Can it be true that the media now don't have Sarah Palin to kick around? At least not Governor Palin. She's officially outta there. Some of her final tweets were ridiculous.

Last state twitter. Thank you Alaska! I love you. God bless Alaska....

So it's, I love you, but it's best that I leave you. That's just like a bad break-up. ("It's not you, Alaska, the problem is me....") And there was this one:

W/ kids in camper...AK is BIG/WILD/GOOD LIFE;feel freedom here

As if Palin had gone Kerouac or Merry Prankster: drop out, work is for suckers.

In any event, it seems doubtful Plain will really be gone--as in silent. As she writes--or oversees the ghostwriting of--her book, she'll certainly make various pronouncements that can fuel cable chat about her and her possible presidential ambitions. She might campaign for GOP candidates, if she can find one or two who will accept her assistance.

I wonder if she will continue to be an anti-media crusader. Bashing the elite press used to have a lot of salience with the world of conservatives and Republicans. Jesse Helms went after CBS News (and Dan Rather) for years. These days, though, the elite media just ain't what they used to be. Can anyone argue with a straight face that the United States will lose the war in Afghanistan because of how CBS reports on the war? (Much of the conservative case against the media in the 1970s and 1980s flowed from the notion that the lilly-liver liberals in the media undermined the US military effort in Vietnam.) But suggesting today that CBS News's reports on Afghanistan will affect the outcome would probably get you laughs in most quarters. (Sorry, Walter Cronkite. RIP.)

The big media has lost power and influence, and it's not the foil it once was. Palin's anti-media rants will win over those conservatives who believe that Fox News is the only accurate depiction of reality. There are millions who fall into this category, but it's not an expanding slice of the population. And it's not likely sizeable enough to support a national political effort.

Meanwhile, there surely are Paliniacs who will stand by her. Look at this message put out by TeamSarah.org:

"Sarah Palin has always been an intensely independent woman-- always true to her faith, her family and call to public service. She has provided women with a new political role model, offering a positive example of grace and poise as she deflected the barrage of baseless personal attacks on her family," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Her entrance onto the public stage has attracted massive numbers of Americans new to the political process. We have every confidence she will have an equal and profound impact in whatever projects she undertakes as a private citizen."

True to her "call to public service." Didn't she just bail on public service? The statement continues:

"Team Sarah members anxiously await Palin's next decision on how she believes she can best serve our nation. Governor Sarah Palin is the real deal. She is smart; she is articulate; she is strong; she is compassionate and she walks the talk. I believe the ongoing personal attacks on both Governor Palin and her family indicate that she remains a real threat to the liberal feminist political establishment," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Jane Abraham. "Despite the criticism, Governor Palin's success will endure. Team Sarah's thousands of members remain as engaged as ever on TeamSarah.org. The Governor has inspired millions, and her audience of enthusiastic support will only grow in the future."

Yes, when the economy is on its knees, the climate is changing, two wars are waging, and the health care system is sick, the most important job for Palin is to destroy "the liberal feminist political establishment." If Palin plays to this political crowd, she'll make a ton of money--books, speeches, the like--but her political career will be deader than it is at the moment.

*****
THE COWBOYS OF KABUL. Reporter Dan Schulman, my colleague at Mother Jones, has a kick-ass story out about two Texan grandparents who went from bankruptcy to raking in millions as contractors in Afghanistan. There was one little problem, though. According to the US government, they did so by fraud, using phony receipts and ghost employees. This is a twisted tale (and a solid piece of journalism) detailing a vivid example of what can happen in the Wild West bonanza of private contracting in Afghanistan. Read it here

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It's time for a new episode of the PinkerCorn show on Bloggingheads.tv. Jim Pinkerton and I discussed President Barack Obama's recent news conference and the prospects for health care reform. When Pinkerton claimed that average Americans are growing skeptical of Obama, I accused him of projecting. We also gabbed about two matters that did not come up at that press conference: the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. Since the Afghanistan war quickly became "the other war" after George W. Bush invaded Iraq, I opined, it remains insufficiently covered by the media, even though thisis an expanding conflict. (The monthly death toll of US and NATO soldiers is up in Afghanistan.) But you can hear and watch for yourself:

 

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Good news and bad from Pakistan. A new poll shows that 81 percent of Pakistanis now believe that the Taliban and "Islamist militants" (what we call al Qaeda) pose a "critical threat" to Pakistan. This is up from only 34 percent in September 2007. And it means that the Pakistani government could have more leeway to deal with the Taliban and al Qaeda militants within its borders. But there's a but. A large majority of Pakistanis--69 percent--have an unfavorable view of the United States, even after the election of Barack Obama.

