Start me up…

The New York Daily News’ opinion on why President Obama should not have release CIA memos depicting U.S. torture of detainees, represents the type of fearmongering and deranged logic conservatives are using to try and weaken the President. Here’s the crux of the Daily News’ argument:

Less wise was President Obama’s decision to release the memos authorizing the interrogations. They hand terrorists a detailed account of what to expect under questioning, a playbook they can now defend against.

Obama sets the record straight here:

I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush Administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods. The argument that somehow by releasing those memos, we are providing terrorists with information about how they will be interrogated is unfounded – we will not be interrogating terrorists using that approach, because that approach is now prohibited.

In short, I released these memos because there was no overriding reason to protect them. And the ensuing debate has helped the American people better understand how these interrogation methods came to be authorized and used.

Which candidate gets more favorable coverage? Seems obvious to me and to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, apparently.

Since the primaries ended, on-air evaluations of Barack Obama have been 72% negative (vs. 28% positive). That’s worse than John McCain’s coverage, which has been 57% negative (vs. 43% positive) during the same time period.

Al Gore on the Meet the Press:

There’s enough solar energy that hits this–the surface of the planet in 40 minutes to provide a full year’s worth of energy for the entire world.  We just have to listen to what the engineers and scientists are telling us about the advances in the efficiency and the reductions in cost of how we can use solar and wind and also geothermal.

Nah, let’s keep drilling for oil…

Oil spill stretches nearly 100 miles of Mississippi River.

Finally, the Israelis get it.

When asked “who would you rather see elected as the next president of the United States,” Obama bested John McCain by a 37-28 margin. While far from a decisive advantage — 35 percent of Israelis chose “no preference” or some other answer — the poll reflects a notably different state of affairs from previous surveys, which generally showed McCain with a large advantage over Obama.

Obama’s competitiveness spanned the political spectrum across Israel’s top three parties. The Illinois Democrat trounced McCain among Israel’s most liberal voters, who belong to the Labor Party (44-6), tied among more right-wing Likud voters (28-28), and held a slight edge among sympathizers of the Kadima Party, which is led by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (40-32).

And more importantly, Obama picks up major momentum amongst Hispanics, a group which kept Hillary alive throughout the primary. They too have realized McCain represents more of the same.

Whether you believe in his inability to run a focused and efficient campaign or his supposed strong background on foreign policy, which includes naming countries that don’t exist or referring to countries that border Iraq that don’t actually border Iraq, McCain seems to have all the tools for a losing campaign.

McCain today in Michigan…

“I repeat my statement that we have succeeded in Iraq. Not ‘We are succeeding.’ We have succeeded in Iraq,” he said Thursday.

What a bonehead! His views rest with a tiny minority of Bush Administration apologists.

The official John McCain flip flop list is now up to 64. It’s a good thing someone is keeping track because the media certainly doesn’t cover it. This is why I want to make the case for a McCain-Romney ticket. The greatest flip flopping team in history.

Okay, who’s the most qualified to lead the country on national security issues? Let’s think about this for a second…

McCain wanted to attack Iraq preemptively in 1998, he voted to attack Iraq in 2003 and he now advocates staying there for as long as it takes. Not sure what that means, but maybe 100 years? Now, in 1998 keep in mind the fact that bin Laden issued his first fatwa against the west, which declared that killing North Americans was the “duty of every Muslim.” Following the fatwa, still in 1998 now, was the U.S. embassy bombings orchestrated by bin Laden’s network. So, in 1998 John McCain was fixated on Iraq while bin Laden was killing Americans and after 2001 when bin Laden killed more Americans and openly taunted the U.S. afterwards, John McCain authorized the invasion of Iraq. Amazingly, bin Laden and his network still exist today 7 years after the WTC attacks, yet McCain stays fixated on Iraq. Anyone want to talk judgment and experience now?

Yesterday, Barack Obama reaffirmed his views on Iraq, highlighting the fact that this misguided war is not the central front of the war on terror – Afghanistan/Pakistan is. But John McCain disagrees, Iraq is the central front he says, because bin Laden says so. Awesome, so now U.S. foreign policy is directed by Osama bin Laden? Ironically, McCain is the guy who says he will follow bin Laden to the “gates of hell” every chance he gets on the campaign stump. Is bin Laden in Iraq, though? Isn’t the guy who attacked us and his entire network still in the Afghanistan region near Pakistan?

So, tell me who has the better judgment when it comes to the priorities of our foreign policy? Obama has the same view as the current Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mullen, our nations highest military officer, when it comes to sending more troops to Afghanistan. The Taliban is moving back in, so what’s McCain’s plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan? I still haven’t heard what he wants to do there because he’s made Iraq the central front of his campaign. It’s tragic and it’s offensive. When Obama declared in a Democratic presidential debate that he would launch an attack inside Pakistan if they would not act upon intelligence of Al Qaeda’s whereabouts, McCain called Obama naive. Fascinating.

In my judgment, McCain is bin Laden’s candidate in this election because he serves bin Laden’s interests. He flexes his muscles when he says he’ll follow bin Laden to the “gates of hell” but ultimately he helps bin Laden in many ways and even McCain himself has admitted in the past, ironically, that bin Laden helps the Republican Party. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, I guess, since McCain helps bin Laden sell Iraq as the central front in the war on terror, which only distracts the U.S. from capturing him and fuels recruitment efforts by legitimizing bin Laden’s propaganda efforts, and on the flip side bin Laden supposedly helps Republicans win elections.

It’s time for a change in judgment.

Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), one of John McCain potential VP candidates draws a blank when asked what the differences are between John McCain and President Bush on the economy.

Ouch.

Schools vs. bombs. The Bush Administration has given the President of Pakistan $10 billion in foreign aid. What has that gotten us? Nick Kristof: This approach has failed – the backlash has radicalized Pakistan’s tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways that they never did before 9/11.

Kristof talks about the need for a new approach, an intelligent approach to solving our national security problems in the Middle East, which involves a focused effort on creating a “better educated, more economically vibrant Pakistan/Afghanistan.”

Money quote: “Each Tomahawk missile that the United States fires in Afghanistan costs at least $500,000. That’s enough for local aid groups to build more than 20 schools, and in the long run those schools probably do more to destroy the Taliban.”