I've been hearing many Republican incumbents in Congress recently claim that the Democratic gains in 2006 is to blame for high gas prices. I did a little digging, and while the makeup of Congress has had little to do with the price of oil, the guy in the oval office does.

The Department of Defense announced five casualties today: four in  Afghanistan and one in Iraq. So far, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, has claimed 578 American lives and according to the Iraq Casualty Count, there have been 4145 killed in Iraq. 109 were women.  

The DoD classifies deaths in combat as hostile or non-hostile.  There have been 18 casualties: 8 hostile and 10 non-hostile so far in August.  Families of the fallen often dispute the findings of non-hostile with the DoD and for good reason.  Vehicle accidents, electrocutions, domestic violence and suicides are some of those classified as non-hostile.  The reality is they served our country and died in a far away place. Their sacrifice is just as heroic and shall not be diminished or forgotten.  

This isn't much of a diary, but I'm puzzled as to why the "Warmonger" meme hasn't yet appeared in an attack ad against McCain.

With all the recent handwringing over Obama's falling poll numbers, I still have confidence that we will prevail in November.  I have to admit, though, that I am relieved by the "Seven" ad and the ad linking McCain to Abramhof.  It demonstrates Obama's willingness to hit back hard with the truth.

You know, if John McCain and the rest of the GOP could manage to see past the end of their noses once in awhile, and not be so obsessed with putting profit over everything else -- including human life and decency -- they would realize that without the benefit of foresight success in anything will always be fleeting.

But hell; nobody expected John McCain to see something like this coming. How could he? After all, the surge is working, right? The surge is responsible for all the progress; all the feel-good success stories bursting out like daffodils all over the Iraqi countryside. And, the success of the surge will carry John McCain all the way to the White House... right?

McCain never really knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites anyway so naturally he failed to see this coming.

This is the words of Reporter Dexter Filkins from today's article, the paragraph continuing as follows:

The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now: violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures the general provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq — 13 — than in any month since the war began.

You remember how McCain was saying that all of his questioning of Obama's motives in ending the Iraq war wasn't questioning his patriotism, but instead his JUDGMENT? Well Obama saw through that BS. Sounds to me like Obama's gloves have also come off on Iraq. First Obama called him the liar that he is.

On Thursday, Obama took umbrage with this interpretation of events. "I expect [John McCain] to show me the same courtesy that I showed him," said the presumptive Democratic nominee. "Then yesterday he tried to say he wasn't challenging my patriotism, he was challenging my judgment. What does it say when you say someone would rather lose a war than lose an election? Of course he was challenging my patriotism."

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere; I scanned the recent diary list and the front page but didn't see anything about it. According to Le Monde (linked article is in French; I haven't yet seen it on an English-language site), the secretary of state, on a surprise visit to Iraq, announced that negotiators were "very close" to a SOFA deal that, according to an anonymous military source, might be announced tomorrow. According to the same anonymous source, the agreement calls for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq beginning in June 2009.

The pain is still raw.  The anger is still palpable.  And the disappointment is still so very real.

Yet, it is long past time for us Clinton supporters to put the Primary behind us and start taking this election more seriously.  

An interesting news article can be found on the BBC News website (actually many can, but that's outside the scope of this diary) noting that a Deal on US troops in Iraq 'close'.

However, From what Condoleeza Rice says in the article, the President will have to repudiate the article:

In a joint news conference, Mr Zebari and Ms Rice said they had agreed timetables should be set for a withdrawal, adding that a framework was close, but not final yet.

"We have agreed that some goals, some aspirational timetables for how that might unfold, are well worth having in [the Status of Forces Agreement]," Ms Rice said, after meeting with Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

  One thing most pundits agree on is McCain has made inroads in the polls partly because he has siezed the initiative on energy policy and national security, recent polls are now even showing McCain catching up on economic issues.

 If this trend continues we can say hello to 4 (8?) years of President John McSame which should be good only for the "usual suspects"

I haven't found this diaried yet and plan on updating throughout the day, so tell me if I'm wrong so I can delete this.

HuffPost via the AP is reporting our obstinate, stubborn, pathetic White House has finally agreed to what We the People (both here and in Iraq) have been demanding for years.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Iraqi leaders Thursday to agree quickly to a U.S.-Iraq security deal that outlines the withdrawal of American troops.

per APNews

Iraqi and American officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday that negotiators had completed a draft agreement that extends the legal basis for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the end of this year, while calling for them to move out of Iraqi cities as soon as June 30.

Remember this?  Presnit-wit Bush and all his neo-con buddies saying over, and over, and over and over, and, you get the picture...  
"When the Iraqi's can stand up, we will stand down.  There will be no timetables!"

If I heard that once from someone in the Bush Administration or their "media" contingent, I heard it five thousand times.  So, what happens when the Iraqi's stand UP faster than Bushie and the boyz want them to?  Bushie continues to try to stand ON them to keep them down.

Good stuff (well, horrible, scary stuff really, since our troops are still in the middle of it, but good reporting nonetheless-

Key U.S. Iraq strategy in danger of collapse

A sample, Courtesy of McClatchy

So Bush is about to "cut and run":

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the date by which all remaining U.S. troops will leave Iraq...

Teams of American and Iraqi negotiators spent months haggling over the deal, which represents a remarkable turnaround from just a few months ago, when talk of timetables and deadlines was routinely dismissed by the Bush administration and other Republicans in Washington...

President George W. Bush is almost certain to accept the agreement, according to U.S. officials. The administration believes that the deal doesn't require congressional approval and won't present it to U.S. lawmakers.

The war is real, the ultimate reality show, and we don't get to watch it, because we forgot to create checks and balances on the cooption of the fourth estate, because in the days of the framers we didn't have journalism, we had a half-crazy nudist vegetarian with a printing press and illegitimate children all over the place. Fast-forward a few centuries, and you have a war that's been going on since my college graduate sister was in junior high, without a single body on TV, because reporters can't ask or tell about the war, or else they won't get access to anything else. You've got Evan Wright, for whom this enterprise is a career-maker, and... that's about it. Half the guys in the original article got discharged for talking about real shit. But there's the filter of memory, and then the next filter, of Evan Wright telling about this. And then the filter of words on paper, into a book, which is taken and filtered through the dramatic sensibility into a TV show whose only mandate is to match up to the original Xerox as well as possible. From all accounts, it feels the same even if the facts are different, which is the only important thing if you're the original article, the book, the script, or the performance of the show itself.

The Wall Street Journal is just reporting on their site, that negotiators for the Iraqi government and the US have come to a draft agreement on troop withdrawals.  

Kevin Drum has the breaking news from the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the date by which all remaining U.S. troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter.

...."The talking is done," one U.S. official said late Wednesday night. "Now the decision makers choose whether to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down."

....U.S. President George W. Bush is almost certain to accept the agreement, according to U.S. officials. The administration believes that the deal doesn't require congressional approval and won't present it to U.S. lawmakers.