At a July 3 press availability in Fargo, North Dakota, Sen. Barack Obama told reporters: "When I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies." In covering Obama's comments, the media have reported Republican claims that Obama reversed himself. For example, in a post on The New York Times blog, The Caucus, reporter Jeff Zeleny quoted Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant stating: "There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience. ... Obama's Iraq problem undermines the central premise of his candidacy and shows him to be a typical politician." Zeleny quoted Obama saying: "My position has not changed, but keep in mind what that original position was. I've always said that I would listen to commanders on the ground." But Zeleny did not note that Obama has in fact said on multiple occasions that he would set Iraq war policy in consultation with military commanders.

Here are some examples:

• In a March 19 speech, Obama said: "Let me be clear: Ending this war is not going to be easy. There will be dangers involved -- just as there would be dangers involved with staying indefinitely. We will have to make tactical adjustments, listening to our commanders on the ground, to ensure that our interests in a stable Iraq are met, and to make sure that our troops are secure."

• During a March 2 Washington Post foreign policy "Q&A," when asked what size his proposed "over-the-horizon" force in Iraq would be, Obama responded: "The precise size of the residual force will depend on consultations with our military commanders and will depend on the circumstances on the ground, including the willingness of the Iraqi government to move toward political accommodation."

• During an interview on the February 5 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, when asked, "[I]s there anything that would change your position about pulling out troops ... if he [Gen. David Petraeus] convinces you that we're on the right track?" Obama began his response by saying, "Well, what I've been very clear about is that I will always listen to commanders on the ground":

BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): Right behind you is the word "change." When General Petraeus comes back in a month, if he talks to Barack Obama privately and shows you what we're doing over there, is there anything that would change your position about pulling out troops if he's convinced -- if he convinces you that we're on the right track?

OBAMA: Well, what I've been very clear about is that I will always listen to commanders on the ground, but ultimately the commander in chief sets the mission. And my strong belief is that we have to send a signal to the Iraqis that we are not going to be in Iraq permanently. I mean, I have a fundamental disagreement with John McCain on this.

• Obama also said during an interview on the February 4 edition of CBS' The Early Show that he would "consult with commanders":

HARRY SMITH (co-host): If you were to be elected president --

OBAMA: Mm-hmm.

SMITH: -- and your commanders on the ground there and your secretary of defense said, "Hold back" --

OBAMA: Right.

SMITH: -- "you can't be pulling these people out. We're going to create a civil war and a blood bath." What would you do?

OBAMA: My job as commander in chief is to keep the American people safe. But I firmly believe that we have to send a signal to the Iraqis that it is time to withdraw. We will not have a permanent base there. We will not have a permanent occupation there.

SMITH: Even if it --

OBAMA: Within those constraints --

SMITH: Even if it meant the beginning of civil war?

OBAMA: No, no, no, no. Within those constraints, I think there is going to be some flexibility and, obviously, I would consult with commanders. We have to be mindful of the situation on the ground and what the commanders say. Having said that, what we can't do is simply say we are going to leave it open-ended, the way John McCain, for example, suggested. We might be there 50 years or 100 years. That is not going to make the American people safe over the long term, not only because of the loss of life, not only because of the anti-American sentiment that it fans and the constraints it places on our diplomacy, but also because we can't afford it. It's costing us $9 billion per month.

• During a November 1, 2007, New York Times interview, Obama was asked: "You've argued that the United States should leave behind residual force in Iraq and the region. How large would the force be and how much would be inside Iraq versus the Persian Gulf Region?" Obama replied:

I have not ascribed particular numbers to that and I won't for precisely the reason I was just talking to Michael about. I want to talk to military folks on the ground, No. 1. No. 2, a lot of it depends on what's happened on the political front and the diplomatic front. Even something as simple as protecting our embassy is going to be dependent on what is the security environment in Baghdad. If there is some sense of security, then that means one level of force. If you continue to have significant sectarian conflict, that means another, but this is an area where Senator [Hillary] Clinton and I do have a significant contrast.

• During the September 12, 2007, broadcast of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Obama said: "If commanders came to me and said, 'We are making progress in reducing violence,' and I see continuing political progress taking place, then obviously that's going to be weighed against the need to, I believe, have some additional troops in Afghanistan." From the interview:

MICHELE NORRIS (host): So, in trying to determine what the U.S. footprint in Iraq would look like -- say you're in office, and your commanders, your military commanders, are telling you that progress is being made. If they're saying, "We can win this," are you still going to draw down forces? As a commander in chief, who does not have personal military experience, are you willing to look someone like David Petraeus in the eye and say, "You're wrong. We're going to do it my way"?

OBAMA: If commanders came to me and said, "We are making progress in reducing violence," and I see continuing political progress taking place, then obviously that's going to be weighed against the need to, I believe, have some additional troops in Afghanistan. That's going to be weighed against our homeland security needs in the United States. I think that the overarching question is: What is going to be needed to make the United States more secure, meet our strategic interests around the world, and make sure that we are meeting the obligations that we have towards the Iraqi people?

But that is all part of a decision that the president makes in consultation with his generals, but not in deference to them. And I think one of the unfortunate aspects of the last several days and General Petraeus' testimony is the illusion that, somehow, General Petraeus has been setting policy and the president has simply been accepting those recommendations. That is not what has been taking place. The president has been laying out a mission of continuing this failed course in Iraq and General Petraeus and Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker have been trying to carry out that mission as best they could.

TPM Media's Greg Sargent wrote in a July 3 TPM Election Central entry, "[T]he big news orgs are already getting this wrong":

Here's the Associated Press headline and lede:

Obama opens door to altering his Iraq policy

Democrat Barack Obama opened the door Thursday to altering his plan to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq in 16 months based on what he hears from military commanders during his upcoming trip there.

That's a reckless distortion. "Alter" is a far stronger word than "refine" is. And worse, when you take the stronger word "alter" and put it next to "plan to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq in 16 months," it makes a far, far stronger suggestion than Obama did. Obama merely said he would "continue to refine his policies." The tone of this lede makes it sound like Obama is preparing a wholesale junking of his withdrawal plan.

Here's The Washington Post's headline:

Obama Softens on Iraq Withdrawal Timeline

This is way overstated. It states as outright fact that Obama signaled that he'd backtrack on the time-line. But that didn't happen at all. The Los Angeles Times used this formulation, too, but it at least had the decency to pose it as a question, and not state this as established fact.

From Zeleny's July 3 blog post on The Caucus:

Senator Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot sustain a long-term military presence in Iraq, but added that he would be open to "refine my policies" about a timeline for withdrawing troops after meeting with American military commanders during a trip to Iraq later this month.

Mr. Obama, whose popularity in the Democratic primary was built upon a sharp opposition to the war and an often-touted 16-month gradual timetable for removing combat troops, dismissed suggestions that he was changing positions in the wake of reductions in violence in Iraq and a general election fight with Senator John McCain.

"I've always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed," he said. "And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."

[...]

Republicans seized on Mr. Obama's remarks, saying he was stepping away from the position he took in the Democratic primary campaign.

"There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "Obama's Iraq problem undermines the central premise of his candidacy and shows him to be a typical politician."

Mr. Obama said such criticism was misguided, saying: "My position has not changed, but keep in mind what that original position was. I've always said that I would listen to commanders on the ground."

On the July 2 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, syndicated columnist Robert Novak falsely asserted that, during an appearance on the June 29 edition of CBS' Face the Nation, retired Gen. Wesley Clark joined a group of "Obama surrogates who have been questioning and attacking [Sen.] John McCain's credentials as a war hero." In fact, during his Face the Nation appearance, Clark praised McCain as a "hero" for "his service as a prisoner of war," while, as Zachary Roth wrote at the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk blog, "question[ing] the relevance of McCain's combat experience as a qualification to be president of the United States." Novak further asserted that Clark's comments were part of "a really conscious effort to downgrade him [McCain] as a war hero," adding, "[S]o when you find five, six, seven surrogates, all questioning McCain's war record -- this isn't an accident. This is -- I am sure this is some talking points that were put out secretly in the Obama campaign. But Wesley Clark being such a clumsy, ham-handed person, he just went too far." However, contrary to Novak's assertion that Clark was using "talking points that were put out secretly" by the Obama campaign, Clark has been saying for months that McCain's military service alone does not make him qualified to be president, including while he was speaking on behalf of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

As Media Matters for America has noted, during a March 2 conference call arranged by Clinton's presidential campaign, Clark praised McCain's "service as a fighter pilot" and "his courage as a prisoner of war," but added that "having served as a fighter pilot ... doesn't prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved."

From the July 2 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

MICHAEL SMERCONISH [guest host]: Are you surprised by the legs that the General Wesley Clark story appears to have or is this just a July issue?

NOVAK: I -- no. I think this is a very interesting story. You know, there's a whole record of Obama surrogates who have been questioning and attacking John McCain's credentials as a war hero. I think they're very -- I think the Obama campaign is very much worried about this being something that will, when they get to know -- when people who don't follow politics, when they realize that he is a war hero, that this is gonna get the undecided vote to his favor. So, I think they're trying -- there's a really conscious effort to downgrade him as a war hero. And so when you find five, six, seven surrogates, all questioning McCain's war record -- this isn't an accident. This is -- I am sure this is some talking points that were put out secretly in the Obama campaign.

