Iraqi opinions on US pull-out

Do Iraqis want US troops to leave? It’s a complicated question that’s mixed up with Iraqi politics, religion and, most importantly, sectarian affiliation. The folks at the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes have some insight.

Here’s my radio story from 7/31, focusing on how Obama and McCain are talking about their plans for Iraq.

Barrack = Britney + Paris

This just in from the McCain camp: Obama is Britney Spears AND Paris Hilton.

Picked this up from Jonathan Martin’s blog at Politico.com. Martin surmises that the GOP team believes Obama’s worldwide appeal is a negative. He might be right. But they might be wrong.

Landstuhlgate ad infinitum

My colleague Jason Margolis got an email this morning from an old friend in LA. It was an account of Obama’s visit to an American military base in Afghanistan from a US Marine based there. The bottom line of the message was this: Obama snubbed the troops and he used the visit as a simple and craven photo-op at the expense of men and women in uniform. Jason did a quick search and found the email printed in full at this website. Then, being the responsible and diligent journalist that he is, Jason called up Carl Redding, a public information officer with the US Marines. Redding took a quick look at the email and said, “it’s a fake.” The abbreviation for the rank of captain, Redding said, is “CAPT” not “CPT.” Redding also looked up the name of the purported author of the email in the Marines’ database and he offered this detail: the writer is not a US Marine.

I know. It’s shocking. This kind of thing happens all time to candidates from both parties (though Obama appears to be subject of some of the most outlandish ones). But it seems to work. No matter that a given account is untrue. These things take on a life of their own once they’re set free in cyberspace. Take the story about Obama’s non-visit to wounded US troops in Germany. The McCain camp’s TV ads have been all over the airwaves, despite the fact that the campaign has only paid for a few actual on-air spots for the ads. As Jim Rutenberg at the NYTimes reports today, the commercials have been played hundreds of times by news media outlets in their epic quest to fill all those hours slated for political programming. If you’re not sick of the Landstuhl non-visit story, the Washington Post has a good recap today. Again, it doesn’t seem to matter much that the McCain campaign’s charges are misleading. Unless, of course, it turns out that voters do in fact care about low-road political tactics during the heat of campaign.

Beijing’s bad air

Barbara Demick at the LATimes has a great story on Beijing’s air dilemma 11 days before the opening of the Olympics. Turns out the Chinese government has been manipulating the data on air quality. But the air is still just plain bad.

Manny to Iraq?

He wouldn’t last 10 seconds, says Eric Wilbur at Boston Sports Blog. Wilber says it doesn’t make baseball sense to get rid of Manny Ramirez before the trade deadline on Thursday. But the writer is still hoping the enigmatic Red Sox slugger goes.

Latino vote poll follow-up

My colleague rang up the Pew Hispanic Center on Friday to talk with Mark Hugo Lopez about Pew’s recent poll on Latino voters’ attitudes toward election 2008. Listen here.

Politico.com has a good story fleshing out the survey. Not good news for McCain and the GOP.

China is medium-sized lizard

Johm Pomfret has a great piece in the Washington Post today, dispelling the myth of China as soon-to-be superpower.

Election podcast #15

Episode 15 of The World’s Election 2008 Podcast is ready for Freddie.

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And check out The World’s Vote 2008 page here.

Obama gets Belfast’s walls wrong

It’s probably not a firestorm in the making here, but an interesting gaffe nonetheless for a candidate who’s been so careful to get stuff like this right. I didn’t catch it yesterday. But Toby Harnden at the Telegraph did. And today Harnden writes about Obama’s description of walls in Belfast that have come down, allowing Protestants and Catholics to live together in peace. I’ve done two reporting trips to Belfast, one in 2003 and one in 2006. Nothing like Harnden’s experience there, but I never heard anything but praise for those peace walls. I did, however, hear that there’s an interest in building more walls in places where one sectarian neighborhood butts up against another one. These so-called choke-points used to be frequent scenes of violence during the troubles. And by most accounts the walls are seen a useful way of keeping troublemakers separated. Northtern Ireleand is not a hot-button issue in 2008. But watch for McCain’s campaign to pounce.

McCain digs the Dalai Lama

Senator McCain to visit the Tibetan spiritual leader today.