You wrote:

"Americans know a cheap publicity stunt when they see it

Obama's trip seems too much like a publicity stunt, and he's got "beginner" written all over his face. The press is eager to crown the next King of the United States so they can spend the next 4 years selling scandals and faux outrage, but most Americans just want to get by without losing their homes or jobs. Like Tina Turner sang, "We don't need another hero!!"

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First, to be a cheap publicity stunt, the tour would have necessarily lacked any focus or point aside from photo-ops. On the contrary, Obama spoke at length with military and political leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. An educational opportunity and one that serves to air views from foreign leaders.

Then, Obama single-handedly "sold" one of the most critical figures in the Mideast Peace process (which has, you must admit, STALLED) on an American leader dedicated to a fair and equitable settlement. That person would be none other than King Abdullah II of Jordan. This is an individual who has called out repeatedly to the United States to take a leadership role and has also frequently identified Iran as a supporter of extremists in the region. The Bush administration, despite publicly advocating for peace, has continually failed to take such a role. A pathetic failure for this administration among other dismal failures in the Middle East.

Moreover, Abdullah is a friend to the United States who has grown frustrated by the seeming unwillingness of the Bush White House to do anything meaningful. Obama performed an invaluable service by gaining Abdullah's trust on this issue. Any U.S. leader needs to have credibility in order to effect movement forward in the peace process. Obama has that and it speaks volumes to his effectiveness as a leader.

Your comments are sad but true. It takes the real prospect of losing homes, bleeding jobs and deep economic instability to motivate people to just kick the bums out. One wants to shout out," Don't you get it? Bush is responsible for this!"

If I can tip my hat to the GOP, it has been their ability to weazel out of meeting any accountability for the past several years. Just screw up and keep on going. No looking back at the Katrina disaster, or our mortgage crisis or banking failure or, god forbid, the staggeringly pricey debacle that is Iraq and our alleged war on Terror.

Here's a link to an article referencing the GAO's assessment of goals for the surge. Again, many more goals were listed that simply dialing down violence. A refresher for flasher et al.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=27105

"The new GAO report evaluating the “surge” noted that, according to the Department of Defense, “in June 2008, less than 10 percent of Iraqi security forces were at the highest readiness level and therefore considered capable of performing operations without coalition support.”

According to the report, “The security environment [in Iraq] remains volatile and dangerous. DOD reports that the United States has not achieved its goal of defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq, local security forces (such as ‘Sons of Iraq’) have not reconciled with the central government, and the cease-fire agreement with [al-Sadr’s] Mahdi Army remains tenuous.”

Creating an independent Iraqi security force was one of the benchmarks established by Congress and it was a commitment made by the Iraqi government prior to the “surge.” But maintaining a loyal security force has been problematic, the GAO found.

Several factors have complicated the development of capable Iraqi security forces, including the lack of a single unified force, sectarian and militia influences, continued dependence on US and coalition forces for logistics and combat support, and training and leadership shortages,” the report said.

The Bush administration “also stated that the Iraqi government would take responsibility for security in all 18 provinces by November 2007. However, as of mid-July 2008, eight provincial governments do not yet have lead responsibility for security in their provinces,” the GAO said.

According to the US commander in Iraq, the US-led coalition “continues to provide planning, logistics, and other assistance even after security responsibilities have transferred to provincial Iraqi control,” the GAO said.

Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general of the GAO, testified before the House Armed Services on Wednesday about the report, entitled “Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq: Progress Report: Some Gains Made, Updated Strategy Needed.”

The surge was pretty successful? By what measure? This is part of the problem. Everyone, even the media, seems to forget that there are specific goals and benchmarks to meet and most have not been met. Meanwhile,the american tax payer has been on the hook for almost 200 billion per year. That's not success unless you use the pretzel logic so frequently employed by the Bush admin. Under that system, failure is still success as long as the country isn't blowing itself up daily.

I mean really. The Edwards family has in the past few years:

1. Survived the death of a child

2. Added on two young children quickly via in vitro fertilization.

3. Suffered through devastating illness.

Again, who really wants to know if the Edwards marriage (their business not mine) has survived all of this upheaval?

Thanks for that post. A very simple and clear explanation of why the "Obama and the Dems are making your gas expensive" line won't fly.

Well, in all fairness, Obama attended that school on scholarship so that doesn't really fit into the "elitist" narrative. That's kind of Horatio Alger boy, bootstrap stuff.

Obviously you didn't actually hear or read the speech. There was no apology. Obama called on Europe to help us fight the war on terror and, multiple times, referenced the war on terror as a real and serious threat.

About 200, 000. A very large crowd.