Who could blame President Bush or Sen. John McCain for privately fuming right about now since Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has just delivered a big gift with a bow on top to Sen. Barack Obama by embracing his 16-months timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

Maliki said as much in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. Here is the relevant excerpt:

SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?

Maliki: Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited.

Tribune correspondents

KABUL, Afghanistan - Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama arrived Saturday in this war-torn country seen as crucial to his foreign policy, but most Afghans did not notice.

Security for the two-day visit of the congressional delegation was so tight, all of Obama's plans were kept secret. On Saturday, he met with U.S. officials at Bagram Air Base and visited soldiers in eastern Afghanistan. Although many Afghans seem intrigued by the Illinois senator, few will meet him, let alone catch a glimpse.

The delegation briefly visited troops in Kuwait, but the Afghanistan leg is the first lengthy stop of a much-hyped international journey designed to make Obama seem more presidential both on the world stage and at home. The trip also aims to counter critics who say Obama has little foreign-policy experience compared to his Republican opponent, John McCain, a Vietnam War hero with an extensive foreign background.

by Frank James

It was really only a matter of time. You can stick the word "former" in front of Phil Gramm's old title of "national co-chair" of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign because Gramm has quit in order to give McCain's critics one less lightning rod.

Gramm, who caused an uproar after suggesting Americans were in a "mental recession" and that the U.S. was a "nation of whiners" issued his statement of retreat late Friday, the equivalent of slinking away in the dead of night.

Gramm said:

"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country. That kind of distraction hurts not only Senator McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems, it hurts the country. To end this distraction and get on with the real debate, I hereby step down as co-chair of the McCain campaign and join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters."

Gramm, a crusty former Republican senator from Texas and erstwhile economic professor, was an adviser to the McCain campaign on economic issues. So his characterization of the economy's condition as well as the character of his compatriots was a clear problem for McCain.

Not the least of McCain's problems was that because economic issues are seen as the unofficial Republican nominee's Achilles heel (few doubt his national-security chops) Gramm, a fierce free-marketer, was suspected correctly or not of having an huge role on the McCain campaign's economic thinking. So what Gramm said received a lot of attention.

So he had to go. And, now, he's gone. At least as co-chair. Doesn't mean you can't pick up the telephone and give the candidate a few idea about getting the nation out of its mental recession.

Many people believe this will be a close election, Conan O'Brien told his late-night guest, Sen. John McCain, early this morning, and the selection of running mates will be very big.

The host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien reminded McCain, the Republican candidate for president, that he has told audiences the vice president has only two duties: Breaking tie votes in the Senate and inquiring daily about the health of the president.

"That job will be very, very important in my'' case, replied McCain, who could become the oldest president elected to a first term - he will be 72 in November and has survived melanoma.

"Maybe twice daily,'' O'Brien suggested. "How is he now?'''

Nominees for president make promises. But do they keep them?

In the new National Journal magazine, writer Ashley Johnson studies historical promises of presidential campaigns and found that it is very likely, if history is any indication, that the candidates would stay true to their words.

However, she notes that broken promises stand out in the public's minds far more than the kept ones. For example:

"In 1992, Clinton promised "the most ethical administration" in history," Johnson writes. "His predecessor, George H.W. Bush, famously vowed "No new taxes" in the run-up to the 1988 election, and then raised taxes while in office. Going back further, Franklin D. Roosevelt reneged on his 1932 campaign pledges to maintain a balanced budget and to cut government operations by 25 percent. Herbert Hoover ran in 1928 with the slogan "Vote for prosperity" and predicted "a final triumph over poverty"; the next year, the nation plunged into the Great Depression."

The National Journal also has a searchable database of the promises McCain and Obama have stated publicly.

For example, speaking about veterans on May 26 in New Mexico McCain said, "As president, I will do everything in my power to ensure that those who serve today and those who have served in the past have access to the highest-quality health, mental health and rehabilitative care in the world."

And on Sept. 1 in Washington, Obama said, "As president, I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan to reinforce our counterterrorism operations and support NATO's efforts against the Taliban."

Read the full article at www.nationaljournal.com.

To hear some of the talk, Barack Obama's overseas campaign swing is risky political business.

The idea that there's a lot at stake in his trip to Europe and the Middle East is likely to get amped over the next few days. The threat, however small, that he'll commit a horrendous gaffe is one way to hype interest in the story. It also helps justify the remarkable decision by the TV networks to send their top news anchors along for the ride.

Experienced campaign strategists hoot at all the negative chatter. They see Obama's venture as relatively low-risk endeavor--and a public relations windfall for the Democratic candidate, thanks to juiced-up television exposure.

