OBAMARAMA

Greg Sargent over at TPM’s Horse’s Mouth blog has an incisive post about the discrepancy in media outrage over Sen. Obama’s “gaffe” immediately following his official campaign announcement — where he referred to the lost lives of soldiers in Iraq as having been “wasted” — and an almost identical comment by Sen. John McCain this week.

Here’s Obama’s remark from two weeks ago:

Obama, discussing his opposition to the Iraq war, said the war “should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we’ve now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.'’

Meanwhile, announcing his candidacy on “Late Night with David Letterman,” Sen. John McCain said the following:

“Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be,” McCain said about the Iraq War. “We’ve wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives.”

The difference between the two comments in terms of substance? Nonexistent. But the difference in the public attention each remark has received is astounding.

(Read more after the jump…)

In Austin yesterday, Sen. Obama underscored the inanity of Vice President Dick Cheney’s reaction to the UK’s plan to withdraw troops from Iraq. The AP reported on his oh-so-on-point takedown:

Obama, speaking at a massive outdoor rally in Austin, Texas, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision this week to withdraw 1,600 troops is a recognition that Iraq’s problems can’t be solved militarily.

“Now if Tony Blair can understand that, then why can’t George Bush and Dick Cheney understand that?” Obama asked thousands of supporters who gathered in the rain to hear him. “In fact, Dick Cheney said this is all part of the plan (and) it was a good thing that Tony Blair was withdrawing, even as the administration is preparing to put 20,000 more of our young men and women in.

“Now, keep in mind, this is the same guy that said we’d be greeted as liberators, the same guy that said that we’re in the last throes. I’m sure he forecast sun today,” Obama said to laughter from supporters holding campaign signs over their heads to keep dry. “When Dick Cheney says it’s a good thing, you know that you’ve probably got some big problems.”

And if he says “Let’s go hunting,” well, duck.

On February 18, The Washington Post printed a jarring expose that revealed the often squalid conditions endured by wounded soldiers at Washington DC’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center — conditions which the reporters found included mold on the walls and ceilings of the recovery rooms, as well as “mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.”

When asked about it in today’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Tony Snow neither took responsibility nor proposed any manner in which these abysmal conditions could be remedied. Instead, he passed the buck:

Q The administration’s mantra for a long time has been “support the troops.” What is the reaction, then, when you read this series of stories in The Washington Post about troops coming home from Iraq, Afghanistan and being treated so poorly, apparently, based on this long investigation? What’s the President’s reaction?

MR. SNOW: There are a couple of things. First, it’s not a mantra. I would really choose words carefully. It’s a commitment to support the troops. And the President, as you know, has visited the wounded many times at Walter Reed and we are concerned about it. And the people who –

Q Were you aware?

MR. SNOW: We are aware now, yes. And I would refer you to the Department of Defense, which I know is taking a very close look at it, too. …

Q So you’re saying the President learned about this from The Washington Post?

MR. SNOW: I don’t know exactly where he learned it, but I can tell you that we believe that they deserve better. And, again, Ed, this is something where I’d suggest you give DoD a call, because I know they’ve taken a good, hard look at it. …

Q So the President responded how when he learned about this? What, specifically — did he order something to be done?

MR. SNOW: What I’m suggesting — there’s a reason I’m suggesting — DoD is the proper place in which we’ll be taking care of these issues. And I would refer you to them for comment. …

Q That’s just an easy way for you not to have to talk about it.

MR. SNOW: Well, it’s also a way of pointing to the proper authorities, which is what you would want.

Q The White House doesn’t want to be on record with a more emphatic expression of amazement and upset about this?

MR. SNOW: No.

Fortunately, this response wasn’t enough for Sen. Obama.

(Read more after the jump…)

In an op-ed in today’s LA Times, Harvard Professor of History and Senior Fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution Niall Ferguson criticizes Sen. Obama’s plan for gradual troop redeployment in the Iraqi War. But in order to make his argument, Ferguson misrepresents a report on the escalating Iraqi civil war and dramatically oversimplifies both that and other international conflicts.

Ferguson opens by claiming, in the classic counterintuitive fashion of columnists trying to be provocative, that “Obama’s stance on Iraq may yet prove to be his biggest vulnerability.” He concludes that Sen. Obama’s plan for de-escalation in Iraq is “a fraud” — an attack he supports with two assertions:

1. That a Brookings study suggests that America’s withdrawal would precipitate the country’s descent into civil war, and
2. That Sen. Obama’s position on Iraq is inconsistent with his stance on American intervention in international conflicts.

Both of these explanations are faulty.

(Read more after the jump…)

In his column in today’s Chicago Tribune, Clarence Page suggests that by attacking Sen. Obama’s Iraq proposal, Australian PM John Howard “has done the Democratic presidential hopeful from Illinois a tremendous favor: He has treated Obama’s Iraq ideas seriously.” Page writes:

Obama called the prime minister’s bluff, sounding like a guy from a city where politics ain’t beanbag. He pointed out that Australia has deployed 1,400 troops to Iraq compared with almost 140,000 who are there from the U.S. And he gave Howard a challenge: “If he’s ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest he call up another 20,000 Australians and send them up to Iraq.” Take that, Mr. PM.

Yet, for all of his public outrage, Obama should be privately delighted. After weeks of public fascination with his biography, his grade schools, his Hawaiian vacation photos and his nicotine withdrawal, it’s about time somebody cared about his ideas.

I’d add that Sen. Obama benefits politically from having been engaged directly by a foreign leader, in whatever context. It positions him as an international player, someone who deserves the attention of heads of state, and Sen. Obama’s apt and quick rejoinder shows he is more than ready to interact on that level.

Perhaps some other foreign leaders would care to weigh in with their opinions?  How about Poland?

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Sen. Obama told reporters what everyone else already knows — that “the U.S. senators who formally authorized President George W. Bush to invade Iraq in 2002 are at least partly responsible for ‘the situation we’re in now.’”  The Union Leader reports:

Wrapping up his first house party in the first-primary state, the newly announced Presidential hopeful told reporters that senators who voted to authorize the war should “make their own assessment on how they would do things differently or not.”

Fellow Democratic candidates New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards were members of the Senate when the historic vote was taken and voted in favor of the war authorization resolution.

Edwards has apologized for his vote. Clinton has not but has said her vote was an expression of support for sending weapons inspectors into Iraq, not a vote for “pre-emptive war.”

The article includes Sen. Obama’s reasoning about how the senators’ votes allowed the Bush administration “to take this country down a path that’s been very damaging for our national security,” as well as this important quote:

“All the decisions we make in Washington have consequences,” Obama said. “Obviously, if the senators (had) voted down the authorization, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in now.”

The article also notes that Obama was “not yet in the Senate at the time but spoke out against it as an Illinois state senator.” Here’s an example of him doing precisely that during a November 2002 interview: