So this morning, Senator Barack Obama made a big speech on Iraq, and talked about withdrawing troops and "turning the page in Iraq". On the surface, it sounds pretty good, until you examine the details.

While dazzling his audience with the usual rhetorical gymnastics about being opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning and ending the war, Obama uses the old jedi mind trick ("these aren't the droids you're looking for")to deflect from his foreign policy shortcoming. Much like Luke Skywalker, Obama still has much to learn on the subject of foreign policy.

Follow me over the fold for more of the hype that fails to address the problem.

Full Disclosure: I blog at America for Richardson and am an active Bill Richardson supporter. And just because some of the naysayers will ask in the comments, in doing some family history research, at least one of my ancestors was Cherokee.

While the focus in these candidate diaries tends to be on Iraq, health care, energy, education or the environment, tomorrow three of the Democratic candidates will take their campaigns to Indian Country for a first-ever debate.

No, it isn't the co-called frontrunners who are headed to Prez on the Rez in Cabazon, California. Only Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich care enough about Native American issues to attend this debate. You will likely hear about scheduling conflicts or too many debates from those who can't attend, but the fact is that this event has been planned for months and only Richardson, Gravel and Kucinich have shown the respect necessary to win the Indian vote. And of the three, Bill Richardson has the strongest record on issues that matter most to Native Americans.

Do you have the next big energy idea?

Governor Bill Richardson is using his spotlight week on YouTube to ask you for your best conservation story or alternative energy idea.

So here is your chance to make a difference.

Governor Richardson is asking viewers of the video to submit videos with their ideas about energy conservation, the use of alternative fuels, and how to combat climate change.

Follow me over the fold for more.

Look out frontrunners Bill Richardson is on the rise.
Pollster.com has decided to include Governor Richardson among its top Dems charts. The reason:

Starting today I'm adding Bill Richardson to the Top Democrats charts for both state primaries and the national nomination polling. The graph above shows his substantial movement in Iowa, and New Hampshire looks quite similar. While Richardson is still in fourth place in both states (5th in NH if you include Gore), his is the only trajectory that is clearly moving up.

According to iCasualties.org, as of today 3504 American soldiers have lost their lives in the war in Iraq , a war John Edwards voted for (and apologized for) even though he didn't read the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.

So while American soldiers die, what is John Edwards doing? It's as easy as pie, just ask Edwards staffers Joe Trippi and Jonathan Prince. Give John Edwards your money, he'll give you his mom's secret pecan pie recipe.

John Edwards wants the troops out of Iraq in 12 to 18 months , but would leave some residual troops to guard the American embassy, making them a continued target of sectarian violence.

The other candidates won't end the war immediately either.

"This generation of activists is being defined by what they accomplish using the Internet, just as surely as my generation of politicians and strategists was defined by and, eventually chained to, the television. But while TV was a medium that rendered us dumb, disengaged, and disconnected, the Internet makes us smarter, more involved and better informed. The Internet was designed to foster cooperation; it's built on a foundation of shared innovation. This is the beginning of their time. When they use this technology to transform our country in a thunder roll of democracy and change, nothing will ever be the same."

Fresh off of his appearance at Yearly Kos, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is coming to Washington (that's Washington state, not the other Washington) this weekend. As part of his visit, I've worked with the Governor's staff to arrange an exclusive meeting with Governor Richardson for many of our local progressive bloggers.

It is a credit to Bill Richardson that he is willing to sit down with bloggers and have a  dialogue with us about the issues facing our state and our nation. Governor Richardson clearly gets it, and we are excited to welcome him to Washington this weekend.

Dear Uncle Sam,

The war on Independence Day is at hand. Those damn liberals keep wishing me a "Happy 4th". Happy 4th? Happy 4th piece of chicken? What is that?

My neighbor has to be the most liberal of them all. He believes that if you want to buy fireworks you might as well wad some cash up and set fire to it. What a traitor! He thinks patriotism is wearing one of those Old Navy t-shirts with the flag on them, but I believe that is desecration of the flag. After all he's a fat, bald, ugly guy with a lot of body hair. Nobody wants to see our flag look like that.

Traditionally, I always show my patriotism by beginning the festivities on July 1. After all, Independence Day is so important that I believe we should celebrate it for at least 1 week. My neighbor, unpatriotic bastard that he is, has the balls to ask me to save it until the 4th, and calls the cops reporting me for using illegal fireworks and disturbing the peace. Note to neighbor: if the fireworks weren't illegal they wouldn't sell them. Maybe he's just pissed off that one of my ground blooming flowers caused his car to explode last year. It wasn't my fault that he had gas leaking from his car. Maybe he should have gotten that fuel line checked.