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After meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, came before the microphones... SNIP But the Pentagon said that wasn't true, that Obama was more than welcome to come, it was just that he couldn't bring the media or campaign staff. So here's what Obama said about it all: "The staff was working this so I don’t know each and every detail but here is what I understand happened," Obama said. "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we...

Blackfive posted this email yesterday and has another supporting account (added below in an update) from another member of the military who was also present during Obama's carefully scripted P.R. World Tour. I think you should read it. Hello everyone, As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to "The War Zone". I wanted to share with you what happened. He got off the plan[sic] and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet...

As the US Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama has drawn wide attention in the United States and elsewhere in the world from his first-ever overseas tour. During his ongoing trip, he has not been taken as an ordinary US Senator in a "routine" visit but is treated as a promising presidential hopeful. Special coverages filed by his accompanying reporters from mainstream US media organs on the great, high-profile reception he was accorded amid tight security arranged by the Afghanistan government is just an indisputable proof. Why should Senator Obama, who is now so busy and engrossed with his presidential race,...

A dozen top foreign policy advisers are either traveling with Obama or doing groundwork ahead of his arrival in each country. This group is supplemented by his usual contingent of almost a dozen traveling aides, including chief campaign strategist David Axelrod and communications director Robert Gibbs, and too many advance staff to count. With layers of Secret Service agents, they zipped through Amman Tuesday in a motorcade of 20 vehicles. The mix of policy and political advisers reflects the split dimension of the senator’s tour through Europe and the Middle East: Even as his closest aides insist that the trip...

When American conservatives talk derisively of "Barack Hussein Obama," both Muslim and Christian Arabs think not of Obama's political weakness, but that anti-Arab racism is alive and well in some corners of the American political discourse. 'One Of Us' Said says there is a deep-rooted sentiment here that this son of a black Muslim father and a white Christian mother "gets it" when it comes to racial and religious hatred — and that alone makes many people here eager to see him in the White House. "This 'one of us' mythology can be the man of the poor worldwide, can...

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is saluted as he steps off an osprey upon arriving at Marka Airport in Amman, Jordan, July 22, 2008.

Obama Shows Hawkish Side On Mideast Trip July 22, 2008 (CBS) This story was written by CBSNews.com political reporter Brian Montopoli.Not long after he touched down at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on Saturday, Barack Obama posed for pictures with three American officials, a pair of military men in uniform, and one rather imposing statue of a bald eagle. It was an ideal photo opportunity for a candidate looking to convince skeptics of his patriotism - just 37 percent of voters identified Obama as "very patriotic" in a recent CBS News/New York Times poll - and his toughness when it...

The Bush administration plans to announce next week that U.S. soldiers' combat tours will be reduced from 15 months to 12 months in Iraq and Afghanistan beginning later this summer, The Associated Press has learned. The decision, expected to get final, formal approval in the days ahead, comes as Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, prepares to deliver a progress report to Congress next week on the improved security situation there. He is also expected to make recommendations for future troop levels. A senior administration official said Friday that plans are to deploy soldiers for 12 months,...

If John Kerry had been elected President of the United States in November 2004, especially with the incoming majority Democrat Congress, it is highly likely that Iraq would be in the midst of a civil war, Iran’s regional influence would have increased, Israel would be in more jeopardy than it is now, two Supreme Court seats would be occupied by clones of John Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg instead of by John Roberts and Samuel Alito, judicial decisions would have given even more “rights” to enemy combatants, domestic entitlements and earmarks would have skyrocketed, the Bush tax cuts would be...

On Sunday, October 17 at 6:00 pm and at 11:45 pm ET -------------------------------------------------------- Interview with Douglas Brinkley, Author of "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" followed by segment featuring John O'Neill, author of "Unfit for Command" Description: Douglas Brinkley talks about how he came to write "Tour of Duty," the research he conducted for the book, and the criticism he has received from groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The interview is followed by a talk given by John O'Neill, co-author of "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry."

http://www.c-span.org/ Brinkley Interview Tonight C-SPAN interviews Douglas Brinkley, author of "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War." Prof. Brinkley talks about how he came to write the book, the controversy surrounding John Kerry's Vietnam service, Sen. Kerry's run for the presidency, and much more.