SMERCONISH: But where's the --

NOVAK: But Wesley Clark being such a clumsy, ham-handed person, he just went too far. He was too nasty. He didn't do it in some obscure place. He did it on a national television talk show on Sunday, and he just went too far. And he might have really inhibited the Obama campaign from carrying on this technique.

SMERCONISH: But where would the substance be to go after John McCain on his war record? It's not as if you have, as we saw four years ago, individuals who served with him now coming forward and saying history recorded this in an inaccurate fashion.

NOVAK: Well, it's a -- it's part of politics. If you're a -- if your main attribute as a politician for example, say, is that you're an expert at energy, what your -- what the opposition will try to do is to knock you down as an energy expert. So, the way to do this -- to knock you down as a war expert -- but it has to be done subtly. And Wes Clark was just so ham-handed, and clumsy, and really vulgar about it that he might have spoiled the whole thing for Obama.

SMERCONISH: Robert Novak, a privilege to have you on the Radio Factor. Thank you, sir.

John McCain's "protective barrier"

Nearly four months ago, I wrote that many journalists were going along with John McCain's apparent efforts to declare that, because of his military service, any criticism -- even if it doesn't have anything to do with his service -- is out of bounds. In one early example, McCain attacked Mitt Romney, claiming that Romney (who, McCain noted, "has never had any military experience") had criticized Bob Dole's "service and courage." In fact, Romney hadn't said anything about Dole's service, or his courage. Not even close. But that didn't stop the media from going along with McCain's false claims.

A few weeks later, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer asked if Barack Obama was "taking aim at John McCain's age, an American war hero." Obama hadn't said anything that had anything to do with McCain's status as an "American war hero" -- indeed, he hadn't mentioned McCain at all. Still, Brewer felt compelled to invoke McCain's status as a war hero at the slightest hint (real or imagined) that McCain is being criticized -- even though that (real or imagined) criticism had nothing to do with McCain's military service.

But incidents like that were apparently just trial runs for what has happened this week, as much of the media has abandoned any pretense of neutrality. In the most vivid example to date of media describing any criticism of McCain as criticism of his military service, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell described a television ad that made not a single mention of McCain's service as being a part of "an organized campaign against John McCain's military service."

Here's the ad; watch for yourself. It's an ad about McCain's Iraq policies. It doesn't make any mention of McCain's military record. Doesn't even hint at anything having anything to do with McCain's service. Yet Mitchell suggested it was part of "an organized campaign against John McCain's military service." She may as well have said a giant purple unicorn had called McCain a traitor, for all the truth there was to her statement.

Mitchell's description was deeply dishonest, but what's really remarkable is how well it fit in among the rest of the media's political coverage this week.

On Sunday, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer suggested that the fact that Barack Obama has not "ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down" makes him less qualified to be president than John McCain. His guest, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, responded by saying that having done so is not a qualification to be president:

SCHIEFFER: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean --

CLARK: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

SCHIEFFER: Really?

Clark has made similar comments in the past, and various media figures said much the same thing about John Kerry in 2004. Morton Kondracke, for example: "It does not qualify you to be the commander in chief of all the Armed Forces because you were a Swift boat commander." And Kathleen Parker: "[M]ilitary service neither qualifies nor disqualifies one for political office." That same year, Bush campaign spokesperson Steve Schmidt -- now John McCain's de facto campaign manager -- dismissed the relevance of Kerry's military service, noting that it had occurred decades earlier.

Nobody much cared when people said John Kerry's military service didn't qualify him to be president. But the media have different rules when it comes to John McCain. And so Clark's comments were met with a firestorm of media criticism. Never mind that Clark hadn't criticized McCain's service; that he hadn't said McCain served poorly or dishonorably -- in fact, Clark called McCain a "hero." Never mind all that; the media quickly, relentlessly -- and falsely -- jumped all over Clark.

They falsely accused him of attacking McCain's military service. They falsely accused him of attacking McCain's patriotism. They went along with the McCain campaign's complaints that Clark -- who, again, called McCain a "hero" -- "didn't pay proper homage" to McCain. By the end of the week, one creative journalist went so far as to falsely claim that Clark's comments were part of a "pattern of attacks" on McCain as "psychologically unfit for presidential office." In short: they freaked out.

A few journalists felt compelled to acknowledge the obvious: that what Clark said was actually right -- that McCain's military service, like John Kerry's, is not sufficient qualification for the presidency no matter how honorable and heroic it was. But they still insisted Clark shouldn't have said it.

New York Times columnist Gail Collins, for example, wrote: "When Schieffer pointed out that Obama had neither run a squadron nor 'ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down,' the correct response was: 'No, and he honors Senator McCain's service.' ... Nevertheless, what Clark said was obviously true." Collins' Times colleague John Harwood agreed during an appearance on MSNBC: "[I]t was a misstep by Clark ... It was not a well-advised thing for Clark to do ... It actually was true."

When did journalists decide that the "obviously true" answer to a question is not the "correct" answer? When did they decide that it was appropriate to spend days excoriating someone for saying something that is "true" but isn't "well-advised?" Columbia Journalism Review's Zachary Roth, writing about an ABCNews.com report, explained:

This is the perfect embodiment of the press's unbelievably destructive habit of assessing every piece of campaign rhetoric for its political acuity, rather than for its validity and accuracy. Clark's comments may (or may not) have been impolitic. But that has no bearing on their validity or lack thereof -- which is how the news media should be evaluating them.

Incredibly, many in the media compared Clark's "obviously true" comments to the vicious smear campaign waged by the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry. The comparisons began almost immediately. Just hours after Clark's appearance on Face the Nation, CNN host Rick Sanchez asked, "[D]id Wesley Clark pull a swift boat on John McCain today?" He later described Clark's comments as "A respected military leader dissing, some might say, swift-boating John McCain's military record." The absurd comparison quickly gained traction, particularly on cable news.

But wait: it gets worse. Not only did the media compare Clark to the noxious Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, many of them politely averted their eyes when McCain turned to a member of that group -- which McCain once called "dishonest and dishonorable" -- to respond to Clark's non-attack. The Washington Post, one of the media outlets that did note Bud Day's membership in the SBVT, quoted him rejecting the comparison between Clark and the anti-Kerry group -- because, he claimed, the comparison was unfair to the Swifties: "The Swift boat, quote, attacks were simply a revelation of the truth. The similarity doesn't exist. ... One was about laying out the truth. This one is about attempting to cast another shadow."

The Post didn't bother to tell readers that, in fact, the Swift Boat attacks were deeply dishonest and nasty smears.

In short: John McCain turned to a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group whose false and despicable attacks on John Kerry's war record McCain once denounced, to attack Wesley Clark for comments in which Clark did not criticize McCain's war record -- and in which he, in fact, called McCain a hero. And the media went along with it.

But -- because the only limit to how absurd the media's pro-McCain coverage will become is time -- it gets even worse.

While defending the Swift Boat Vets' lies about John Kerry and attacking Wes Clark for something he didn't say, Bud Day said of Clark: "General Clark spent a month in Vietnam, got badly wounded, evacuated, and that was his Vietnam experience. I'd say let's hold the two of them up and see who's most qualified to talk about their experience as a combat officer."

That happens to be false. Clark served at least six months in Vietnam, not "a month." Day's comments about Clark constituted an actual falsehood about a distinguished veteran's military record, made on an official McCain campaign conference call by a hand-picked surrogate. Surely, after days of freaking out over something Wes Clark didn't say, the media quickly gave as much attention to SBVT member Bud Day's false claims about Clark's own war record?

Of course not. Remember: the rules are different for John McCain.

Then there's Bob Dole. Earlier this year, McCain falsely accused Mitt Romney of criticizing Dole's service. This week, Bob Dole returned the favor by releasing a statement calling Wes Clark's non-attack on McCain's service "Beyond comprehension" and a "further erosion of our nation's political discourse."

CNN, MSNBC, Time and the Associated Press, among others, reported Bob Dole's comments about Clark. But nobody mentioned an inconvenient fact that completely undermines Dole's credibility on this topic: In 2004, in the midst of the Swift Boat controversy, Bob Dole went on national television to make false claims about John Kerry's war injuries, suggesting the Democratic presidential candidate didn't deserve his Purple Hearts.

Dole said in 2004 that he will "always quarrel about" Kerry's Purple Hearts, because "he got two in one day" even though he "never bled" and only had "superficial wounds." In fact, Kerry's Purple Hearts were not awarded for the same day, and he did bleed, according to Kerry crewmate Del Sandusky, who -- unlike Dole -- was present when Kerry was injured. There has never been any evidence that John Kerry did not earn his medals, and there is considerable evidence he did.

The false claims Bob Dole made to suggest John Kerry did not deserve his Purple Hearts are what it looks like when somebody actually smears a war hero. Yet the media who dutifully repeated Dole's criticism of Clark didn't bother to mention Dole's bogus and offensive comments about Kerry.

