Your turn. Keep it civil.

This seems obvious, but the argument for what McCain should be doing is well stated by Lowry and Ponnoru:

The first step toward getting [white working class voters] is to make the anti-Obama case. The cliché among political operatives and pundits is that this election is “about Obama.” The truth in the claim is that since the public would rather have a Democratic president, the race will turn largely on whether Obama is an acceptable one. It follows that McCain’s main task is to make him unacceptable to voters — and particularly to non-black working-class voters. He has to first raise concerns about Obama and then show how his candidacy addresses those concerns.

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The Washington Post has a postmortem of the Netroots Nation Convention:

. . . Obama . . . is Topic A among the Netroots, his fate somewhat married to theirs. . . . But these are changing times, and Obama, in his calls for getting past blue vs. red America, and in his recent positions on issues such as telecom immunity, is somewhat of an enigma. With the Dems taking back Congress in 2006 and the prospect of an Obama victory come November, many in the influential Netroots are left in a precarious, ambiguous position. The question is, who needs whom: Does Obama need the Netroots, or vice versa?

Obama does not need them of course but neither does the Netroots need Obama. What the Netroots needs is some idea of what they are about. Right now, let's face it, they are about nothing but being a mirror image of the Right blogs. Obama - right or wrong. More . . .

Maliki government refines its position:

Iraq's government spokesman is hopeful that U.S. combat forces could be out of the country by 2010. Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments following a meeting in Baghdad on Monday between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day. The timeframe is similar to Obama's proposal to pull back combat troops within 16 months.

Jonathan Singer and Alan Abramowitz insist Obama has nothing to worry about concerning white voters. Singer writes:

Remember all of the talk about Barack Obama's unique weakness among White voters? I noted the absurdity of this assertion earlier this month, but I thought it would be worth passing on a portion of professor Alan Abramowitz's analysis on the issue.

So does Barack Obama have a problem with white voters? The answer is a resounding "yes." And so has every other Democratic presidential candidate in the past forty years. The last Democratic candidate for president to win a majority of the white vote was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Al Gore lost the white vote by 12 points in 2000. John Kerry lost the white vote by 17 points in 2004.

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Jury selection in the military commission trial of Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan is set to begin Monday morning.

In a nutshell: The Government has charged Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, mostly with acts that predated 9/11 by years.

The defense says his conduct did not occur "in the context of" an armed conflict, or was not "associated with" an armed conflict.

Hamdan is facing life in prison. Even if acquitted, Bush may decide to hold him indefinitely as an "enemy combatant." As to his jury:

[A]t least five military officers will make up the jury, and a two-thirds vote is required for a guilty verdict. A three-fourths votes is required for sentences that are longer than 10 years.

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For months, John McCain and Barack Obama have been unable to agree on town hall forum debates. Today, however, they agreed on their first joint appearance -- at a megachurch.

The Rev. Rick Warren has persuaded the candidates to attend a forum at his Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, Calif., on Aug. 16. In an interview, Mr. Warren said over the weekend that the presidential candidates would appear together for a moment but that he would interview them in succession at his megachurch.

....He said that both had readily agreed, perhaps reflecting how each candidate is courting the evangelical audience to whom Mr. Warren ministers.

Warren says he is friends with both candidates and there will be "no gotcha" questions.

As far as I'm concerned, I've heard more than enough already about the candidates' faith and religion. [More...]

This is not surprising:

[T]he interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.

The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki’s comments by The Times: “Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”

By Big Tent Democrat

Chuck Todd on Meet the Press:

MR. BROKAW: But is Iraq going to be the fault line in the fall, or is it going to remain the economy, Chuck?

MR. TODD: I think it absolutely remains the economy, and I think it's possible we will see how both candidates use their vice presidential choices to make that emphasis.

If that's the case, then Bill Clinton is a shoo-in to be Obama's VP . . . But seriously, who exactly would be an "economy" emphasis pick? Not anyone not named Clinton frankly. I know some would argue John Edwards or Sherrod Brown but to me that is silly talk. One name means good economic times in the modern Democratic Party -- that name is Clinton.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Your turn. One point, if you are a supporter of the Iraq Debacle, especially if you agreed with McCain and Bush that starting the Iraq Debacle was the right idea, please say so when discussing McCain's positions on Iraq. In that way, when you write that "McCain has been right on Iraq from the onset," we will know where you are coming from.

This is an Open Thread.

SPIEGEL: How short-term [a period of continued US troop presence]? Are you hoping for a new [security] agreement before the end of the Bush administration?

Maliki: So far the Americans have had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat. But that isn't the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaida and the militias. The American lead negotiators realize this now, and that's why I expect to see an agreement taking shape even before the end of President Bush's term in office. With these negotiations, we will start the whole thing over again, on a clearer, better basis, because the first proposals were unacceptable to us.

(Emphasis supplied.) Quite an indictment of the Bush Administration. Read the whole thing.

John Avlon, a speechwriter for Rudy Giuliani writes in Politico:

Throughout the left-wing blogosphere, the cry has come: Barack Obama is moving away from them, and to the center. . . . But all this outrage ignores the obvious: Throughout his career, Obama has consistently framed himself as a post-partisan centrist. He’s been a bridge-builder all his life, first between black and white, and now between left and right.

Obama positioned himself to the right of the Democratic primary pack on virtually every issue except Iraq. . . . [T]he founder of the centrist (and historically Clinton-boosting) DLC, Al From, now sees a kindred spirit: “This general election, more than most we have seen, is going to be a battle for the center. ... The more we learn about Sen. Obama's policies, the more we will see some of the policies the DLC has championed for years.”

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