By Matt Towery (7/24/08) The media already have gone over the top with their coverage of Sen. Barack Obama's international man-of-mystery tour.

Sen. Barack Obama is traveling to vital foreign-policy hotspots as part of a Congressional delegation, including Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), but there is no missing the relevance of his tour of Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel, among other places, to his preparation on foreign policy matters and his labors as a presidential candidate. The media are covering it as if it were both a spectacular and ongoing campaign event and a foreshadowing of what Pres. Obama might look like when meeting with foreign leaders.
Is this a precedent that could change the way presidential campaigns are planned and waged? For decades, the issue of whether or not “America

By Iain Martin Even if it is not quite the second coming - this is at least his third visit - Barack Obama's arrival on these shores will be regarded by his Anglo-supporters as a quasi-spiritual event.
While he may not be our saviour, he is promising to make the world we share with the US a safer place, and to behave in an exciting fashion on our television screens.
he is. And how could he be? It is said that we live in an age of super cynicism, of knowing, consumerist scepticism about the powerful and the promises they make, but still there are suckers when the zeitgeist candidate invokes the H word, or the "audacity of hope" as Obama puts it.

By Alan Caruba It is an old adage. Do not send a boy to do a man’s work. That appears to be what a lot of Americans intend to do when they vote for Barrack

How Much Does John McCain Really Know About Foreign Policy?Not as much as he'd like you to think.
By Fred Kaplan
t the others, though? Were they gaffes—slips of the tongue, blips of momentary fatigue? Or did they reflect lazy thinking, conceptual confusion, a mind frame clouded by clichéd abstractions?

by Jane Stillwater Page 1 of 1 - I figure that with Afghanistan getting all the top news focused on it these days, all those crowds of TV crews and MSM journalists that follow the action will be hanging around Bagram and Kabul right now, and so if I go over to Baghdad instead, I will have the entire Combined Press Information Center in the Green Zone all to myself. Plus if I went over to Iraq right now, I could send some more accurate dispatches back to poor sweet be-nighted John McCain, who needs all the help he can get.
"Dear John," I would write, "you've got it all wrong. That's happening over here in Iraq right now isn't just an old-school type of 'war' that American

by Kevin Tripp/KTAR As Barack Obama tours the Middle East, one of his chief supporters at home is downplaying critics who say the Democratic presidential

by Ed Ciaccio On Friday, July 25, 2008, the House Judiciary committee will finally hold a hearing about George W. Bush's excessive abuses and

By MARTIN SIEFF At the same time, the Democrats in the US Congress are preparing to back down on their fierce opposition to offshore drilling for oil.

By Peter Meinke GREAT SHOW! Like classical dancers in a seemingly endless competition, Hillary and Obama posed and pirouetted around each other,

By Andrew Gray - Analysis WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain and President George W. Bush all agree on one thing -- more U.S. troops should go to Afghanistan. But would they make much difference?
Many experts believe a boost in combat troops would help check worsening insurgent violence. Some are not convinced more troops are the answer and all believe that the problems facing Afghanistan require much more than military solutions.
to Afghanistan.

Editor - When the major networks choose to treat Sen. Barack Obama as if he has already been elected president by sending their top reporters to cover his trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, but did nothing like that for Sen. John McCain or anyone else, they showed contempt for our whole political system.
I hope that if Sen. McCain is elected president, he will let these network people know it's their turn to be at the back of the bus and give them no special treatment at all, including any kind of interview.
tinction puzzle. Agricultural, development and forestry practices all have significant impacts on the health of salmon habitat.

by Shushannah Walshe Senator John McCain campaigned in Maine today beginning with a private fundraiser with Kennebunkport resident Former President George

John McCain brought his campaign to Maine today, picking up the blessing of former President George H.W. Bush, blasting Democratic rival Barack Obama on the war in Iraq, and pressing his case on energy policy.
At the family compound in Kennebunkport this morning, the first president Bush said of McCain, "My respect for him knows no bounds."
e been steadfast in my position."