After all, Dole was defending John McCain from (imaginary) attacks, and the rules are different for John McCain.

Let's pause for a moment to review. According to the news media, if you call John McCain a "hero," but say that heroism doesn't qualify him to be president, you have dishonorably attacked his military service. (Feel free, however, to say the same thing about John Kerry.) And if you criticize McCain's Iraq policies, you are participating in "an organized campaign against John McCain's military service."

But wait! There's more!

The media's knee-jerk defense of McCain doesn't stop at their use of his military service to rule criticism of his Iraq policies out of bounds. It extends to (things having nothing to do with) his age, too. See, if you criticize John McCain for ignoring his own pledge to avoid negative campaigning, the media will quickly announce that you're really attacking his age. That was ridiculous, of course, but McCain aide Mark Salter told them to say it, so they did.

You get the picture: the media is on the verge of declaring any criticism of John McCain off-limits -- even when it isn't really criticism. Even when you call him a "hero," but not quite enthusiastically enough.

One of the hallmarks of the Karl Rove era of GOP politics is that the Republicans aren't particularly subtle about their tactics. They tend to clearly telegraph what they intend to do, though often with the slight wrinkle of accusing the opposition of doing what they plan to do themselves.

That is certainly true of the McCain campaign. In the very memo in which Salter convinced the media to pretend that Obama's criticism of McCain's negative campaigning was an attack on the Arizona senator's age, Salter wrote: "Senator Obama is hopeful that the media will continue to form a protective barrier around him, declaring serious limits to the questions, discussion and debate in this race."

Yes, that's John McCain's senior adviser complaining that the media has formed a "protective barrier" around Barack Obama.

The American people, however, seem to see through this nonsense. Two months ago, The New York Times and CBS News conducted a poll in which they asked respondents whether the media has been harder or easier on John McCain than on other candidates. Only 8 percent thought the media had been harder on McCain than on other candidates; more than three times as many people thought the media had taken it easier on McCain than on other candidates. (Asked the same question about media coverage of Barack Obama, respondents split pretty much down the middle.)

It probably could go without saying at this point, but in case you're wondering: No, neither the Times nor CBS reported those poll results.

In a July 1Politico op-ed, James Kirchick, assistant editor of The New Republic, falsely asserted that retired Gen. Wesley Clark's comments about Sen. John McCain on CBS' Face the Nation were part of a "pattern of attacks meant to insinuate that McCain's Vietnam experience not only shouldn't count as meaningful 'experience,' but rendered him psychologically unfit for presidential office." In fact, Clark did not "attack[]" McCain's Vietnam experience or suggest that it "rendered him psychologically unfit for presidential office." Rather, Clark praised McCain as a "hero" for "his service as a prisoner of war," while, as Zachary Roth wrote at the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk blog, "question[ing] the relevance of McCain's combat experience as a qualification to be president of the United States."

Moreover, Kirchick wrote: "Clark said that McCain is 'untested and untried,' and elaborated that, 'I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.' " However, Kirchick did not note that, in making the "getting shot down" comment, Clark was repeating Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer's words. As Media Matters for America has noted, Clark's comment came in response to Schieffer's statement that, unlike McCain, Sen. Barack Obama has not "ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down."

Referring to Clark's comments and those of others, Kirchick also asserted that "one would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility they were coordinated by the Obama campaign." However, belying Kirchick's suggestion of possible coordination by the Obama campaign is the fact that Clark has for months been saying that McCain's military service alone does not make him qualified to be president, including while speaking on behalf of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Indeed, in a July 1 New York Sun article, Josh Gerstein reported:

General Clark has for months demonstrated a willingness and propensity to question the notion that Mr. McCain's wartime service would be of much use to him as president. Answering a question from The New York Sun in March, the former NATO commander said he believed Mrs. Clinton had more useful national security experience than Mr. McCain. "Having served as a fighter pilot -- and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam -- doesn't prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn't give you the experience firsthand of the national strategic issues," he said.

Further, in a March 3 New York Sun article, Gerstein reported that during a March 2 conference call arranged by Clinton's presidential campaign, in response to a question from The New York Sun, Clark praised McCain's "service as a fighter pilot" and "his courage as a prisoner of war," but added that "having served as a fighter pilot ... doesn't prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved." Gerstein also reported that McCain's campaign "did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment for this article." From the March 2 conference call (audio recording available here):

GERSTEIN: Hi, it's Josh Gerstein with The New York Sun. I wanted to ask, if when people were saying that Senator Clinton had the most experience in the race, they're including Senator McCain in that, and if somebody could just expand on why she would be preferable to Senator McCain on national security issues. Thank you.

HOWARD WOLFSON (Clinton campaign spokesman): Is there anybody --

CLARK: I'd like to do that. To start, I'm not the only one who's going to have an answer on this. I know that. I don't want to hog the call, but it's an issue that I've given a lot of thought to. You know, in the national security business, the question is, do you have -- when you've served in uniform -- do you really have the relevant experience for making the decisions at the top that have to be made? Everybody admires John McCain 's service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There's no issue there. He was -- he's a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot -- and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam -- that doesn't prepare you to be commander-in-chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn't give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues.

If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as First Lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, representing the United States abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think she's the most experienced and capable person in the race, not only for representing America abroad, but for dealing with the tough issues of national security.

Kirchick also asserted:

In May, Newsweek published a cover story confirming the Obama campaign's fears, declaring that "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968."

Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe [sic] concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. "It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as 'the other' -- as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters."

But has it been a "sure bet?"

Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged "scare" tactics in which Republicans -- and, apparently, only Republicans -- have been perfecting [sic] since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it's that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears.

There have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain have done anything approaching what Thomas and Wolfe predicted those dastardly, conniving Republicans would inevitably do. In February, a conservative talk radio host speaking at a McCain rally made reference to "Barack Hussein Obama." McCain immediately condemned the statement, leading the embittered and embarrassed professional yacker to complain that McCain "threw me under the bus." The only other smear-worthy episode occurred in March, when the McCain campaign suspended a low-level aide who provided a link on his Twitter account to a video featuring the rants of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Heavy stuff, to be sure.

But Kirchick's assertion that "[t]here have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain" have engaged in "smear-worthy" attacks on Obama is false. While Kirchick noted that a McCain campaign aide reportedly distributed a video smearing Obama, he did not note that the McCain campaign also reportedly circulated to reporters an op-ed, in which NewsMax.com chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler wrote that "Obama's close association with Mr. [Jeremiah] Wright ... raises legitimate questions about Mr. Obama's fundamental beliefs about his country," which "deserve a clearer answer than Mr. Obama has provided so far." McCain's campaign later reportedly said it sent the Kessler op-ed "in error."

Further, Republican state parties have attacked or promoted smears of Obama. The Tennessee Republican Party issued a February 25 press release titled "Anti-Semites for Obama" that stated in its original form: "The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States." The press release included the picture of Obama in traditional Somalian clothing that Kirchick identified in his op-ed as being a part of a smear campaign against Obama. As Media Matters previously noted, McCain "condemned" the Tennessee GOP's press release, but later touted the endorsement of the group's chairman, who was quoted attacking Obama in the press release. Moreover, a television ad aired by the North Carolina Republican Party shortly before the May 6 North Carolina primary showed footage of controversial comments by Wright and attacked Obama as "too extreme." As Media Matters noted, several supporters listed on McCain's website were listed as having leadership positions on the North Carolina Republican Party's website as well, and some had also donated money to both the North Carolina GOP and McCain's presidential campaign. In addition, on May 1, FoxNews.com reported that McCain said "he wouldn't have run the GOP ad, 'but I am not going to referee, I am just going to run my own campaign.' " Further, in a June 12 article, the Boston Herald quoted McCain saying, "I can't be a referee of every spot run on television," and described his comments as "a softening of his view on the negative campaign tactic [of using 527 organizations]" that "opens the door to a no-holds-barred five-month scramble."

Kirchick also repeated a mischaracterization of Clinton's response during an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes, when correspondent Steve Kroft asked whether she "believe[d] that Senator Obama is a Muslim." Kirchick wrote that when Clinton was "[a]sked if there was any truth to the smear that Obama is a Muslim, she infamously replied, 'As far as I know,' it wasn't the case." In fact, Clinton's first three words in response to the question "You don't believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim?" were, "Of course not." Clinton also likened the rumors about Obama's religion to false rumors about her: "Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors. I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time."

From Kirchick's July 1 Politico op-ed:

The only obstacle between Barack Obama and the presidency is the mountain of smears that will no doubt come his way. That's the narrative that Obama supporters -- and his swooning chroniclers in the mainstream media -- would have us believe.

Obama himself set up a website, fighthesmears.com, correcting some e-mail chain letters that allege he "can't produce his birth certificate," is "secretly a Muslim" and that he "won't say the Pledge of Allegiance." In May, Newsweek published a cover story confirming the Obama campaign's fears, declaring that "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968."

Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe [sic] concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. "It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as 'the other' -- as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters."

But has it been a "sure bet?"

Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged "scare" tactics in which Republicans -- and, apparently, only Republicans -- have been perfecting [sic] since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it's that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears.

There have been only two incidents in which people officially associated with McCain have done anything approaching what Thomas and Wolfe predicted those dastardly, conniving Republicans would inevitably do. In February, a conservative talk radio host speaking at a McCain rally made reference to "Barack Hussein Obama." McCain immediately condemned the statement, leading the embittered and embarrassed professional yacker to complain that McCain "threw me under the bus." The only other smear-worthy episode occurred in March, when the McCain campaign suspended a low-level aide who provided a link on his Twitter account to a video featuring the rants of Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Heavy stuff, to be sure.

Contrast the absence of smears from the McCain camp with some of the outlandish remarks made by high-ranking Obama supporters. In April, West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV said that because McCain "was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet," and "was long gone when they hit," the Arizona senator who spent five and a half years in a Vietcong tiger cage having his arms repeatedly broken didn't really understand the carnage of war. "What happened when [the missiles] get to the ground?" Rockefeller asked a crowd at an Obama rally. "He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues." That the great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller would impugn the wartime experience of John McCain is especially rich, given that the only "battle" Rockefeller has seen is when he hunts wild game at his 80-acre ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Rockefeller's smear was the first salvo in a pattern of attacks meant to insinuate that McCain's Vietnam experience not only shouldn't count as meaningful "experience," but rendered him psychologically unfit for presidential office. In May, Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of McCain, "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous." Over the weekend, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said that McCain is "untested and untried," and elaborated that, "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." Clark, you may remember, ran for president in 2004 on his record as a career military officer, so his comment, which he has not retracted, was not just morally offensive but self-discrediting.

The smears didn't stop there. On Monday, Obama foreign policy adviser Rand Beers unfavorably compared McCain's POW experience with "the members of the Senate who were in the ground forces or who were ashore in Vietnam," and who "have a very different view of Vietnam and the cost ... than John McCain does because he was in isolation essentially for many of those years and did not experience the turmoil here or the challenges that were involved for those of us who served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War."

It's curious how anyone could argue that a man with such visceral understanding of the capacity for what America's enemies will do to our men and women in uniform doesn't fully appreciate the cost of war. But even more troubling is the unmistakable pattern of these smears, all of them unsubtly alleging that McCain is an unhinged, mentally unstable warmonger who would deploy soldiers capriciously because he hasn't truly experienced the horrors of ground battle. Indeed, the claims of these four men -- and the short period of time in which they were all uttered -- are so similar in tone that one would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility they were coordinated by the Obama campaign.

Nevertheless, the fears of Obama supporters that their candidate lies eternally vulnerable to GOP smears exists [sic] only in their fevered imaginations. The evidence of dirty Republican tricks has been utterly absent this campaign season. And if anyone has tried to smear Barack Obama in the way that Thomas, Wolfe and other Democratic partisans allege, it was not the Republican National Committee, but rather Hillary Rodham Clinton and her surrogates. In February, the Drudge Report claimed that the Clinton campaign circulated photos of Obama in a traditional East African turban and robe, with the message that the images showed him "dressed." Asked if there was any truth to the smear that Obama is a Muslim, she infamously replied, "As far as I know," it wasn't the case. After the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, she said the results showed that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again."

The belief that "the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968" is a comforting salve for Democrats. After all, it's much easier for them to demonize conservatives than consider that the reason for their electoral defeats may lie with liberal ideas. Please don't take that as a "smear."

On the July 2 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, guest host John Roberts asked Sen. John McCain senior adviser and Republican National Committee victory chairwoman Carly Fiorina, "[A]s a business person, a former CEO, do you consider John McCain to be an expert on the economy?" Fiorina responded in part: "[D]o I think he's a leader who understands how the economy works, who understands the importance of job creation, who understands the importance of government and the role it can play to either accelerate job creation or to destroy jobs, yes, I think he is extremely well qualified." Roberts did not challenge Fiorina's response, and he concluded the interview without noting numerous statements by McCain on the economy that were false or disputed by economists -- including McCain's own economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin -- or that McCain has repeatedly acknowledged weakness on economic issues.

Roberts mentioned none of the following:

• As Media Matters for America noted, during an interview with National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru in March 2007, McCain asserted: "Tax cuts, starting with [President John F.] Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues. So what's the argument for increasing taxes? If you get the opposite effect out of tax cuts?" And, in a December 7, 2007, Boston Globe column, Scot Lehigh reported that at a meeting two days earlier, McCain had said of President Bush's tax cuts, "I would suggest that most economists agree that there was an increase in revenues ... associated with the tax cuts."

But, in a December 13, 2007, post on the washingtonpost.com blog The Fact Checker, Michael Dobbs highlighted McCain's statement to Ponnuru as McCain's "Most Revealing Fib[]" and wrote: "Asked to explain the candidate's position, the McCain campaign sent me an e-mailed statement from Holtz-Eakin claiming that the senator 'has never supported the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves.' " Dobbs asserted, "It looks as if the master of the 'Straight Talk Express' is trying to have it both ways."

• On the specific issue of capital gains tax cuts, McCain asserted on the April 20 edition of ABC's This Week that "history shows every time you have cut capital gains taxes, revenues have increased -- going back to Jack Kennedy." However, as Media Matters documented, notwithstanding a potential short-term revenue increase, many economists have challenged the suggestion that revenue goes up over the long term as a result of capital gains tax rates being cut. Indeed, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated in June 2006 that the 2006 extension of the 2003 cuts on capital gains taxes would result in decreased revenues of $20 billion over 10 years.

• As Media Matters noted, on the June 10 edition of The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer also did not challenge Fiorina's assertion that McCain "will balance his budget by the end of 2013," echoing McCain's claim, reported by the Associated Press on February 16, that he "would propose a balanced budget in his first term if he is elected president -- but not necessarily in his first year."

However, in an April 15 article, Reuters reported that Holtz-Eakin "said McCain believes he can balance the budget in eight years." Also, prior reports on McCain's economic plan have noted that economists and nonpartisan analysts say that McCain's proposals will require massive spending cuts or will increase the deficit. On April 18, Bloomberg reported that McCain's "plan to cut taxes and balance the budget wins praise from fellow Republicans," but that "[e]conomists and nonpartisan analysts say his numbers don't add up."

• As Media Matters noted, in a June 10 speech, McCain falsely suggested that Obama plans to raise taxes on 21.6 million sole proprietorships that file taxes under the individual income tax. In fact, Obama has proposed rolling back the Bush tax cuts only on "people who are making 250,000 dollars a year or more," and according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's table of 2007 tax returns that reported small-business income, only 481,000 -- not 21.6 million -- of those returns are in the top two income tax brackets -- which include all filers with taxable incomes of more than $250,000.

• McCain is in favor of a gas tax holiday "from Memorial Day to Labor Day." But, as The Washington Post noted on May 5, "More than 230 economists -- Democrats, Republicans, advisers to past presidents and four Nobel laureates" signed a letter opposing the suspension of the federal gas tax for summer. The letter said, "Put simply, suspending the federal tax on gasoline this summer is a bad idea and we oppose it. There are several reasons for this opposition. First, research shows that waiving the gas tax would generate major profits for oil companies rather than significantly lowering prices for consumers. ... Third, a tax holiday would provide very little relief to families feeling squeezed."

From the July 2 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

ROBERTS: Well, let's get into an area where you were very valued -- very, very familiar, and that's the economy. A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll finds that the economy continues to be issue number one, even more so than in the past.

FIORINA: Yes.

ROBERTS: Fifty-eight percent of respondents now saying it's the number one issue. That compares with 45 percent back in January. And I'm wondering, as a business person, a former CEO, do you consider John McCain to be an expert on the economy?

FIORINA: Oh, I think John McCain is very well qualified on the economy. He wouldn't call himself an expert. I wouldn't call myself an expert on the economy. But if you're talking about, do I think he's a leader who understands how the economy works, who understands the importance of job creation, who understands the importance of government and the role it can play to either accelerate job creation or to destroy jobs, yes, I think he is extremely well qualified.

He'll be talking about the economy all next week, and he will focus very heavily on what it takes to create jobs and what role government can play to accelerate the creation of jobs. The American dream starts with a job, and so, a good economic plan -- which John McCain has and will be talking to the American people about next week -- a good economic plan creates jobs.

ROBERTS: Carly Fiorina from the McCain campaign. It's good to talk to you. Thanks very much.

FIORINA: Nice to talk to you.

ROBERTS: We look forward to further news on the economy from the McCain campaign next week. Appreciate your time.

The July 3 edition of The Note, ABCNews.com's daily political newsletter, quoted Chicago Tribune reporter Frank James writing of Sen. John McCain's recent trip to Colombia: "If Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe were going to help one of the presidential candidates, it would likely be McCain more than Sen. Barack Obama since the all-but-official Republican presidential nominee supports the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement while Sen. Barack Obama doesn't." Immediately after quoting James, ABC added: "(And the RNC may want you to remember that it was Obama's name -- not McCain's -- that popped up on a seized FARC laptop.)" ABC offered no explanation for its reference -- in a compilation of reports about the release of the Colombian hostages and McCain's trip to Colombia -- to a report that Obama's name "popped up" in a computer seized from "FARC," the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Indeed, the Associated Press article ABC linked to simply reports that a letter written by FARC's spokesman said that unnamed "gringos" working with Ecuador's government "say the new president will be (Barack Obama)" and that Obama "rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program." As Media Matters for America has noted, neither the AP article nor the reported letter itself indicates any relationship between Obama and FARC.