From WorldPublicOpinion.org, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland:

"A sea change has occurred in Pakistani public opinion. The tactics and undemocratic bent of militant groups--in tribal areas as well as Swat--have brought widespread revulsion and turned Pakistanis against them," comments Clay Ramsay, research director. However, he adds: "It's crucial to understand that the US is resented just as much as before, despite the US having a new president."

So if the Pakistani government moves boldly against the Taliban and other militants, it could have the support of a majority of Pakistanis behind it. Yet if the Pakistani government is seen to be doing the bidding of the United States, those actions could upset many, if not most, Pakistanis:

Eighty-eight percent think it is a US goal to weaken and divide the Islamic world (78% definitely a goal). The US Predator drone attacks aimed at militant camps within the Pakistani border are rejected by 82 percent as unjustified. On the war in Afghanistan, 72 percent disapprove of the NATO mission and 79 percent want it ended now; 86 percent think most Afghans want the mission ended as well.

According to this poll, they still really don't like us, and there's been no "Obama effect." The bottom line is a pretty obvious one: getting Pakistan right is a tough task for the Obama administration. The same, of course, is true for Afghanistan--especially now that President Hamid Karzai's campaign reelection is based partly on his criticisms of the US presence in Afghanistan. (He recently accused US forces of protecting security guards who killed several Afghan security officers during a gun battle.)

But this poll does show that in Pakistan there is potential for developing pubic support for government actions that would be in sync with US aims for AfPak-land. Let's hope that Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke and others are pondering how best to take advantage of this shift in public attitudes.

The Democrats are planning something other than cook-outs for the Fourth of July. From Politico:

Democrats plan a July 4th ad campaign to punish House Republicans who voted against the $100-plus billion Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental - emulating GOP attacks against John Kerry and other Dems who voted against Bush war bills.

A series of 60-second radio ads will run during drive time from July 1 through July 8, according to a script provided to POLITICO -- and they have the support-our-troops ring of GOP spots.

They'll target seven Republicans seen as vulnerable in '10, including Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Charlie Dent (R-Penn.), Jim Gerlach (R-Penn.), Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), Mike McCaul (R-TX), Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Joe Wilson (R-SC).

This will be an interesting test case, for one important political question these days is, does anyone give a damn about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

At the presidential news conference earlier this week, not a single reporter asked President Barack Obama about either war. This week there's been a series of deadly bombings in Iraq, killing about 200 people--as US forces prepare to withdraw from Iraqi cities. This horrific violence has received little media attention in the United States. And when was the last time you saw a full report on the war in Afghanistan on television? There's an important presidential campaign under way in Afghanistan. Its outcome could have a big impact on the US war effort there. Yet, it registers barely a blip on the US media landscape. (At Mother Jones, we post a daily "We're Still at War Photo of the Day.")

So can Democrats score points by whacking Republicans in Rove-ian fashion for "not supporting the troops"? Unfortunately, I don't have much time to ponder this; a report on Michael Jackson's autopsy is coming up after the next commercial.

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President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo on relations between the West and the Muslim world was a tour de force. Watch it; read it. (My colleague Nick Baumann lists the nine hard truths in the speech.) But this episode is a reminder that a speech is composed of two elements: the words and the person delivering them. Look at this portion of the address:

Now, make no mistake:  We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan.  We see no military -- we seek no military bases there.  It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women.  It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict.  We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.  But that is not yet the case.

...Today, America has a dual responsibility:  to help Iraq forge a better future -- and to leave Iraq to Iraqis.  And I have made it clear to the Iraqi people -- (applause) -- I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources

It is not hard to imagine George W. Bush, as president, saying those same words. Yet millions of people at home and abroad would not have believed his claim to have no interest in sustaining a US military presence in Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else. Why? Well, if you don't know, you slept through the first eight years of this century. The fine words that Bush did frequently speak about promoting democracy abroad and protecting the world from tyrants and terrorists were undermined by his misrepresentations of the actual threats (see WMDs in Iraq) and his actions (see rushing to war in Iraq when the UN weapons inspections process was under way and working).

Obama has no such baggage. More important, he is willing to acknowledge US errors:

I've been on the run today. But I've also been busy myth-busting.

In recent days, there has been a round of Ronald Reagan praising that's come from...Democrats. Yes, Democrats--including President Barack Obama. So I thought a remedial lesson was necessary. Here it is.

