A back-and-forth has developed over whether John McCain accurately stated the history behind the surge and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy in some recent comments. McCain suggested that the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy helped bring about the Anbar awakening. Strictly speaking, the awakening began prior to the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy.

However, that does not end the analysis, as this article points out:

The National Security Network, a liberal foreign policy group, called Mr. McCain's explanation of the surge's history "completely wrong."

But several foreign policy analysts said that if Mr. McCain got the chronology wrong, his broader point -- that the troop escalation was crucial for the Awakening movement to succeed and spread -- was right. "I would say McCain is three-quarters right in this debate," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

As related in the article, General Petraeus has stated that the Anbar awakening "started before the surge, but then was very much enabled by the surge." So while McCain may have misstated the strict chronology, his essential point remains: The success of the Anbar awakening and the other awakenings that have happened throughout Iraq would have been impossible without the surge of troops and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy.

And the article contains another key and essential point:

If Mr. McCain found himself criticized for seeming to confuse the chronology of events in Iraq, some analysts said Mr. Obama seemed to be giving too little credit to the surge for improving conditions in Iraq. Mr. Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, said in an interview with "Nightline" on ABC this week that if he had to do it all over again, knowing what he knew now, he would still not support the surge.

Mr. O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution, said he did not understand why Mr. Obama seemed to want to debate the success of the surge. "Any human being is reluctant to admit a mistake," he said, noting that it takes on added risk in a political campaign.

It would be a good and illuminating deal if the following exchange could take place: McCain could admit that he misstated the strict chronology of the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy. In return, Obama could admit that he was completely and entirely wrong about how effective the introduction of the surge and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy would be.

And Tom Maguire goes all Walt Whitman on him. Funny that only a few days before complaining about John McCain stating that Barack Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election, Klein pretty much said exactly the same thing.

Michael Barone notes that demographic trends appear to be favoring Republicans--good news for a party that appears to be suffering through some lean years. If Republicans are able to pull off a victory this year against Barack Obama, then John McCain, should he run for re-election, will find the electoral map to be even more amenable to his cause in 2012. And if Obama wins this year, he will have to worry about the electoral map should he seek re-election four years from now.

Explained by Dan Mitchell and well worth watching:

It was only a matter of time before someone decided to write a book on Bill Clinton's post-Presidential career and Carol Felsenthal went ahead and did just that. The book is a good one, though in certain sections, it wanders and meanders. Various chapters appear to be hijacked from their original subject (see, for example, the chapter "Clinton Opens His Library In A Downpour" which actually devotes very little time to Bill Clinton and the opening of his Presidential library). But the book is full of information on Clinton's post-Presidential career and it lays out each step of that career in a manner guaranteed to interest and engage the attentions of political junkies like yours truly.

Felsenthal does a very good job of capturing both the immense political gifts that Bill Clinton possesses and the ways in which he has allowed those gifts to go to waste--in addition to discussing in significant detail many of the allegations concerning Clinton's business and personal life that were laid bare in Todd Purdum's article on Clinton's life after the Presidency. She discusses at length Clinton's efforts to make the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) a potent and positive force--both for policy transformations around the world and for the resuscitation of Bill Clinton's legacy. She traces how the dynamic in the Clinton family has continued to change and evolve. She covered the nomination contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama deep into 2008 and while she ended her book before Hillary Clinton finally fell on her sword, Felsenthal's recounting would be sufficient to make it clear to someone from Mars without any knowledge of the resolution of the nomination contest that Hillary Clinton's campaign was in trouble and would likely not get out of it. And she sheds a lot of light on the creation of the unexpected friendship between Clinton and George Bush the Elder, as well as Clinton's relationship with the current President Bush.

This is a fairly quick and breezy read. But a good one nonetheless and for people who like to keep up with current events in general--and especially for people who want to read any good politically related book they can get their hands on--Clinton in Exile is recommended.

Excellent plot? Check.

Superb acting? Check.

Gripping dialogue and storytelling? Check.

Brilliant direction? Check.

Perhaps one of the greatest movie villains of all time? Check.

Greatest city in North America--and one of the greatest in the entire world--serving as a visible and distinctively identifiable location for the shooting of the movie and rendered glorious, majestic and hauntingly beautiful in the process? Check.

Magnificently related tale about morality without all of the traditional shibboleths one would find in such tales? Check.

One of the smartest movies around and definitely the smartest comic book movie ever made? Check.

Must see movie? Check.

Well, either Senator Obama was confused or he was trying to burnish his resume in misleading fashion. But I like to be high-minded about the matter so I join in Jon Henke's wishes at the end of his post.

Taken on anew by John Bolton. A very good read. It's reassuring to see that there is pushback against the notion that the decline of American power is just around the corner. As I have argued in the past, we have seen a version of this argument pop up over and over in our recent history . . . and each time, it turns out to be wrong. This most recent iteration of the prophecy of American decline looks to have no more intellectual integrity about it than did previous iterations.

