This is the words of Reporter Dexter Filkins from today's article, the paragraph continuing as follows:

The surge, clearly, has worked, at least for now: violence, measured in the number of attacks against Americans and Iraqis each week, has dropped by 80 percent in the country since early 2007, according to figures the general provided. Civilian deaths, which peaked at more than 100 a day in late 2006, have also plunged. Car and suicide bombings, which stoked sectarian violence, have fallen from a total of 130 in March 2007 to fewer than 40 last month. In July, fewer Americans were killed in Iraq — 13 — than in any month since the war began.

The past few weeks of the presidential campaign have been a focused battle that defined the 2004 campaign as well: who's elitist? Who's out of touch?

Well the battle is over, and not only did John McCain lose this battle, he personally handed the Obama camp the soundbite to vanquish him.

How do I know this?  I don't.  I have no inside information whatsoever.  But it makes a lot of sense.

Just for fun, let's go through the process.

Obama is sending out his VP pick via text message.  This is a big move, and it ensures that his supporters will hear the news unfiltered, and before the news media gets it.  (Of course many of them have registered and will hear about it at the same time.)

So, why 5:30 pm ET?  Read it after the jump.

You remember how McCain was saying that all of his questioning of Obama's motives in ending the Iraq war wasn't questioning his patriotism, but instead his JUDGMENT? Well Obama saw through that BS. Sounds to me like Obama's gloves have also come off on Iraq. First Obama called him the liar that he is.

On Thursday, Obama took umbrage with this interpretation of events. "I expect [John McCain] to show me the same courtesy that I showed him," said the presumptive Democratic nominee. "Then yesterday he tried to say he wasn't challenging my patriotism, he was challenging my judgment. What does it say when you say someone would rather lose a war than lose an election? Of course he was challenging my patriotism."

I don't have the exact quote, but Obama also pointed out in the town hall that McCain is trying to backtrack now that he realizes he's jumped the proverbial shark and people are starting to call this attack what it is, not an attack of judgment, but an attack of loyalty and patriotism.

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere; I scanned the recent diary list and the front page but didn't see anything about it. According to Le Monde (linked article is in French; I haven't yet seen it on an English-language site), the secretary of state, on a surprise visit to Iraq, announced that negotiators were "very close" to a SOFA deal that, according to an anonymous military source, might be announced tomorrow. According to the same anonymous source, the agreement calls for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq beginning in June 2009.

Summary: So let's see...in Bill O'Reilly's new column, we've got vampire-analogies, the Rightwing "moral equivalency" complaint showing up again, an attack on "a far-left commentator working for NBC News", and something about someone or some group being symbolic "of appeasement and anti-American attitudes".

Let's get a move on, shall we?

What a difference a day makes...

UPDATE: Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor responds:

The fact that John McCain dispatched his paid consultant to launch this despicable ad from a so-called ‘independent’ committee shows how desperate he is to change the subject from his shocking disconnect with the economic struggles of the American people. He knows that Barack Obama has denounced the detestable crimes that Bill Ayers committed forty years ago.

Instead of invoking Paris, Britney and obscure sixties radicals, Senator McCain should take the day off at one of his seven homes to consider whether his support for outsourcing, tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas and continued spending of ten billion a month in Iraq is really putting ‘country first.’ To us, it sounds like just more of the same.

Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley has been given a speaking slot at the Democratic Convention! On Wednesday night, Jeff will be one of four Senate candidates in the middle of highly contested races addressing the crowd. The other Senate candidates who will be speaking at the convention are Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Allen and Tom Udall. More below the fold....

Full disclosure, I am the netroots director for OR-Sen candidate Jeff Merkley

According to the AP, Obama has decided, but ain't saying who or when it will be announced.  I find this the most interesting (in bold).

... he went with someone who is independent and would challenge him in the White House. He also said he wanted someone who is prepared to be president and would help him strengthen the economy.

    John McCain's latest gaffe goes beyond not knowing the price of a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. That hurt Rudy Giuliani back in the day when he claimed that milk sold for $1.50 per gallon when it really ranged from $3.39 to $4.19. It is worse than George H.W. Bush's supposed "amazement" at the new-fangled electronic scanners at supermarkets. It's as if Superman's super powers extended to the ability to be super out of touch ....