Several right-wing groups and media outlets have used the letter to falsely allege "contacts" and other connections between FARC and Obama. A March 7 Investor's Business daily editorial claimed that "FARC seems to have an inside line to Obama's campaign," and that the letter "signals a disturbing pattern of contacts with rogue actors." A March 6 entry on Corruption Chronicles, "A Judicial Watch Blog," falsely claimed an "electronic mail[]"from FARC said that "associates of FARC were scheduling a sit down with" Sen. Barack Obama "to lobby him." Radio host Rush Limbaugh later read the Corruption Chronicles entry aloud on the March 12 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program.

The text of the purported letter, reprinted by El País (Spain), does not identify the "gringos" to whom the FARC spokesman, the reported author of the letter, referred. Translated to English, the relevant portion of the letter reads:

The gringos will ask for an appointment with the minister to request that he communicate to us his interest in discussing these topics. They say that the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support Plan Colombia nor sign the TLC. We responded that we are interested in relations with all governments on equal terms, and that in the case of the United States this requires a public pronouncement expressing their interest in talking with FARC, given their continual war with us.

From the July 3 edition of The Note:

"McCain spends 24 hours on Colombia soil, hostages are rescued. (It sounds almost like a Chuck Norris Interweb fact ...)" per ABC's Karen Travers and Gregory Wallace.

One theory: "If Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe were going to help one of the presidential candidates, it would likely be McCain more than Sen, Barack Obama since the all-but-official Republican presidential nominee supports the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement while Sen. Barack Obama doesn't," Frank James writes for the Chicago Tribune.

(And the RNC may want you to remember that it was Obama's name -- not McCain's -- that popped up on a seized FARC laptop.)

During a panel discussion on the June 29 edition of ABC's This Week, Hugh Hewitt claimed that his comment that the upcoming September 13 football game between Ohio State University and the University of Southern California, will "probably [be] the last football game we'll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama" was distorted by co-panelist Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post website. Huffington said: "Hugh Hewitt, on his show this week said -- and I quote Hugh -- that he's trying to get tickets to a football game between USC and Ohio, and he said it's probably the last football game we'll get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama." Hewitt responded: "Take 10 seconds of distortion. ... Ten seconds of distortion followed by hours of fury. Here's what I said. I was talking about the attack on the Jewish student in Paris who had been attacked for wearing a kippah. And then I went into a very long conversation about the level of danger in the world today. And then I used irony to chart the fact that we are living as though there is no war in this world. Talking about football tickets, changing the subject."

In fact, during the June 25 edition in which he discussed the reported attack on a Jewish student in France and made his comments about the USC-OSU game, Hewitt predicted that Obama would not be able to deal strongly with terrorists, at one point calling an Obama election "an invitation to disaster." Hewitt asserted that "here we are in the 1930s, and we're about to elect Chicago's Neville Chamberlain as president. Forty-odd percent of the United States think that Barack Obama is qualified to be president. That in itself ought to send ice water through your veins. It is an invitation to disaster. They will not mess around with John McCain. We get four years at least with John McCain, of additional reticence on the part of the jihadist crazies running Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas." He went on to claim, "[Y]ou put Barack Obama in there, and it's running wild time. They're going to see him for the punk politician he is out of Chicago. For a kid who doesn't know anything, a lightweight."

Additionally, during a discussion with a caller Hewitt claimed, "Obama has promised everyone everything, and at an expense that's ridiculous, but he doesn't know what he is doing when it comes to the key issue of our time -- the existential threat to the world. He is a patsy." Hewitt continued: "He is an absolute pushover, and the bad guys know it, and that is why I'm feeling that in the end -- I've got a couple of pessimistic emails here -- I just do believe that this country is not going to vote for appeasement. I just don't think that they are going to go, and say, 'Yeah, we'll go with the rookie.' "

Hewitt also discussed his appearance on This Week during the June 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, claiming that a "good time was had by all, including Arianna trying to get me." Hewitt subsequently said: "She was reading something from my show, when I did the big, long monologue on the Jewish kid with the kippah, who got beaten up in Paris, and I ended up talking about the Ohio State game, and how we were going to get attacked if Obama won. I had to go to the Ohio State-USC game at USC before, because they're not going to be back here before we ever get attacked again. It's just -- irony is lost on the left completely." After again claiming that Huffington "doesn't get the irony of talking about USC and Ohio State at the end of a long monologue about getting hit by terrorism," Hewitt asserted: "I believe we're going to get hit by terrorists under Barack Obama. I defy anyone to tell me that he is a stronger candidate against terrorism than John McCain."

From the June 29 edition of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: On that issue, we also saw this week, Charlie Black -- of course, a McCain adviser -- come out and say a terrorist attack would end up helping John McCain. McCain obviously did not condone that, took it back right away. But, Byron, let me ask you this. You know, that was considered a Michael Kinsley gaffe, that he actually spoke the truth.

I wonder -- and right now, is it still true, that an attack, if it were to happen, God forbid, would redound to the benefit of John McCain.

BYRON YORK (National Review White House correspondent): I think it is. And if you look at the polls of voters on what issue do you trust McCain or Obama more, McCain loses on everything --

STEPHANOPOULOS: Except national security.

YORK: -- except terrorism. So that's his one issue. And it -- you know, and Black has said, "I shouldn't have said it. I didn't mean it." McCain really criticized him for it. But it is self-evidently true. But it's something that nobody can, or should, be talking about.

HUFFINGTON: But it isn't just Black, it's Hugh. Hugh Hewitt, on his show this week said -- and I quote Hugh -- that he's trying to get tickets to a football game between USC and Ohio, and he said it's probably the last football game we'll get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama.

HEWITT: Classic lefty tactic there, Arianna.

HUFFINGTON: Why?

HEWITT: Take 10 seconds of distortion --

HUFFINGTON: The truth is a classic leftist tactic?

HEWITT: Ten seconds of distortion followed by hours of fury. Here's what I said. I was talking about the attack on the Jewish student in Paris who had been attacked for wearing a kippah. And then I went into a very long conversation about the level of danger in the world today. And then I used irony to chart the fact that we are living as though there is no war in this world. Talking about football tickets, changing the subject. But I wish the left would focus on the danger that this country faces right now --

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL (The Nation editor and publisher): The danger this country --

HEWITT: -- which is extreme.

HUFFINGTON: I think it's really important, it --

VANDEN HEUVEL: But it's not going to be dealt with through military escalation.

HUFFINGTON: First of all, it's really important here to say that I just quoted something you said. Every word is exactly what you said.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Yeah.

HUFFINGTON: And that is going to be the fear-mongering technique --

HEWITT: Arianna, do you think that we live in a dangerous world?

HUFFINGTON: -- that the right is going to use in this election. Of course we --

HEWITT: Do you think we live in a world with Islamists who want nukes and weapons of mass destruction?

HUFFINGTON: I believe that we live in a dangerous world, and I believe that John McCain's election would make it much more dangerous. That's what I believe.

HEWITT: That's our central difference.

From the June 25 edition of Salem Radio Network's The Hugh Hewitt Show:

HEWITT: I read an online number of newspapers from Israel, because it's important to keep track of what they are saying. They're on the front line of the struggle with jihadists and Hezbollah and Hamas. One of them is Israel Today, and you know about Haaretz and you know about the Jerusalem Post, but Israel Today -- I wonder if Yoni reads that. I'll have to talk to Yoni about this in a moment. We haven't heard from Yoni. Yoni mad at us? I hope not. I really don't want Yoni to ever be mad at us.

Yoni and Scott are my personal instructors on firearms -- the two of those guys together. But, anyway, I read Israel Today, and I went there, it's triple-W-dot-Israel Today-dot-C-O-dot-I-L. Triple-W-dot-Israel Today-dot-C-O-dot-I-L. And -- well, John in Minnesota carries their weaponry, but they can teach me how to use it.

Here's the headline. This just -- it's one incident. It's just one incident, but it's so jarring. "Jewish boy beaten into coma in Paris." Let me read you the story. A 17-year-old Jewish boy was severely beaten in Paris on Saturday evening in what families and friends are calling a serious act of anti-Semitism. According to a French Jewish group, the boy was surrounded by some 15 people while walking home in a largely Jewish neighborhood. He was easily identifiable as a Jew, as he was wearing a kippah. The gang proceeded to beat the youth, some reports said with iron rods, until he was unconscious. He slipped into a coma, from which he woke on Tuesday. French police told the Associated Press they had questioned five people in the attack. The investigation is still ongoing. Also, over the weekend, a synagogue in a Jewish elementary school in Western Canada were defaced with graffiti and hate-messages.