Also, yesterday Lt. General Stanley McChrystal, whom Obama has picked to head US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate armed services committee for a confirmation hearing. For years, he was in charge of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, which in 2006 found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda in Iraq leader. And McChrystal comes across as a bright and confident commander. He seems competent. He has been widely praised. At the hearing, he frankly acknowledged that two key problems in Afghanistan have been civilian casualties caused by US troops and rampant corruption.

But McChrystal has some baggage. He ran JSOC when one of its units in Iraq was involved in abusive treatment of detainees at a secret base outside Baghdad called Camp Nama. (See here and here for graphic details.) Senator Carl Levin, the committee chair, did ask McChrystal about abusive treatment of prisoners, and McChrystal declared that he did not condone it. But neither Levin nor any of the other committee members asked McChrystal specifically about Camp Nama and reports that McChrystal visited the site.

This was a stunning omission. Clearly, the hearing had been orchestrated--so McChrystal would have the chance to condemn abusive treatment but not have to answer any tough questions about actual acts of abuse that happened under his command. Levin and the other senators wanted him confirmed without a fuss (perhaps because Gen. David Petraeus, whom everyone on Capitol Hill adores, wants McChrystal in this post). In any event, it was a low moment in confirmation hearings. The senators should have vigorously questioned McChrystal about Camp Nama. Instead, they gave him a pass. And dark questions remain.

I was able to complain about this later that day on PBS's Newshour. Transcript here; video here.

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Now I'm worried. From the office of House minority whip Eric Cantor:

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement on legislation introduced by House Republicans to authorize and support President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan:

"President Obama has listened to the commanders on the ground, and put forth a reasonable strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan to ensure that the brave men and women of our armed forces overseas have a path for success.   

"To show support for the President's plan, Reps. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), John McHugh (R-NY), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and Peter King (R-NY) have introduced twin pieces of legislation that will authorize the funding levels for each country as requested by the President without hamstringing and micromanaging the day-to-day operations of our commanders. These plans would also require the administration to submit an implementation plan to Congress to ensure sustainable progress.

"I hope that our colleagues, despite some reservation across the aisle, join us in swift and bipartisan passage of these bills to show support for the President, our military commanders, and our troops. I thank the sponsors for their leadership and their continued hard work on issues of vital importance to our national security."

Is Cantor reaching across the aisle in a true sign of bipartisanship? Maybe there's more to this than that. Cantor and other Republicans can see that some Democrats--mainly libs--are uneasy with Obama's Afghanistan policy. So they appear to be trying to place pressure on the Ds in a way that--just coincidentally, I'm sure--could exacerbate the brewing tension between President Obama and liberal Democrats regarding Afghanistan.

Liberals who are worried--or skeptical--about Obama's Afghanistan policy will certainly not be assuaged by the news that Cantor and Company believe that Obama is doing exactly the right thing. This is an endorsement that doesn't help.

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How's this for not building confidence?

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama met with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance at the daily White House briefing to discuss the trilateral talks under way. Consider this one exchange:

Q Madam Secretary, senior administration officials in recent weeks have swung between fairly sharp criticism and praise of the Afghan and Pakistani governments. You, yourself, said that the Pakistani government was at risk of abdicating to the Taliban. First, do you still believe that is the case? And do you see a risk of sending a mixed message to these partners at a time when both their cooperation are needed in combating the resurgent Taliban?

Talk about Kabuki theater.

On Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari. No doubt, there will be plenty of smiles for the cameras.

And Obama will vow support for the "democratically-elected" governments of both nations. But it was less than three months ago that Obama said during a press conference that Karzai's government "seems very detached from what's going on in the surrounding community."

This was first posted at MotherJones.com....

During the White House press conference Wednesday night marking the hundredth day of his historic presidency, Barack Obama was asked not one question about the Afghanistan war or the multiple-trillion-dollar federal bailout of the financial system. He managed to tout his many achievements--passing the $800 billion stimulus package, winning congressional approval of budget that devotes record amounts to health care and clean energy, initiating the withdrawal of troops in Iraq, signing legislation to boost the number of children covered by health insurance, banning the use of torture--without having to explain or justify perhaps the two most controversial (and perhaps problematic) big-ticket items of his high-wire presidency. Was that just good luck?

These one hundred days have been something a blur--or, at least a policy blur. There is too much to keep track off, too much to juggle.

