While CNN et al. were busy going ga-ga over Mike Huckabee’s trouncing of Mitt Romney et al. on the GOP side, Barack Obama was steadily putting a similar distance between himself and the rest of the Democrats in a state that is almost 95% white. Hopefully this at last provides a definitive answer to the dumbest question still being asked by corporate media: “Is America ready for a black president?” Yes, America is ready. Are the media? Are the other Democrats in the race? And for that matter, is the black Democratic establishment? You’ll all be left behind. Get with the times.
Here is Obama’s compelling Iowa victory speech.
And while the caucus thingie was going on, GOP contender John McCain, who about tied for third among Republicans in Iowa, had something quite startling to say about Iraq while campaigning in New Hampshire today. He interrupted someone recalling that President Bush envisions U.S. forces in Iraq for 50 more years with, “Maybe a hundred [years].” He continued, “That’s fine with me, I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaeda is training and equipping and recruiting and motivating people every single day.” Video below. Notice that “Independent Democrat” Sen. Joe Lieberman is standing behind him.
David Corn asked McCain about his assertion afterward and says McCain told him American troops “could be in Iraq for ‘a thousand years’ or ‘a million years,’ as far as he was concerned.” Hey, why not shoot for a googolplex, Senator? You gotta think big.
UPDATE 04 JAN 2008: It’s up to ten million years now, per the AP.
ADD’L ADD’L 04 JAN 2008: McCain’s also hip to having Lieberman “play a part” in his cabinet, “particularly in national security issues.”
x-post: JfH
Categories: Politics/Law/Government, World
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
McCain can take this kind of long view because he’s been around since the dawn of the Pleistocene Era. To him, a hundred years is just an eye-blink, really.
The families of those serving in Iraq really need to get on board with this new epochal thinking. They’d feel so much better.
john mcCain aka glen frey of eagles aka mark farner of grand funk railroad…whihe was still in a vietnamese prison camp? ok,…he is actually the same as tex watson…Charlie Manson’s platoon sargeant-get my drift…he is a slave to special interests…
The Democrats are no less committed to an American presence in Iraq than the Republicans. The only difference between them and the Republicans is that they believe that Congress should have a greater voice in the conduct of the war. As an independent candidate, I am the only one with a plan for ending the war in Iraq. I would go to Guantanamo, load the “priosoners of war” onto airplanes, explaqin to them that they are less of a threat to the United States as enemy combatants than as foreign nationals being tortured by mentally ill Americans, and take them back where they came from. Then I would go to Iraq and order Americans there to stand down from all offensive military actions while the Iraqi government and the United States government coordinate the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq.
This is the only plan that has been proposed for American withdrawal from Iraq and will still be the only plan for withdrawal on general election day. Americans who vote for Democrat or Republican candidates are voting for Mr. McCain’s plan, which is the same plan the rest of Congress has. The only difference between the Democratic Party plan and the Republican plan is withdrawal of some troops to preciptate an increase in insurgency to necessitate the sending of more troops.
Undeclared wars are the bread and butter of these two corrupt political parties. There are just as many defense contracts in states controlled by Democrats as there are in states controlled by Republicans.
Chalmers Johnsons’ three books have clearly demonstrated that 1) we have a global military empire anchored with 700-800 bases, 2) it’s doing the world and our own country great damage and 3) it threatens our republic. McCain clearly has no problems with any of this, and is in cahoots with the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us against. too bad we never listened.
Staying in Iraq is all about energy and the only real way out is to find energy alternatives which are able to get us free from reliance on the resources of hostile countries.
John McCain is every corporate, for-profit, defense contractors’ wet dream.
I am supporting Ron Paul.
A project for the neoamerican century.