In related news, the results of a survey conducted recently in Britain, published in the Sunday Telegraph, revealed that Muslim youth in the United Kingdom are increasingly radicalized. The report noted that radical Islamic leaders operating in the UK are having far greater success than in the past at attracting young Muslims to their causes. The researchers who conducted the survey warned that the trend is so severe that they fear the number of British Muslims willing to participate in terrorism may have increased significantly.

Now, have you heard any of those stories? Did you hear about the British survey? Did you hear about the defacing of the synagogue, and the Jewish elementary school in western Canada, of all places? I thought Mark Steyn was the hate-crime guy up in Canada, but mostly, had you heard that a 17-year-old Jewish boy was severely beaten into a coma in Paris? Welcome to the new Europe.

And I guess, when I read through this, I thought to myself, here we are, debating -- well, we're not really debating. Obama is ducking. Here we are, we've got an out-of-control United States Supreme Court. Today they struck down a Louisiana law that made it capable for child rapists to be murdered -- to be executed, even if they didn't murder the child. A clearly constitutional exercise of state-authority struck down 5-4 by the same court that gave the Gitmo detainees their habeas rights. It's like Alice Through the Looking Glass. Now, child rapists have got protection from the Supreme Court inventing 8th amendment ambits. And we'll talk to the smart guys in the third hour about this, but then I -- it's unworldly. We're -- next hour I'm going to replay for you the interview I conducted with John McCain in yesterday's third hour, in case you missed it. In which he says we've got to prevent a second Holocaust. And here's why I've been depressed all day -- nobody really believes him. I do. I know where we are in the world -- we are on the edge of the knife. What's that famous phrase from The Lord of the Rings? I wish you could find that, Generalisimo. We are balanced on the edge of the knife. When we come back, we have to play a little bit of Men of the West Stuff. We have to go back to our Men of the West Stuff.

It's -- it is so precarious right now. There is so much momentum behind radical jihad, in Iran, in Hezbollah, in Hamas, in the diaspora of radicalized Muslim youth. It doesn't mean that it's anywhere near a majority of Muslims; it's not. But it is enough. Neither were the Nazis a majority of Europe when they started out. But here we are in the 1930s, and we're about to elect Chicago's Neville Chamberlain as president. Forty-odd percent of the United States think that Barack Obama is qualified to be president. That in itself ought to send ice water through your veins. It is an invitation to disaster. They will not mess around with John McCain. We get four years at least with John McCain, of additional reticence on the part of the jihadist crazies running Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

All right, John McCain goes in there with that Nixon-like don't-mess-with-me attitude, and the jihadists get that. Until they get their nukes. And they may even abandon a nuke -- you put Barack Obama in there, and it's running wild time. They're going to see him for the punk politician he is out of Chicago. For a kid who doesn't know anything, a lightweight, who can walk off -- talk off of a teleprompter. With no experience in anything, no understanding of anything, and they're going to push him. They're going to push him hard. They're going to -- they're going to absolutely going to push him around, like Jimmy Carter. At least they had to wait awhile to figure out that he was a punk kid from Plains, Georgia, who didn't know anything either. And that is the reality that we're facing, is that Euorpe is falling deeper and deeper into an anti-Semitic grip. Hezbollah is armed to the teeth. Israel is led by this knucklehead [Ehud] Olmert, who survived today because he agreed to be replaced in September. In essence, they did a deal in Israel today that Olmert gets to keep his job until September, and then he will get thrown out by Kadima. I was hoping for early elections, because we have to get [Benjamin] Netanyahu or somebody who is serious -- even Barak -- Ehud Barak -- is better than Olmert.

We're manning up in Europe. That's the good news. We've got [Silvio] Berlusconi back in, in Italy. [Nicolas] Sarkozy in France. [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown has turned out to be serious, and if he gets thrown out, he'll be replaced by his -- hopefully Liam Fox, his minister of defense in a new conservative government. The only problem we have in the world right now in terms of being ready is here in the United States -- is we're tired. A lot of you people are tired. You're driving around right now, and you just wish it would all go away. You really just want to be left alone, and you'd like something to happen to the gas prices, and I understand that. I'd like something to happen to the high gas prices, too. I'd like them to go down, but they're not going to go down because the don't-drill Democrats, the triple-D Democrats, will not go get any oil. Do you know what the price of oil is going to be?

Or maybe right now there is a certain level of tension with Iran factored into the price of oil. But when the shooting starts -- and it's going to start. As certain as I am of anything that I've ever broadcast, Iran has been at war with the West since 1978, and they're not going to change, and the trends in the world are not going to get better, and the violence in the world is not going to go down until there is a cataclysm with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Give them the credit of what they say and what they believe.

Look at the fact -- why would you beat up, to the point of death into a coma, a 17-year-old Jewish boy for wearing a kippah? By the way, what the heck's a kippah? I don't know what a kippah is. One of my Jewish friends, send me an email, hewitt@hughhewitt.com. What's a kippah? I know, nice goy, doesn't know anything. But what's a kippah? And why would you -- what is it about the hatred? I know anti-Semitism has been around as long as anti-Semitism -- as long as the Jews have been here, which is forever, anti-Semitism has been here. But it's just one of those things where you just become completely amazed at the indifference of the American people to the threat around them, that we would -- we'd go get Chicago's Neville Chamberlain and put him in power.

It's an invitation for the Islamists to go on the warpath. I was talking to a friend today who's trying to help [Foundation for the Defense of Democracies senior fellow and Fox News contributor] Walid Phares get the word out, and I want to help with that, too. And John McCain and I disagree on so many things, but at least he -- the most important thing, he gets it. He gets it. He gets it. What is it that's hard to understand? Hannah in San Francisco, KNTS. Hi, Hannah.

CALLER (Hannah): Yeah, hi. Well you just asked a question if the jihadists know the difference between John McCain and Obama, and I was going to say they probably do. The problem is the people who vote for him, those thousands and thousands of young people, they don't -- they don't get it, and they don't give a hoot, and they don't know what he's all about, and they don't care.

HEWITT: And they do not understand the peril in which the world sits right now.

CALLER (Hannah): No. They don't know anything, in fact.

HEWITT: All right, Hannah. That's it. I've got a new book coming out, probably next week or the week thereafter, directed at young Obama voters. And it's a little book -- a little tiny book -- because they don't have much of an attention span, and I'll be telling you about it next week. But the fact of the matter is, they've got to understand this. It's 1933, it's 1938 -- I don't know what it is -- but Jewish boy beaten into coma in Paris. Wow. 1-800-520-1234, we're coming right back on the Hugh Hewitt show.

[...]

HEWITT: Kippah. Kippah's a yarmulke. Did you know that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it sounded appropriate.

HEWITT: Well, I didn't. Did you know that? Kippah?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would guess it was.

HEWITT: I got about 5,000 emails in a nanosecond. My Jewish audience is concerned that I do not know what a kippah is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But they are Internet-savvy.

HEWITT: They are Internet-savvy. I'm sorry. I blame Dr. Jerry for that -- my dentist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is somebody now calling you to tell you that to tell you that, too?

HEWITT: Yes. Now my phone -- it's Leonard. I put it on the microphone, Leonard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he telling you what a kippah is?

HEWITT: He's probably -- I'm sure he is. He's telling me what a kippah is. But their friendly neighborhood goy has no idea that you can have two words for the same thing. You know, why wouldn't the Paris -- why wouldn't the Israel Today newspaper say yarmulke as opposed to kippah? I suppose it's fewer letters, but I digress. I just think people are not aware of what's going on out there. Bill in Phoenix, Hi, Bill.

CALLER (Bill): Yes, hi. How are you doing?

HEWITT: Great. Thank you.

CALLER (Bill): By the way, it's kippah. That's Hebrew.

HEWITT: Oh, now I'm getting hit for the pronunciation!

CALLER (Bill): Well, it -- that's the Hebrew word.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He can't even pronounce English words.

HEWITT: Yeah, I can't even pronounce English words. What do you want from me? OK, go ahead.

CALLER (Bill): That's OK. And anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about the world-wide anti-Semitism. That is never going away, because the Islamic book, the Quran, basically Jew hatred and Christian hatred, and basically anybody who is no Islamic as the interpreter wants them to be. That's why the Sunnis kill the Shiites, the Shiites kill the Sunnis.

HEWITT: Well, I understand that we're never going to get rid of anti-Semitism, and a lot of it's got nothing to do with Quranic verses. A lot of it -- you know, the Nazis weren't Muslim, but a lot of Muslims are anti-Semitic. It's just that, in other eras, when the West is united and strong, it dare not raise its head. It's when the West is weak and uncertain about what it stands for, especially the protection of religious minorities, that it does come out of its underground sewers and breed.

CALLER (Bill): And also, I think a lot of it's related to the weakness that the Israeli government is showing now. When Israel is strong, you don't have the terrorism, but you have such a weak government, the terrorists feel they can get away with it, and look, they have been getting away with it. Look at all the terrorism that comes out of Gaza on a daily basis. Yoni Tidi -- Yoni the blogger talks about it a lot on your show. By the way, I do have a show on the Middle East here in Phoenix on the same affiliate, KKNT.

