Couric Interview

Not sure what Katie is trying to accomplish in her recent interview of Barack Obama, other than create some attention out of vanity. Katie commented that "people are scratching their heads about your opposition to the surge." Who the "people" are is not clarified. Couric belabored the point, even when Obama restated his point that he believes our actions in over the past 18 months in Iraq contributed to a reduction in violence, asking the questions 3 different times. Obama's point that our actions have limited bearing on an overall strategy in Iraq made in the interview, were largely overshadowed by the repeated surge question by Couric.

Restated another way by Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post, here is the success of the surge in the contextr of an overall strategy rife with broken promises and goals:

"Even if we could cast the "Surge" as an unqualified success, the overall strategy has netted America four major failures. And within the larger context of a failure to find WMDs, a failure to improve America's security, a failure to thwart or even impede al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11, and a failure to prevent malign regional forces like Iran and Hezbollah from increasing their regional influence, the "Surge" is entirely without relevance - a fourth quarter field goal when you're down four touchdowns."

Doesn't sound so successful... Now I'm not belittling the work any of our troops have done - I commend them especially in this. But looked at in the spectrum of a broader set of problems, the surge is a small victory in an ongoing battle - a battle in which we are fighting alone without the help of other countries with no foreseeable end. And as the intensity heats back up in Afghanistan, it seems apparent that the focus of Al Quada has moved away from Iraq.

On another note, amid all of the coverage of Obama's overseas trip, CBS recently aired an interview with McCain by Couric. In the interview, McCain, in talking about Obama's lack of understanding of foriegn affairs & strategy, stated that the Surge was responsible for the Anbar Awakening, where a major Sunni religious/military tribe switched allegiences to the US (temporarily). Only problem is, this was months before the surge was even announced, and long before troop levels were increased. A major misstatement about the turn of events in Iraq. What is much more interesting, however, is that this misstep wound up on the editing room floor at CBS... There's your liberal media bias... hey, wait a minute... Oh - and this was a week after McCain had twice referred to current events in "Czechoslavakia", which has not been a country in over a decade.

One last note - Bush has blocked the attending of the Obama rally in Germany by any US foreign officials. That's great stuff, huh?

Next up: Obama's overall foreign policy