What Caught My Eye Today

2008 Presidential Race - What with the party conventions gearing up to start, it should come as no surprise that the headlines are yet again dominated by John McCain and Barack Obama. Today, I have a two-fer for you on McCain. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate in 2000 and now an independent who is one of John McCain's strongest supporters, will speak at the Republican National Convention. That's nice. I guess that being an independent gives him the luxury of hanging with anyone he chooses. I bet you won't see Nancy Pelosi anywhere near the GOP convention. Lieberman caucuses with Senate Democrats, though has been a strong supporter of the Iraq war and is a staunch backer of McCain's presidential bid, traveling often with the Arizona senator and campaigning on his behalf during the GOP primary in states like Florida that have large numbers of Jewish voters. McCain is believed to be seriously considering choosing Lieberman, whom he counts among his closest friends, for the GOP ticket. Well that would certainly make for an interesting ticket, wouldn't it. But a word of caution to McCain. Lieberman has been down this road before and it didn't work out so well for his running mate.

And now for a polling update...good news for McCain. According to Real Clear Politics McCain has taken the lead in electoral college votes over Obama, 274 to 264. Of course there are a lot of assumptions built into this (as there are with most polls). In this particular case, the assumption is that there are no toss up states--meaning if a state is leaning toward McCain, it is counted in his favor. If you factor in the toss up states, then you are looking at Obama leading McCain, 228 to 178 with 132 electoral votes up for grabs. Bearing all this in mind, remember this--no one ever won an election based on pre-election poll results.

Poland - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite. Seriously, who didn't see this sort of reaction coming? Rice dismissed blustery comments from Russian leaders who say Warsaw's hosting of 10 U.S. interceptor missiles just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost frontier opens the country up to attack. After Warsaw and Washington announced the agreement on the deal last week, top Russian General Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that Poland is risking attack, and possibly a nuclear one, by deploying the American missile defense system. To put this into context, how did you think the U.S. would react if Russia decided to put a similar installation in Cuba? Many Poles consider the agreement a form of protection at a time when Russia's invasion of Georgia has generated alarm throughout Eastern Europe. Poland is a member of the European Union and NATO, and the deal is expected to deepen its military partnership with Washington. Well that's good. I'm happy that someone is happy about this arrangement. Let us not forget that this anti-missile system is supposed to protect the U.S. and its allies against possible missile strikes from rogue nations like Iran. Let's see how that's going shall we?

Iran - A day after Iran declared it had test fired a new rocket capable of launching a satellite, the country said yesterday that it was prepared to help other Muslim countries send up satellites. But by then, Pentagon and military officials in Washington were concluding that the Iranian launching had been a failure. U.S. officials said the first stage of the launch was successful, but the second stage failed. Despite the mission's overall failure, the launching was expected to add to Iran's knowledge about how to improve its missile skills, and thus was still viewed as a worrisome development. There's two ways you can look at this. On one hand, one could contend that this is just the latest in a chain of failures that clearly indicates that Iran is nowhere near to having the sort of capabilities that the U.S. is trying to defend against by installing anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe. On the flip side, does anyone really want to see Iran succeed in its endeavors before the U.S. decides to do something about it? Me neither.

Sri Lanka - The Sri Lankan military says it has broken through the Tamil Tigers' defenses in recent weeks, ending a prolonged stalemate and stirring predictions of an imminent rebel defeat after 25 years of civil war. Troops overran a major rebel naval base in July, then pushed deep into the north, capturing four more bases and entering the rebels' heartland for the first time in 11 years. The war on this Indian Ocean island nation has killed more than 70,000 people as the separatists fought for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east, following decades of marginalization by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority. Don't get me wrong, I mean no disrespect to the Sri Lankan people, but honestly...25 years? Sri Lanka isn't that big of an island. Surely, these rebels are starting to run out of places to hide at this point. As for the international community, I appreciate that the world is chock full of conflict, but what does it say about the desire to resolve conflict when the world sits on the sidelines watching a civil war tear apart a nation for 25 years?