I’m having a hard time with this presidential campaign. Not that it’s unexpected, but this is such an outrageously lopsided debate that it makes me want to tear my hair out. Luckily, I’ve been busy with one of the local campaigns, but I’ve decided to come back and address some things.

I’ve heard many times that Barack Obama doesn’t "deserve" to be president. Honestly, no one deserves to be president; people have to earn it. Hillary Clinton thought she deserved to be the Democratic nominee and look what happened to her. Just because you’ve been around for a while doesn’t mean you’re entitled to anything. All achievement must be constantly earned. But, I interpret this comment against Obama two ways.

Professor Nate Silver of the mind-blowing FiveThirtyEight has just given a dandy lecture via blog post over on New York Magazine's "Daily Intel: Early & Often" on how to read the polls between now and election day.

Some is common sense, sure... although how "common" that sense is may be seriously in question giving much of the panic currently spreading through the Democratic party.  But even so, we'll take a look at some of the wisdom that perhaps is NOT so conventional, so to speak

So let's pop in and take a seat in the back of Dr. Poblano's class, and see what we might learn about this next, crucial phase in the election (and how we could and should respond to it).

NOTE: All credits for this course are completely transferable to Al Giordano's "No Chicken Little Left Behind" Academy.

Earlier today, DanK asked for some ideas for a campaign ad. By the time I had finnished and posted my idea on his Diary, the OP had dropped off the front page into oblivian. But I was too proud of what I came up with that I thought that I should post it in my own diary.

If anybody here has video editing skillz, by all means, pick up the ball and run with it. The purpose of this ad would be to attack John McCain's pool of possible political appointies; the people that will become his advisors, cabinet members, and private sector allies should he win in November. It should remind people that John McCain would not come alone, but would bring along many of the same people who currently populate the Bush Cabal.

The format after the jump.

The Orlando Sentinel has a short piece up on its Web site about how they were able to get Sens. Obama and McCain to pose for photos to be used in the paper's upcoming football preview edition. As for the photos themselves, the Sentinel was nice enough to Photoshop together a nice side-by-side shot of the two candidates. And once again, Obama manages (some how, some way /snark) to win the image battle ...

We knew this was coming. But still....

Gulp.

A new conservative group has produced a television ad attacking Barack Obama for his relationship with former Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers.

"How much do your really know about Barack Obama? What does he really believe?" asks the ad, which then cites the failed attack on the Capitol on 9/11, and links it to the Weather Underground attack on the Capitol decades earlier.

The group says it will spend $2.8 million airing the ad in Ohio and Michigan -- which would be the largest single third-party expenditure this cycle.

"Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?" asks the narrator. "Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

....

The substance of the ad matches a recent upswing in the McCain campaign's references to Ayers. The link to 9/11 also suggests that the ad is seeking to tap into viral rumors linking Obama to Muslim terrorists.

Pinkston says the ad will launch later this afternoon.

Look, I'm as pissed off as every other progressive about the direction our country is going in, has been going in, and might end up going in if we remain in the grip of the GOP.  I regularly curse out the TV and any handy Republican on issues like Off-shore drilling, alternative fuels, taxes, you name it.  But one thing that pisses me off the most is this incessant call for Obama to fight.  WTF, people.  Isn't that mentality what got us here in the first place????

James Carville, the erstwhile "ragin' Cajun" of electoral politics is hawking this meme over at CNN from his new instapundit chair and it enrages me more than my frustration over the Obama swift-boat book.

John McCain's response to the question of how many houses he owns indicates that he either doesn't know his net worth or he is being coy.  I think he doesn't know and that is very disconcerning that a presidential candidate is not aware of his own personal finances.  But just because someone who wants to lead our country is clueless about his net worth doesn't mean we should be clueless about our personal net worth.  This requires some math and accounting but please bear with me.  

First, let me get this out of the way. I want Al Gore for VP. And yes, I know, getting your heart set on one person is setting yourself up for a let down, but I can't help it. Anyway, that's not what this diary is about. I was thinking about how slick it was that Obama, with this text notification, got his hands on a couple million cell phone numbers and it gave me an idea.