Deroy Murdock writes in National Review Online that bisexual, gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors, Air Force personnel and Marines should be allowed to serve openly and that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ought to be repealed.

That's right. National Review Online is carrying an editorial from one of its regular contributors calling for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

And I could not agree more.

Not much, as it turns out:

THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported with welcome candor during a news conference yesterday. In an interview with ABC, he explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out."

As the editorial further points out, Sunni leaders in Anbar said that they do not endorse the kind of precipitous withdrawal that Obama has in mind. Max Boot piles on, pointing out that Nuri al-Maliki's military judgment has been proven wrong in the past and that military professionals in Iraq want a longer American stay--as do military professionals in the United States, like Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen. And while the Post editorial is kind (too kind, perhaps) to attribute a sense of flexibility to Obama's plans concerning the future of American forces in Iraq, it properly notes that Obama continues to stubbornly resist making concessions to the obvious fact that the surge has succeeded and that his judgment concerning the surge and the implementation of the counterinsurgency strategy was completely in error.

As I see it, it is not at all difficult for John McCain to say something along the lines of the following: "My plan is to get American troops out of Iraq by 2013 but if conditions on the ground allow me to accelerate their withdrawal, I will do so. I will be guided by the conditions on the ground and I will play very close attention to the recommendations of my military commanders."

Barack Obama could reciprocate by saying something along the following lines: "My plan is to get American troops out of Iraq in 16 months once I am inaugurated, but if conditions on the ground force me to slow down their withdrawal, I will do so. I will be guided by the conditions on the ground and I will play very close attention to the recommendations of my military commanders." But if Obama does say something along these lines, he will be deserted by his base--already angry about Obama's capitulation on FISA reforms--faster than one can blink an eyelash.

So, because of Presidential politics, Obama does not say what a reasonable aspiring Commander-in-Chief would say regarding Iraq. He may be playing the electoral game smartly as a consequence, but he is boxing himself in something terrible if he ends up winning the Presidency. And the consequence of Obama's decision to box himself in will be a poorly informed and executed withdrawal plan that will be precipitous in its nature, will allow Iraq to go to Hell in a handbasket after all of the hard-won gains that the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy have brough about, will throw the region into turmoil and will seriously undermine American national security interests, while ensuring that someday in the future, we will have to go back in order to deal with the fallout from Obama's ill-conceived withdrawal plan.

Just something to consider as you go into the voting booth.

To wit. One of the most disturbing things about this entire episode has been not only the fact that the former Vice President's plans are so utterly unworkable, but also that there has been so little critical reception of those plans in the mainstream media. You would think that in the age of Google, a whole host of media personalities could find the information Vincent Carroll found, confront the former Vice President and point out to him that his plans simply will not work. But alas, that just hasn't happened yet.

And this is the media that will be one of our information watchdogs as we prepare to elect a President. The mind reels.

Steven Calabresi is a master of snark. I have a feeling that the "Living Constitution" method of jurisprudence is going to become less favored in quarters where it was once greatly admired.

When it comes to education, change doesn't come from the person you might expect would offer it.

In addition to the various other indignities it visits upon innocent individuals, the Islamic regime has--for reasons yet unknown--chosen to detain two doctors who have won international acclaim for the work they have done to stem the tide of HIV/AIDS cases in the country. Developing . . .

Indeed, it is. But need I mention anew that if John McCain said something like this, the senility jokes would flow as from a gushing stream?

This would be getting all sorts of negative coverage. So much for that whole "reality-based" description, eh? I should add that items here and here only serve to amplify the Obama campaign's incoherence regarding Iraq and the surge.

Andrea Mitchell is not, of course, a tool for the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. That doesn't prevent her from properly pointing out that Barack Obama's world tour is the Potemkin Publicity Stunt To End All Potemkin Publicity Stunts. The thing that interests me is whether at some point in time, other journalists will remember what it is like to be prideful of their profession and skeptical of the latest messianic political campaign to come down the pike. It is obvious that the Obama campaign is manipulating the media--indeed, the campaign is being utterly open and notorious about doing so. It will perhaps stop doing so and start treating the media--and through the media, the voting public--with more respect and decency once the media calls the Obama campaign on its shenanigans. I await the moment when people join Andrea Mitchell in doing just that.

Then again, it is entirely possible that The Onion is, once again, entirely relevant here.

First, read this.

Now, riddle me the following: After all of the years of repression, bloodshed, murder, beatings and state-sponsored terrorism inflicted on the Zimbabwean people by the Mugabe regime, how can anyone actually believe that at long last, the regime has found religion and is now willing to work in good faith to bring about political reconciliation in Zimbabwe?

Can we stop taking Naomi Klein Wolf seriously now?

Patterico has a good round-up.