"Nothing works more effectively in reinforcing the notion that somebody's an international leader than international travel," says Bill Carrick, a Democratic consultant in Los Angeles who is not working in the campaign. He dismisses dire predictions about the trip as "cocktail party nonsense."

For the record, here's a bit of the stuff being tossed about on both sides of the Atlantic:

European adulation for Obama will make him the continent's poodle. To voters back home, he could come off as elitist, more European than American (though, shades of Incurious George, he's apparently spent just 24 hours in Western Europe over the last ten years).

He may weaken his shaky image among those independent swing voters who live bitter lives in working-class towns. Many already regard him as a suspiciously foreign anyway and could resent the rest of the world telling them who to elect.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama landed in war-torn Afghanistan early Saturday, his campaign confirmed, starting a weeklong effort to look presidential on the world stage while boosting his standing back home.

The stop is the first of a widely anticipated tour of South Asia, the Middle East and Europe that seeks to boost confidence in his ability to represent the nation's interests overseas amid a campaign where he is pitted against Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam War hero with extensive foreign policy experience.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is," Obama said here Thursday afternoon before departing on a trans-Atlantic flight that his campaign sought to keep secret because of security concerns.

Two reporters, one from the Chicago Tribune and one from The Associated Press, were allowed to fly with Obama from Chicago to Washington on Thursday afternoon as part of a media pool arrangement that required his departure not be reported until his campaign had confirmed he landed in Afghanistan.

"I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of ... their biggest concerns," the Illinois Democrat said. "I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."

Asked if he planned to push for more self-governance in expected meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Obama stressed that he does not want to pre-empt President Bush.

"I'm more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking," he said. "And I think it is very important to recognize that I'm going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time, so it's the president's job to deliver those messages."

After flying in a small jet Thursday afternoon from Chicago's Midway Airport to Reagan National Airport, Obama traveled by motorcade to Andrews Air Force Base where he departed on a military C-40C aircraft.

Robert Gibbs, a senior communications strategist for the campaign, said he received a phone call about 2:15 a.m. Chicago time telling him that Obama had landed at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

"Since leaving Washington on Thursday, Senator Obama had stopped and visited troops in Kuwait," Gibbs said in a statement.

The visit to Afghanistan and another expected to Iraq is part of a taxpayer-paid congressional delegation trip. Traveling with Obama are two military veterans, Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).

House Minority Leader John Boehner and 10 fellow GOP congressmen left Washington this morning for Alaska, where they plan to spend the weekend highlighting the domestic energy production potential at settings such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says they've headed in the wrong direction.

"Two-thirds of northern Alaska is open to drilling, so if they're serious about increasing the domestic production of oil, they should take a left at the Arctic Refuge and keep going west for about 150 miles," the Maryland Democrat said. "That will put them in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska - the best source for Alaskan oil, and an area that is already open for business."

As oil costs continue to climb, Boehner and other Republicans want to open up more areas to domestic drilling, part of what they're calling an "all of the above" approach to meeting the nation's energy needs. With polls showing growing support for more exploration, President Bush this week lifted the executive prohibition on offshore drilling imposed by his father 18 years ago.

"Our American energy tour will shine a spotlight on what the Democratic majority can't seem to grasp: We can bring down the price of gasoline," Boehner said. "America is rich with emerging energy technologies, as well as a vast supply of natural resources that has been put off limits by the majority party."

Today John McCain spent time in Detroit discussing the tough economy with autoworkers. He praised General Motors for its plans for a long-range electric car and pledged to help "in every way."

But while McCain was campaigning today, a Bud of his was stirring up his own news.

His friend Col. Bud Day, who was a Vietnam POW like McCain and a Medal of Honor recipient, was speaking to reporters in a Florida conference call about the war in Iraq when he said, "The Muslims have said either we kneel or they're going to kill us," according to audio the Miami Herald posted today.

"I don't intend to kneel and I don't advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn't advocate to anybody that we kneel," he also stated.

McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb responded to an e-mail seeking response to Day's remarks with a one-line statement that "the threat we face is from radical Islamic extremism."

Corey P. Saylor, national legislature director for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the words were extremely troubling.

"Muslims are alongside Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world struggling against extremism," Saylor said. "That basically insults their efforts."

Saylor said Day's statement does not enhance McCain's message and that that kind of rhertoic has no place in his campaign.

The Republican Party of Florida set up the conference call with Day. Listen to the audio of Day at MiamiHerarld.com.

Sen. Barack Obama has made no significant traction in gaining the support of white evangelical voters, while McCain's advantage is lower than Bush's lead at a similiar point in 2004, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

About six-in-ten white evangelicals favor Sen. John McCain for president, compared to 25 percent for opponent Sen. Barack Obama, giving McCain a 36-point advantage. In 2004, Bush had a 43 point lead over his Democratic rival.

