"'I think — I'll have my staff get to you... '"
Okay. A busy Senator can be forgiven for being a little uncertain of the facts sometimes. But this is what John McCain answered when asked how many houses he owns, according to Politico this morning. Newsweek, it must be noted, isn't sure how many he owns, either.
David Petraeus, described in the New York Times today as coughing, "looking drawn, exhausted, and more than a few years older than when he took command 18 months ago," is about to leave his command in Iraq. His assessment of the situation there is more modest than that of the Republicans who sent him there.
“'It’s not durable yet. It’s not self-sustaining,' he added. 'You know — touch wood — there is still a lot of work to be done.'”
The New York Times article was quite upbeat about the Iraq situation. But not McClatchy. The Sunnis may well back off from cooperation with the Iraqi government.
"A key pillar of the U.S. strategy to pacify Iraq is in danger of collapsing because the Iraqi government is failing to absorb tens of thousands of former Sunni Muslim insurgents who'd joined U.S.-allied militia groups into the country's security forces. ... The Iraqi government, which is led by Shiite Muslims, has brought only a relative handful of the more than 100,000 militia members into the security forces. Now officials are making it clear that they don't intend to include most of the rest."
It's all Ned Lamont's and Barack Obama's fault. If only that upstart Lamont hadn't run in Connecticut -- with support from Barack Obama -- and won against Joe Lieberman, Lieberman wouldn't have been forced to betray his party. The Democratic senator will be giving a "featured" speech on the opening night of the Republican convention. Repeat: it's really someone else's fault. Gail Collins does a riff on vice presidential candidates today. Here's what she has to say about Joe.
"When you have a 71-year-old presidential candidate, it’s particularly important that voters be confident that he’s backed up by an experienced and qualified vice president prepared to step in and do the exact opposite about everything except Iraq.
"Lieberman is certainly capable of dumping everything he has ever believed in and assuring the anti-choice, anti-union, anti-government folk that he is on their team. But then the magic fades and all you’ve got is a conservative Republican who likes the environment teamed with a guy who will do anything to move up. If that’s all you’re looking for, you might as well take Mitt Romney."
And yes, it was speculators, after all, who helped push up the price of oil. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission yesterday "revealed how an individual financial player had gained enormous sway over the oil market without the knowledge of regulators. Other CFTC data showed that a significant amount of trading activity was concentrated in the hands of just a few speculators."