The questions put to Obama covered a wide range of substantial matters. (Nothing on the Air Force One fly-over of New York or the dog, though Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times did ask what about the presidency has "enchanted" Obama.)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special envoy Richard Holbrooke were in the Hague on Tuesday to discuss aid to Afghanistan with European countries and other nations. (Holbrooke even finessed an "informal" conversation with an Iranian official.) But as is vogue these days, the word "smart" needs to be added to aid, particularly when the subject is Afghanistan. The United States in recent years has not engaged in "smart aid" in war-torn Afghanistan; it has squandered some of the $7 billion it has spent on Afghanistan development from 2002 through 2008. A new report by Oxfam, based on interviews with aid workers and officials in Afghanistan (private and public, Afghan and western), found that much of the money has been wasted or used ineffectively:

A number of interviewees felt USAID had neglected certain crucial sectors, especially agriculture and rural trade, on which a majority of Afghans depend for their means of earning a living. Aside from alternative livelihood programs (linked to counternarcotics efforts), USAID's support for agriculture has been less than 5 percent of its assistance since 2001.

Interviewees also believed that the US relies too much on the potential of free market and private sector solutions without creating an environment that enables those markets to work equitably, and without taking sufficient account of the weak economic and commercial infrastructure, low level of literacy and professional skills, and spreading insecurity.

The report adds:

I hate posting stories on Friday afternoon. They can easily fall into the black hole of the near-weekend. So while I'm traveling, let me promote two pieces I had to put up on Friday because that's when the news happened.

First, after a White House briefing on Barack Obama's new Afghanistan policy, ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, continued to talk to the reporters in the room. Prompted to address the opium trade's impact on the potential for success in Afghanistan, he called for "a complete rethink" of the war on drugs in Afghanistan and suggested that he was hardly gung-ho on the poppy eradication program there. So is Holbrooke off the (anti-drug) wagon? He did note that the review process had not been able to produce any consensus on this knotty matter. You can read my full account of Holbrooke's comments here. Holbrooke's remarks certainly deserve follow-up.

Later, in the day, banking CEOs had a lunch with Obama. Afterward, they spoke to reporters and said that the meeting had been been full of frank and productive exchanges and that they and president agreed that "we're all in this together." Trying to cut through the spin, I asked these finely attired bankers if they owed the American public an apology for having helped to screw up the financial system that all of us depend on. None of them seemed eager to field that question. But Kenneth Lewis, the president of Bank of America, did step to the microphone and said, let's stop talking about the past. Read all about it here.

After seeing the article about the non-apology, Robert Wright of Bloggingheads.tv sent me an email noting that these guys (and they are guys) have a lot for which to apologize. He included some clips from an interview with William Cohan, author of House of Cards, a take-down of Bear Stearns. Here they are:

In a recent interview with The New York Times, President Barack Obama said the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan--but did not use the word "losing"--and he raised the possibility of talking to Taliban and Islamist factions in order to separate them from al Qaeda. The point: to isolate Osama bin Laden's murderous gang, both geographically and politically. Obama's remarks have generated much discussion about his policy on Afghanistan, though he does not yet have one. His national security team is in the middle of a review that is due to be completed by the end of the month. Obama has said he will send 17,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan in the spring and summer. But he has not yet said what the overall mission is there. While foreign policy experts and others await the results of the review, there's still plenty to discuss and ponder, and I did so Tuesday night on Hardball:

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This morning, I attended a breakfast that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held with several journalists. At the start, she noted that she had recently been in Afghanistan, and she indicated she was not encouraged by what she had seen on the ground. When the breakfast was over, I asked her about that trip. What struck her, she said, was her meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He was, she reported, more subdued than her last meeting with him eighteen months ago. And during their talk, he had acknowledged that corruption is a major problem for his government.

That admission registered with Pelosi, for in her previous meeting with Karzai he had downplayed corruption as a concern. So one clear implication is this: if Karzai is finally admitting that corruption plagues his government, it must be really, really, really bad.

After his meeting with Pelosi, Karzai's office released a statement noting that he had received a commitment from Pelosi to help his government fight terrorism. Whatever that meant. But given Karzai's uncertain standing these days--President Barack Obama has criticized his government for being "detached"--receiving any commitment from the speaker of the US House of Representatives would be good news for him.

But not so fast.

The Defense Department is a big winner in the Obama budget unveiled on Thursday morning. The Pentagon's base budget gets a hefty $533.7 billion, up 4 percent from 2009--not a bad raise these days. And this figure excludes money for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget includes an additional $75 billion for "overseas contingency operations"--meaning Iraq, Afghanistan and other missions--for 2009 and $130 billion for 2010.