* * * * Advance Praise for Tour of Duty * * * * "Doug Brinkley succeeds in humanizing John Kerry, something the senator often has trouble doing himself. Tour of Duty is an incisive look at a man who would be president." --Bill O'Reilly Pub date January 6, 2004

Friday, September 03, 2004 Kerry apparently signed Form 180 for Brinkley — thereby waiving confidentiality — but Brinkley is cooperating in the cover-up I had always assumed that Sen. Kerry had himself provided his biographer Douglas Brinkley with Kerry's official military records that were already in Sen. Kerry's hands. But in reviewing Brinkley's citations and references for ToD, I came upon this statement at page 520 of his "Acknowledgements" section (boldface mine): Also with Kerry's permission, I obtained his Navy records and have used them as a reliable source. I don't know any other way to interpret this than to...

I had to do a double take when I thought I heard an ad where Kerry states that he served 2 tours in Vietnam and I thought "how could that be?" He compared his 2 tours in Vietnam to W's service in the National Guard and Cheney's 5 deferments. Someone please provide the formula that turns 1/2 a tour into 2 full tours. Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

HISTORY BEING GLIMPSED IN A NEW MOVIE HIGHLIGHTS WAR PROTESTS By JOSH GERSTEIN Staff Reporter of the Sun SILVER SPRING, Md. — A new documentary about Senator Kerry of Massachusetts may shed light on how he helped push opponents of the Vietnam War toward dramatic protests in the early 1970s. Audience members at a film festival yesterday here were treated to the first glimpse of the Kerry movie, which documentarian George Butler said he plans to complete by Labor Day. In the clip, Mr. Kerry, a prominent leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, described how he learned what to...

    This book is bull!, August 30, 2004 Reviewer:   Philip W. Carter "Gridley Sailor" (Slingerlands, NY) - See all my reviews    I never got past the chapters of Kerry's experiences on the USS GRIDLEY. Since I served with him the entire year, I can assure readers that it is filled with exaggeration and fantasy. Kerry makes himself out to be Master and Commander when he was just a goofy boot Ensign. There are a number of things that are just plain not true and lots of exaggeration. It is not a serious work but clearly a...

Tuesday, August 31, 2004 Brinkley had in-hand the Belodeau Eulogy, but ignored it in telling the Rassmann rescue story My regard for Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley as an historian has dropped to a new low. I've discovered that Brinkley must have had in his hands — and ignored — an unimpeachable source in which John Kerry told a version of the Jim Rassmann rescue that is completely, mutually inconsistent with the version which Kerry has related, and Brinkley himself has repeated, everywhere else. In reading his book Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, I've mostly marvelled at...

Another John Kerry excuse for refusing to release some of his Viet Nam records has just taken a direct hit. And this one comes from his “official” biographer Douglas Brinkley, author of the fawning 546-page pro-Kerry tome “Tour of Duty.” The book jacket claims, “Tour of Duty" is the definitive account of John Kerry's journey from war to peace.”

Here's how "presidential historian" Douglas Brinkley figures it: Various factual inaccuracies and contradictions in Tour of Duty, his famously sycophantic biography of John Kerry, are frequently cited by opponents of Kerry's presidential campaign. On the other hand, the sycophantic parts of the book are just as frequently cited by Kerry's friends. In other words, both parties find his work useful. And what better proof of his academic objectivity and integrity could there be than that? So, nah, Brinkley's "not worried" about appearing biased, he tells the New Orleans Times-Picayune in a "wide-ranging interview in the soaring lobby of his Uptown...

Local author caught in the crossfire Kerry book becomes ammo for both sides When the time comes to write the history of this year's presidential campaign, how will presidential historian Douglas Brinkley be portrayed? In recent weeks, the University of New Orleans scholar has emerged as a central figure in the highly partisan debate about Democratic candidate John Kerry's actions in combat during the Vietnam War. Brinkley's writings about Kerry -- in particular his biography "Tour of Duty," which was made with Kerry's cooperation -- have been cited by both the senator's opponents and supporters. In a wide-ranging interview in...