HEWITT: Oh, well, Bill, what time's it on?

CALLER (Bill): It's on every Sunday at noon here in Arizona. It's on the web at Middle East Radio Forum-dot-org.

HEWITT: Hey, this must be Bill Strauss, then.

CALLER (Bill): No, William Wolf.

HEWITT: Oh, OK, William. Good to talk to you. Thank you, friend. Bye. Genevieve in San Diego. Hi Genevieve.

CALLER (Genevieve): Hi. I just called to tell you I'm a black woman born and raised in Philadelphia, living in Spring Valley, California, right now, and I knew what a kippah was.

HEWITT: Well, you didn't pronounce it right. It's a kippah.

CALLER (Genevieve): It's a kippah, but I knew what a kippah was.

HEWITT: Well, all right. You know, you're ahead of me on that one. You got an advantage, but no need to rub it in. The story stays the same. Frank in L.A. Hi, Frank.

CALLER (Frank): Hey, Hugh. I totally agreed with your monologue at the beginning. My big concern is that John McCain won't say so, vigorously and forcefully, where do we find a Republican conservative spokesperson who the media cannot ignore, who will say the things you said with force and energy, who will show Obama for who he really is, will not let him play these word games. I'm very, very concerned, as you have expressed. Bumy biggest concern is that we do not have a mouthpiece out there who will get the attention of the world.

HEWITT: I think -- I think McCain's getting better. And Frank, listen, did you hear him yesterday on the program?

CALLER (Frank): Part of it, yes.

HEWITT: OK, I'm going to replay it next hour. He's getting better, and I think he understands that this election, if it's going to be won, it's got to be won on the big issues, not on the little ball.

We can't beat Obama at outbidding people. Obama has promised everyone everything, and at an expense that's ridiculous, but he doesn't know what he is doing when it comes to the key issue of our time -- the existential threat to the world. He is a patsy. He is an absolute pushover, and the bad guys know it, and that is why I'm feeling that in the end -- I've got a couple of pessimistic emails here -- I just do believe that this country is not going to vote for appeasement. I just don't think that they are going to go, and say, "Yeah, we'll go with the rookie."

[...]

HEWITT: Jim in Concord, California, calling in with a particularly inane comment. Hi, Jim.

CALLER (Jim): Hi. Here's my inane comment. You said earlier that the -- all the Muslims are killing the Jew in France. Welcome to the new Europe. Remember the --

HEWITT: I didn't say that, Jim. Jim, I didn't say that. I said 15 people surrounded and beat a Jewish youth senseless into a coma, reflecting the rising tide of Islamic extremism in Europe. I was specific and said that, in fact, the vast majority of Muslims are not anti-Semitic. So that's just a correction. Go ahead.

CALLER (Jim): But you did say -- but you did say welcome to the new Europe. Well I just remembered --

HEWITT: Yes, I did.

CALLER (Jim): I remember the old Europe where Christian Italy and Germany slaughtered 6 million Jews.

HEWITT: Hitler was not a Christian. Jim, just stop the nonsense. Hitler was not a Christian. He was a pagan crazy man. He was --

CALLER (Jim): No, he loved -- he loved Christianity. Read Mein Kampf's two chapters on religion. He loved Jesus.

HEWITT: Jim, Jim, OK, what's your proposition? It's all the Christians' fault, right? The Christians are behind this?

CALLER (Jim): Well I'm sorry, one-third of Hitler's army was Catholic, the other --

HEWITT: Yeah, I know Jim, it's all our fault. Anti-Semitism by Islamic extremists that result in the beating death, or the beating coma of a Jewish boy is all about the Christians. You betcha.

That's an Obama supporter. That's an Obama supporter. That's what we're up against. The Obama supporters do not want to look at the world that it is. They want to imagine a world where it's George Bush's fault. It has not got anything to do with the people who are arming Hezbollah to the teeth. It doesn't have to do with Nasrallah's unprovoked attack of thousands of missiles into Israel. It doesn't have anything to do with Hamas going over and blowing up people and sending rockets into southern Israel every single day. It's all the Christianists. That's -- that's the Obama world, and I don't think America is going to vote for an appeaser. That's an appeasement right there. You just heard a class-A appeaser. It's our fault. We did it.

It is just amazing to me. Shane in Colorado Springs. Hi, Shane.

[...]

HEWITT: Sam in Menlo Park. Sam?

CALLER (Sam): Yeah, hi, Hugh. I just want to tell you from the point of view of this Jewish American -- and I think I'm pretty well informed on world Jewish affairs -- the guy who called up and tried to blame Muslim anti-Semitism on Christians is totally nuts.

HEWITT: Yeah, he is. I mean -- but that's an Obama supporter.

CALLER (Sam): Yeah, well that's why I'm not voting for Obama, and I'm working hard to convince other Jewish Americans to vote for McCain. You know, anyone who's tuned in, who's, you know, watching the program that's unfolding understands that Christians -- religious Christians in America are the Jews' best friends, and they are our vital allies in the fight against Islamofascism and rising anti-Semitism.

HEWITT: Absolutely true, but that does not include Obamicons. Thank you for the call.

[...]

HEWITT: Kelly, Colorado Springs. Kelly.

CALLER (Kelly): Hey, Hugh. Want to talk about the Donovan Papers. Wild Bill Donovan was a colonel in the USS, and he set up the CIA. At the end of the Nuremburg Trials, they were going to shred and burn all the documents. They didn't want anything to do with them. He brought them back, and they were recently translated, and Hitler was planning on killing Christians next. There were 14 million people killed in the death camps. Six or seven million were Jews. The rest were Christians, as well as everybody else.

HEWITT: Yeah, they killed -- they killed gays, they killed gypsies, they killed political prisoners. But he wasn't a Christian -- silly Obama people think that stuff. Dale in Medina, Ohio. Hi, Dale.

CALLER (Dale): Hi, Hugh. I heard your earlier clips from Bill Richardson. The Democrats keep rolling out this bit about leases that aren't being drilled on, as if it's the evil oil company's fault, and they really don't want to drill.

HEWITT: Right.

CALLER (Dale): If they really believed in that, what would be the risk in allowing drilling in ANWR?

HEWITT: That's true. Just take the lease --

CALLER (Dale): By their logic, the fuel companies won't drill there.

HEWITT: Good point. Obviously an Ohio man. By the way, I -- I'm still trying to find two tickets to the Ohio State-USC game. And none of the USC people will give up their tickets to me. I'd pay fair price. They -- they know Ohio State's gonna slaughter the Trojans. They know that they're gonna slaughter the Trojans, and therefore they do not want me there at the bloodbath, since it's probably the last football game we'll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama.

I -- I would like to see Ohio State slaughter USC. This is what I'm living for right now. I'm keeping my -- all the bad news, I just focus on the Ohio State upcoming slaughter of USC. So if you are a USC fan willing to sell me two or perhaps even three USC tickets to the Ohio State game, hugh@hughhewitt.com, or if you're a Buckeye fan with those tickets back in Ohio, I'll trade you some Browns tickets. New York Giants, Monday night game? Think about it. Hugh Hewitt Show.

From the June 30 edition of The Hugh Hewitt Show:

HEWITT: So you don't want to have anything to do with Ralph Nader, but other than that, it was a fine time. A good time was had by all, including Arianna trying to get me. And George Stephanopoulos looked like her at -- like she was from Mars. She was reading something from my show, when I did the big, long monologue on the Jewish kid with the kippah, who got beaten up in Paris, and I ended up talking about the Ohio State game, and how we were going to get attacked if Obama won. I had to go to the Ohio State-USC game at USC before, because they're not going to be back here before we ever get attacked again. It's just -- irony is lost on the left completely. Katrina says to me afterwards, you know, irony is out of favor in New York after 9-11, and I -- that's right. Ralph Nader is the walking brownout of American politics -- of green rooms, at least.

[...]

HEWITT: Disagreeing with Karen is Charles in Inglewood. Hi, Charles.

CALLER (Charles): Hi. I thought that you did do a good job, but I thought Arianna and Katrina was better, and I thought Arianna did catch you in a lie. You did say that, 'cause I happened to be listening to your radio at that time, and I thought she was right. She quoted you.

HEWITT: I didn't say -- I didn't say I didn't say it. I said she didn't get the irony.

CALLER (Charles): No.

HEWITT: I said she distorted it.

CALLER (Charles): But how could she distort it? She quoted you --

HEWITT: Because it's --

CALLER (Charles): -- exactly.

HEWITT: How can you distort it? Let me tell you something. If you had listened to a Jon Stewart monologue for 10 minutes, and you take a sentence out of it, are you distorting Jon Stewart?

CALLER (Charles): That's not what she did, though.

HEWITT: That's what -- she took two sentences.

CALLER (Charles): I watched the show, Hugh. She didn't do that. She quoted you. She even --

HEWITT: Charles, she did quote me. I didn't disagree with that. She just doesn't get the irony of talking about USC and Ohio State at the end of a long monologue about getting hit by terrorism. Obviously, neither do you.

CALLER (Charles): But it's not the first time that you have said that. You have -- you do try to push fear-mongering, and it's not working.