Some House liberals had been pushing for a cut in military spending to free up money for Obama's other priorities. He didn't hear them.

On Wednesday, I noted that Obama's ongoing review of Afghanistan policy is more important than his decision to send 17,000 more troops, for the key issue is what will be the mission of those troops. The Bush administration had two alternating approaches regarding Afghanistan: neglect and megalomania. By megalomania, I mean its messianic advocacy of transforming Afghanistan into a modern, Western-luvin' democracy. It's easy to spout noble-sounding rhetoric about human rights and such, but setting unrealistic goals for remaking another nation is arrogant. When Bush and his crew weren't ignoring Afghanistan--which was much of the time (see my 2006 article on that--they were promoting a mission there that was a bridge too far.

It's time to get real.

The National Security Network, a liberal-leaning policy shop in Washington, this week put out a policy paper listing of principles that ought to guide any review of Afghanistan policy. They are indeed reality-based:

With a four-paragraph statement released on Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama announced that he had approved a request from Defense Secretary Bob Gates to deploy another 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer. He said:

This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires. That is why I ordered a review of our policy upon taking office, so we have a comprehensive strategy and the necessary resources to meet clear and achievable objectives in Afghanistan and the region. This troop increase does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review.

The question is not so much the number of troops in Afghanistan but what those troops are doing. Hence the need for a rather candid strategic review. Surging to military victory seems rather unlikely in a land that has defied and defeated military powers of eras past. New thinking is needed more than new troops. "Less troops deployed with the right strategy would be better," a former CIA officer who worked on Afghanistan in the 1980s tells me. And by right strategy, he means one focused on rebuilding Afghanistan (by developing roads and power plants) and cutting deals with regional leaders (warlords) to buy (or rent) their support and isolate al Qaeda and die-hard Taliban elements.

The military actions conducted by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are taking their toll on the mission. On Tuesday, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict released a report pointing out that the unrelenting stream of civilian casualties in Afghanistan caused by US/NATO military strikes is undermining support for US/NATO operations there:

That's what Jim Pinkerton and I take on in our latest Bloggingheads.tv diavlog. Pinkerton thinks the stimulus and the Geithner bailout are going to lead the country to hell (even faster!). I contend that these are both good-faith efforts (though I'm less kind about the bailout), and we better damn well hope for the best. And we discuss the mess in Afghanistan. We also debate the Reagan years. Anyone remember those dead nuns in El Salvador?

Here's my take on President Barack Obama's first White House press conference.

I was in the East Room for the event, had a rather nice seat in the fourth row of one of the two center sections--closer to the man than Fox News' Major Garrett. But like 90-plus percent of the journalists there, I was not called on. Garrett was. In fact, all the obvious folks were tapped by Obama to ask questions, as the president worked his way down a list that had been placed on his podium: AP, Reuters, NBC, CBS, Bloomberg, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, etc.

Most of the questions were obvious. Why will your stimulus plan work? What are you going to do with Iran? He could easily reply with well-prepared remarks. I had come bearing two queries--just in case. The first concerned a matter I have been obsessing about the past few days. And it went something like this:

Those folks who bother to worry about the war in Afghanistan--not a large slice of the population--had reason to fret on Wednesday morning when they picked up (or clicked on) the New York Times and read a front-page story noting that President Barack Obama is adopting a new "approach to Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development." The piece cited unnamed senior administration officials.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had said that the administration was in the early stage of reevaluating Afghanistan policy. He had noted that Obama intended to meet with US Army General David McKiernan, the commander of the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, to discuss the course ahead. It seemed as if no decisions had been rendered about Afghanistan.

Yet the Times indicated key calls have already been made:

Dealing with a crashed computer today. See you soon....

The other day, The Washington Post reported that President-elect Barack Obama was considering tapping Richard Holbrooke, one of the many runners-up in the secretary of state sweepstakes, to be a special envoy for South Asia, focusing on thorny matters involving India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Whether Holbrooke is the ideal candidate for the post or not, this is a good idea. For years now, the United States has not had any high-level official with immediate White House access in charge of the Afghanistan mess. And though the portfolio for this post would extend beyond the war, tapping Holbrooke or some other diplomatic bigfoot as such an envoy would bring much-needed policy leadership to the Afghanistan war.

