to determine the original intent of the Founding Fathers, which is making some historians very unhappy with one saying that recent decisions coming out of the Court:

  ...demonstrate why judges shouldn't play historian.

• Longtime New York Yankee broadcaster and former outfielder Bobby Murcer died yesterday, less than two years after being diagnosed with brain cancer.
• According to BBC News, at least 8 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan this weekend, representing one of the largest single day losses since the war began. Afghanistan seems to be in a spiral of disaster. - Scout Finch
• William Yardley of the NYT thinks the Constitution is a concern only to the "far left". - smintheus

Your one stop pundit shop.

Warren Zinn talks about war and Joseph Dwyer.

Jeff Jacoby complains that Democrats aren't honoring John McCain's military service like they did John Kerry's. But apparently Jacoby isn't bothered by Republicans who disrespected John Kerry's military service, including Bud Day, who is a member of McCain's "truth squad" and was a member of the discredited Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Glenn L. Carle observes that:

The "Global War on Terror" has conjured the image of terrorists behind every bush, the bushes themselves burning and an angry god inciting its faithful to religious war. We have been called to arms, built fences, and compromised our laws and the practices that define us as a nation. The administration has focused on pursuing terrorists and countering an imminent and terrifying threat. Thousands of Americans have died as a result, as have tens of thousands of foreigners.

And John McCain wants to keep that image alive.

Maureen Dowd continues to waste space at the New York Times. Did you know that Barack Obama doesn’t like ice cream?

R.J. Rummel explains why "Congressional liberals and gullible antiwar protesters" in 1973 were responsible for millions of deaths, civil wars in Angola and Central America, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the 1983 terrorist bombing in Beruit that killed 241 Marines and September 11th. Busy little bees, weren’t they?

John Sides and Eric Lawrence talk about political blogs. Beware! You are being studied.

Mike Males wants us to stop stigmatizing teenage pregnancy. This mother of two teenage daughters disagrees.

Steve Chapman on gun control, suicide and other ways to kill yourself if you really want to.

The New York Times on John McCain's fact-free promise to balance the budget by 2013:

Mr. McCain’s main campaign promises, if fulfilled, would lead to huge budget deficits. Extending the Bush tax cuts, enacting more tax cuts of his own and staying the course in Iraq would cost hundreds of billions of dollars more, every year, than the small bore spending cuts he has specified. Mr. McCain cannot balance the budget on a crusade against pork and a one-year freeze in a sliver of federal spending. Either he has a secret plan to balance the budget or he’s blowing smoke.

It is safe to assume there is no secret plan.  [...]

Mr. McCain and his advisers must know that his numbers do not add up. But adding up is not their point. Their point is to perpetuate the fantasy that Americans can have ever bigger tax cuts and a balanced federal budget. They cannot. [...]

But feeding the fantasy is easier than presenting tough choices, and it worked for Mr. McCain’s Republican predecessors.

Pitiful:

I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself.

How long should it take to "learn" to get online?  It's one point and a click. Next up, John McCain tackles "the google."

Today Deborah Howell has responded to criticism over last week’s Washington Post  non-story about Barack Obama’s home loan. CliffNotes version: the most "Republican Republican" she knows said there was no story and it lacked "the important context" that anyone in the same financial circumstances could have gotten that loan (which some might suggest undercuts the entire premise of a sweetheart deal), but it’s important for readers to know everything pertinent about the candidates’ finances. In other words, Ms. Howell gave her usual tortured rationalizations to excuse shoddy reporting. But there was one interesting bit in her explanation:

The Post has teams of reporters on each candidate. Stephens, who came from the investigative unit, has been assigned to report on Obama; another reporter, Kimberley Kindy, is doing the same on McCain.

Joe Stephens is an investigative reporter who has won three Polk Awards, and is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. And Kimberly Kindy? She was hired by the Washington Post in May and hasn’t been heard from since writing two articles about McCain at the end of May. We anxiously await the explosive investigative piece Ms. Kindy has apparently been working on for the past six weeks