The 25-percent support for Obama is slightly lower than number of white evangelicals who supported Democratic candidates in June 2004 at 26 percent and June 2000 at 28 percent.

This group of voters also remains more undecided at this point in the election than in last two elections. About 12 percent say they do not know who they would vote for today.

Our friends at Top of the Ticket have more on the candidates and evangelical voters.

Let's agree that anyone who runs for president of the U.S. must, by definition, have an ego that vastly outstrips of that of most other mortals. To see oneself as the potential heir to an office once held by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, is beyond most people's ability.

But maybe it's possible for a presidential candidate to regard himself or herself too highly. Washington Post op-ed columnist Charles Krauthammer certainly seems to think Sen. Barack Obama is such a candidate.

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, uninformed lives. Lord of the seas. And more. As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when "our planet began to heal." As I recall -- I'm no expert on this -- Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas.

Undercover Maryland State Police officers repeatedly spied on peace activists and anti-death penalty groups in recent years and entered the names of some in a law-enforcement database of people thought to be terrorists or drug traffickers, newly released documents show.

The files, made public yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, depict a pattern of infiltration of the activists' organizations in 2005 and 2006. The activists contend that the authorities were trying to determine whether they posed a security threat to the United States. But none of the 43 pages of summaries and computer logs - some with agents' names and whole paragraphs blacked out - mention criminal or even potentially criminal acts, the legal standard for initiating such surveillance.

State police officials said they did not curtail the protesters' freedoms.The spying, detailed in logs of at least 288 hours of surveillance over a 14-month period, recalls similar infiltration by FBI agents of civil rights and anti-war groups decades ago, particularly under the administration of President Richard M. Nixon.

David Rocah, a staff attorney for the ACLU in Baltimore, said at a news conference yesterday that he found it "stupefying" that more than 30 years later, the government is still targeting people who do nothing more than express dissent.

Nick Madigan writes for the Baltimore Sun. Read the full story and related documents at BaltimoreSun.com.

As if U.S. troops in Iraq didn't have enough to deal with -- the many tours in-country and consequent separations from family, the possibility of being killed or maimed, the heat -- there's the possibility of being electrocuted or dying in a fire caused by faulty electrical work.

Congress has heard testimony about the problem, which has resulted in deaths of and injuries to U.S. troops and contractors and which appears related to Defense Department contractors using incompetent workers to do the wiring.

For instance, Senate Democrats held a hearing last week to examine the problem. The Democratic senators heard from Debbie Crawford, a licensed electrician who worked in Iraq.

Here's an extensive excerpt from her testimony last week which provides an excellent description of the problem:

Most work done in the Green Zone was awarded to subcontractors. The subcontractors employed third-country national and local national workers who were not familiar or skilled in U.S. quality standards, U.S. safety standards, and installation techniques, or U.S. codes. It was not uncommon for KBR electricians to go in after a subcontractor had supposedly completed a job, to actually complete it or repair their work.

The construction of small, temporary man-camps was a particular problem, and I personally received several complaints from Blackwater employees that they were being shocked in their trailers. The KBR employees supervising these electrical contractors often had no electrical experience at all. It was not uncommon for a labor foreman with no electrical experience to supervise Iraqi electrical subcontractors or third-country nationals doing electrical work.

by Mark Silva

For some time now, President Bush has refused to talk about any "timelines'' for withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq - vetoing war-spending bills approved by Congress with timelines included and chiding lawmakers for playing generals.

But now the White is ready to talk about timelines - while inserting that long-held caveat that American forces will deploy in accordance with "conditions on the ground" - and in fact is talking about them in very general terms today, following a secure videoconference between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

And the White House asserted today that these will not be "arbitrary'' timelines, which is what the president has accused Democratic leaders in Congress of proposing.

Yet even the discussion of a "horizon,'' which is the term included in a statement from the White House today, is likely to figure into the war debate in the presidential campaign underway.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the GOP's presumptive nominee, is certain to take this word as sign of the "success'' of the surge in U.S. forces that Bush ordered into Iraq last year and has since largely withdrawn. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic candidate calling for a withdrawal of forces in a 16-month timeframe after his election, is likely to amplify his call for a redeployment of U.S. forces to Afghanistan, where violence has increased - as he embarks this weekend on a tour taking him to both war fronts.

"In the area of security cooperation, the president and the prime minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals,'' the White House said today of the long-distance meeting that Bush and Maliki held, curiously near the eve of Obama's own voyage. This includes "the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq.''