Two years ago, I wrote a piece noting that the largely forgotten war had been forgotten by the Bush White House:

George Bush has no senior-level official responsible for policies and actions in Afghanistan. "The situation is worsening," notes former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. "We have to have someone in government responsible for the whole picture--military, economic assistance and political. There's a nexus between each. But there's not one person in the government designated to be in charge of that nexus. It could be the ambassador. It could be someone else--if they have resources and clout and accountability. But this Administration has not been keen on accountability."

Since then, there have been no signs of much change on this front. Can you name any top Bush administration official overseeing Afghanistan issues? Let's hope Holbrooke--or some other runner-up--wins this consolation prize.

I recently wonderedif McCain was getting close to creating an unfortunate (for him) campaign narrative: he's not with it. The latest evidence:

Asked by ABC's Diane Sawyer Monday morning whether the "the situation in Afghanistan in precarious and urgent," McCain responded:

"I think it's serious. . . . It's a serious situation, but there's a lot of things we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border," said McCain, R-Ariz., said on "Good Morning America."

Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border. Afghanistan and Pakistan do.

Okay, he probably meant to say the "Afghanistan/Pakistan" border. But can you imagine if Barack Obama made a similar verbal slip? The McCain camp would declare it proof he is unfit to command. And media commentators would howl. (Have you noticed that much of the media coverage of Obama's overseas trip is framed this way: the trip is fraught with risk....for if he makes any mistake overseas, he's done for?)

Yet with McCain, this is just another....eh, McCain moment. Like when he repeatedly mixed up Sunni and Shia. And when he kept referring to Czechoslovakia (a country that no longer exists). And when he couldn't accurately describe (or remember) his stands on key policy matters. (See the posting below.) How many passes does McCain get? I don't know. But this is one envelope he doesn't want to push.

Warning: sports metaphor ahead.

Imagine a year in which the NCAA college basketball tournament is made up of 64 teams that are each lousy. None deserve to be national champion. Yet no matter how bad these squads are, it is a mathematical certainty that one of the 64 will end up winning six games in a row and take the title.

That's worth keeping in mind when pondering what will happen in the Republican presidential contest. Yesterday's dull debate in Iowa was a reminder that none of these guys ought to win. I could list the obvious reasons--Rudy's a gay-loving abortion rights supporter; Mitt's a flipper; John's too crotchety; Mike's got little to say about national security; Fred's a box-office disappointment--but why bother? You know it. Many of the Republican voters in Iowa know it. Still, one of these rather imperfect candidates is going to win.

When asked who it will be--and each day someone demands that I make a prediction--I throw up my hands and say, "I haven't a clue." There are too many imperfections to factor into any calculations. Too many structural flaws to say whose construction will stand (that is, not collapse). But the debate yesterday reaffirmed two simplistic and basic points: Romney sure looks and acts like a president from Central Casting, and Huckabee comes across as a likable fellow. With a field of Grade B choices, such attributes are not to be dismissed.

By the way, David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register, which sponsored the debate, opined that Thompson fared best. He credited Thompson for refusing "to play the 'raise your hand' game in answering a question about global warming." But given that the question was whether Thompson agreed that global warming is caused by human activity and poses a threat, it could be that this moment comes to haunt Thompson, who has flirted with global warming denial--should Thompson reach a position where general election voters care about his mocking skepticism toward global warming.

There's unlikely to be a Thompson bubble--or any other bubble--as the result of this last debate before the Iowa caucuses. Republican voters in Iowa are just going to have to find an inadequate candidate to settle for. And these sort of political decisions do not show up in my crystal ball.

THE WORLD THEY MAKE. The Bush administration is not big on responsibility. I know that's no news flash. But two stories in yesterday's paper made this point. A Washington Post front-pager reported that Defense Secretary Bob Gates is peeved that NATO is not doing more in Afghanistan, where the war is not going well. The article also covered congressional testimony delivered by Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. An excerpt:

Pressed by lawmakers on whether the United States should not shift more of its military resources to Afghanistan, Gates and Mullen held firm, saying Iraq remains the overarching priority for stretched U.S. forces.

"In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must," Mullen said. "There is a limit to what we can apply to Afghanistan."

So Bush starts another war before finishing the war in Afghanistan and now the U.S. military cannot do an effective job in Afghanistan because of that and Gates is angry that NATO allies are not picking up the slack? Seems there's a lesson in here--and perhaps cause for some humility in asking other countries to do more in Afghanistan, which, of course, they should.

Then there was this headline in the Post:

Hard Choices on Climate Can Wait for Next President, Aides Indicate

That kind of says it all.