HEWITT: Yeah, wait, wait. Charles --

CALLER (Charles): Even the polls say it's not working.

HEWITT: I believe we're going to get hit by terrorists under Barack Obama. I defy anyone to tell me that he is a stronger candidate against terrorism than John McCain.

CALLER (Charles): If John McCain --

HEWITT: The whole country agrees with me, and if you want to call that fear-mongering, I can't stop you. Most of the rest of the country thinks you're insane, though, because everybody knows he's weak on this.

CALLER (Charles): If John McCain wins, we -- it makes no difference who is in the White House.

HEWITT: I know you believe that. You're just wrong. That's why we haven't been attacked since 9-11, and we were attacked on 9-11 because of the consequences of Bill Clinton's fecklessness, and if you go back to fecklessness, we'll get hit again. Now, I know you disagree with me on that --

CALLER (Charles): Because that's not true.

HEWITT: I know. That's your disagreement with me, and I say to the American people, if you don't care about people who don't care about homeland security, go ahead and vote for Barack Obama, and we will, to quote Jeremiah Wright, the chickens will come home to roost.

CALLER (Charles): OK, let me ask you one question then.

HEWITT: Nah, Charles, you're done. You had a good chance. Mark in Dallas -- hi, Mark, you're on The Hugh Hewitt Show.

In a July 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Fox News contributor Karl Rove wrote that Sen. Barack Obama's "ads show he's aware of his vulnerability on two fronts: his liberal values and his meager achievements. Yet he should be more cautious with these weaknesses. His bio ad says he was raised with 'values straight from the Kansas heartland,' though he grew up in Hawaii." However, in the ad, Obama does not in any way suggest that he was raised in Kansas; rather, he explicitly refers to his upbringing by his mother and grandparents, who he notes "grew up" in Kansas. Obama stated: "I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn't have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up" [emphasis added]. Further, Rove wrote that Obama "claims to have passed three bills, but fails to mention that two were in the Illinois state Senate." Yet Obama does not suggest that the bills he references in the ad were passed by the U.S. Senate. To the contrary, the ad displays the dates the bills were passed, which were both well before Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate.

In Obama's bio ad, "The Country I Love," Obama states of his mother and grandparents:

OBAMA: I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn't have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated. It's what guided me as I worked my way up, taking jobs and loans to make it through college.

A Kansas City Star article stated that Obama's "maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, attended El Dorado high school [in El Dorado, Kansas] and married the candidate's grandmother, Madelyn Payne, a young woman from nearby Augusta, in the 1930s. Dunham would go on to serve in World War II while his wife worked on a defense assembly line. She gave birth to Obama's mother at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. They later moved to Hawaii, where their daughter would marry Kenyan Barack Obama Sr. -- who lead a largely absentee life in the future presidential candidate's upbringing."

While Rove wrote that Obama "claims to have passed three bills, but fails to mention that two were in the Illinois state Senate," on-screen text in the ad indicates that he helped pass those bills well before he joined the U.S. Senate in January 2005. In 1997, Obama was a main co-sponsor of the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (Illinois Public Act 90-0017). Text in Obama's ad states that he "Moved people from welfare to work." Underneath those words read the date "6/19/97." Additionally, Obama co-sponsored a bill that created the Illinois state earned income tax credit program for low-income individuals and families (Illinois Public Act 91-0700). Text in the ad states that Obama "cut taxes for working families." Underneath those words read the date "5/11/00."

From the ad:

From Rove's July 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed:

But early television may not be as smart as it appears. Is it wise for Mr. Obama to spend almost as much on ads in three weeks in July as he raised in May? His fund raising peaked in February. June's fund-raising numbers, due in mid-July, will show whether his current pace of spending can be sustained. And TV becomes less effective in a general election, since so much free media attention is focused on the presidential candidates, whose actions have a larger impact than ads.

Mr. Obama's ads show he's aware of his vulnerability on two fronts: his liberal values and his meager achievements. Yet he should be more cautious with these weaknesses. His bio ad says he was raised with "values straight from the Kansas heartland," though he grew up in Hawaii. He claims to have passed three bills, but fails to mention that two were in the Illinois state Senate and that he didn't vote on the third in the U.S. Senate. His new ad praises welfare reform, yet he opposed the legislation when a Republican Congress passed and President Clinton signed it.

Mr. Obama may be overreaching by running ads in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota -- states Republicans won by comfortable margins in recent years. It would require a shift of between one-sixth and over one-quarter of the vote to win any of them. Shifts that large rarely happen.

On the July 2 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Rush Limbaugh asserted that troops returning from Iraq "will not receive anything from the Democrat [sic] Party along the likes of 'Job well done. We're proud of you.' And this is highly distressing. Not only will Democrats not say, nor leftists, say to any returning troops from Iraq, 'Good job. Job well done. We honor your service.' No, they did just the opposite. They sought to secure defeat of the U.S. military in Iraq."

In fact, many Senate Democrats recently honored the service of U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in floor statements supporting the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007, a bill to expand education benefits to veterans that was introduced by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), provisions of which were incorporated into the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008, which was passed by Congress and subsequently signed by President Bush:

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) stated: "Democrats are committed to honoring troops in deeds and not just words. This call should be a cause for all of us. Passing this new GI bill will send that message loud and clear."

• Sen. Barack Obama also stated: "We have asked so much of our brave young men and women. We have sent them on tour after tour of duty to Iraq and Afghanistan. They have risked their lives and left their families and served this country brilliantly. It is our moral duty as Americans to serve them as well as they have served us. This GI bill is an important way to do that."

• Sen. Hillary Clinton stated: "I rise to support strongly the GI bill that has been proposed in the Senate. I thank Senator Webb for his hard work on this bipartisan legislation, as well as Senator [Frank] Lautenberg [D-NJ] , Senator [John] Warner [R-VA], and Senator [Chuck] Hagel [R-NE] -- each one a veteran who understands, deeply and personally, the importance of honoring the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. ... It is time we started acting as Americans again. We are all in this together. Let's send this legislation to the President and let's serve the men and women who served us.

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (CA) stated: "I am a strong supporter of our troops in the field. They have done a tremendous job under difficult circumstances."

• Sen. John Kerry (MA) stated: "All of us -- and I would underscore, all of us -- are incredibly grateful for the remarkable sacrifices our troops have made in Iraq. They have done whatever we have asked of them, and they have served brilliantly."

In addition, during a June 30 speech in Independence, Missouri, Obama said that "the sacrifice of our troops is always worthy of honor":

OBAMA: For those who fought under the flag of this nation -- for the young veterans like Vince, the young veterans I meet when I visit Walter Reed; for those like [Sen.] John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country -- no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. Let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters of both sides. We must always express our profound gratitude for the service of our men and women in uniform. Period. Full stop. Indeed, one of the good things to emerge from the current conflict in Iraq has been the widespread recognition that whether you support this war or oppose it, the sacrifice of our troops is always worthy of honor.

In the speech, Obama also called the "fail[ure] to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day."

Additionally, in a May 12 speech in Charleston, West Virginia, Obama said that our troops "deserve our admiration, respect and enduring gratitude" and stated: "It's time to honor the full measure of sacrifice of our troops, and to prepare for the cost of their care." From the speech:

OBAMA: One of the saddest episodes in our history was the degree to which returning vets from Vietnam were shunned, demonized, and neglected by some because they served in an unpopular war. Too many of those who opposed the war in Vietnam chose to blame not only the leaders who ordered the mission, but the young men who simply answered their country's call. Four decades later, the sting of that injustice is a wound that has never fully healed, and one that should never be repeated.

The young men and women who choose to serve and are defending the very rights and freedoms that allow Americans to speak out against government actions we oppose, they deserve our admiration. They deserve our respect. They deserve our enduring gratitude.

Now, at the same time, we must never forget that honoring this service and upholding these ideals requires more than saluting our veterans as they march by on Veterans Day or Memorial Day. It requires marching with them for the care and benefits they have earned. It requires standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our veterans and their families after the guns fall silent and the cameras are turned off. At a time when we're facing the largest homecoming since the Second World War, the true test of our patriotism is whether we will serve our returning heroes as well as they've served us.

[...]

OBAMA: There is so much more that we need to do in this country. It starts with being honest about the sacrifices that our brave men and women are making. For years, this administration has refused to count all of our casualties in uniform. In Iraq alone, tens of thousands of troops who were injured or fell ill have not been counted in our casualty numbers, going against the military's own tradition from past wars. It's time to stop hiding the full cost of this war. It is time to honor the full measure of sacrifice of our troops, and to prepare for the cost of their care.

Obama and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced the Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act of 2007, legislation "aimed at ensuring injured soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan receive the care they deserve," after The Washington Post exposed poor conditions for wounded service members at Walter Reed Army Hospital in 2007. Obama said of the measure: "Caring for our returning heroes is one of the things we can still get right about this war, and that's why the deterioration of the conditions at Walter Reed is both appalling and unacceptable," He continued: "The brave men and women wounded at war should receive the best we have to offer and the highest quality of care, and that's why this legislation would cu