Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio. This is his first post as a PoHo contributor.

Perhaps because of the mind blowing dollars attached to his policy prescriptions to change the country, President Obama’s announcement last Friday that he will withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by next summer and all remaining U.S. troops by the end of 2011 hardly registered as a momentous event on the national scene.. That is, if you go by the measure of how the D.C. press corps addresses news emanating from the Obama administration, which sometimes seems to be viewed through the prism of “How pissed are Congressional Republicans about it?”

In fact, John (Country First) McCain — he of the ‘I’d rather win a war and lose a campaign” mantra that he attacked then-Sen. Obama with most of last year when discussing Iraq — came out to announce that he thought the withdrawal “reasonable.”

In fact, it was Democrats who were disappointed by the fact that 50,000 residual forces are expected to still be in country by the end of next summer.

Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid expressed mild astonishment upon hearing those numbers, but seemed to be back safely in the President’s camp by Friday night. Even Dennis Kucinich didn’t seem that ruffled on MSNBC’s Hardball, in challenging the notion that 50,000 troops in Iraq constituted a withdrawal

But there are a variety of factors that prevents the new plan – which places a blueprint on ending of the most controversial, divisive wars in American history – from making bigger headlines.

The first and foremost reason being, there is no guarantee that the U.S. will be completely out of Iraq at the end of 2011, as forecast by the President.

But even before that realization kicks in, it should be noted that Obama’s plan is what was already previously agreed upon with President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last fall.

The Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA , calls for the same timetable withdrawal (the SOFA still needs to be subject to a national referendum this summer in Iraq).

But will we be able to get completely out of Iraq in less than 3 years? No less a respected reporter on such matters as Thomas Ricks, the special military reporter for the Washington Post, doesn’t believe so.

In his new book, “The Gamble,” Ricks speculates that the U.S. must stay there until at least 2015. He writes that “a smaller but long-term U.S. military presence is probably the best case scenario. He also writes that “there is also the alarming possibility that, years after a pullout, the U.S. military eventually would have to return to fight another war or impose peace on chaos”.

Of course, the main reason why coverage of Iraq has been reduced so much in the media is the relative reduction of violence, which began shortly after “Mission Accomplished “ was declared in the spring of ’03, and then completely spiraled out of control in 2006. Much credit has been given to the so called “Surge” of troops that began in early 2007, coupled with the “Sunni Awakening,” in which tribal leaders switched sides (and were amply compensated financially and militarily).

Of course, there are a lot of people disappointed by the president’s announcement on Friday. They reside mostly on the anti-war left. The Answer Coalition called the president’s address from Camp Lejeune a “disappointment for anyone who was hoping that Obama would renounce the illegal occupation of Iraq.”

The group also responded by declaring a mass march on the Pentagon next month, both against the continuing occupation of Iraq and the escalation of war in Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of more troops are expected to be deployed this year.

And as both former Pinellas County congressional candidate Samm Simpson and Phyllis Benis, from the Institute for Policy Studies have stated, neither SOFA’s nor the president’s call addresses the 150,000 U.S. paid contractors. (However, A U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, which took effect Jan. 1, does give the Iraqis the authority to determine which Western contractors operate in their country.)

Benis also commented in a recent op-ed the ambiguity revolving around the 50-plus U.S. Military bases in Iraq.

As has been frequently cited by conservatives, while George Bush’s poll ratings sat snuggly in the upper 20’s for the last 2 years of his presidency, he was joined there in 2007 by the institution known as Congress. The GOP loves to brand House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (“The San Francisco Democrat”) as representative of all that’s wrong in America (where she has replaced Hillary Clinton and before than Ted Kennedy in fundraising letters), and have continued that line of attack early on in the Obama administration.

I would argue that one reason that the Democratic-led Congress’ ratings never rebounded from how Republicans were faring before they were voted out of office in ‘06 was that there is a contention from a certain amount of voters that they were voting to get the U.S. out of Iraq, and they were terribly disappointed that didn’t happen in 2007.

Republicans such as Karl Rove have always disagreed with the notion that it was Iraq that lost them the House in ’06, countering that it was the “Culture of Corruption” emanating from the Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley scandals that did them in, as well as their lack of adherence to solid conservative principles of government ( McCain once again :”We came to change Washington, and instead it changed us”)

But getting back to whether or not we will know for sure the possibility that America’s tragic intervention will really end in 3 years time, we did have Secretary Gates speak on Meet the Press yesterday.

Gates played down the chances of any major slowdown in the withdrawal plan.

Calling the chances of still having US forces in Iraq by 2012 “fairly remote,” Gates said to those unhappy at the size of the transition force hovering between 35,000 to 50,000, “in the absence of any new agreement with the Iraqis, we have to be at zero by the end of 2011. So, that 50,000 or 35,000 is a way-station on the way to zero.”

Reporter Thomas Ricks says that Obama could be falling into the trap of Bush in painting a sunnier scenario about the facts on the ground in Iraq than are warranted. And of course, that is that pesky situation in Afghanistan/Pakistan, where the President has ordered 17,000 more troops to the region, with the promise of more to come, leading some anti-war activists to begin calling this “Obama’s Iraq”.

Day Three – ‘We’ve been drinking since we got here …’
dispatches from one pathetic presidential primary
by Chris Faraone

I promised to bring you in the back rooms and bar booths where locals, staffers, volunteers and journalists dance the pre-primary tango. We’ve been drinking since we got here, but on Saturday we hit the strip with pens drawn. While most reporters crowded in and outside of the debates at St. Anselm’s, my crew split up to cover the jamborees that campaigns host around Manchester.

I arrived at Murphy’s Tavern minutes before the Ron Paul wagon pulled in. Unlike in Boston, where bars were reluctant to change the channel from ESPN to C-SPAN when the Democratic National Convention was in town, even Manchester’s greasiest moron holes blast politics during primary week. At Murphy’s, only one screen was left on football, presumably for the drunk, loud Neanderthal who was committed to screaming over the debate.

At first, the only dissent around the room came from a peanut gallery of Huckabee supporters in the back. It was standard arbitrary cheer; like when insecure baseball fans broadcast their preference for the visiting team. The Paul people were equally obnoxious, but considering that they had the home team advantage, and that their candidate was the only Republican on stage who speaks truth – not hollow consultant scripted tag lines – they had a right to party. Their tendency to roar every time Paul got face time reminded me of when my entire family went to see my cousin’s two-second cameo in Married to the Mob.



The only Republican candidate who the Paul supporters outright booed was Romney; one guy suggested that Mitt could free America from its foreign oil habit by simply shaving his head. The group seemed to respect John McCain and, for the most part, lacked the aggressive prep school arrogance that you generally find at grand old gatherings. That’s no surprise, since Paul is more of a cheap suit Libertarian than a Brooks Brothers Republican.

I left Murphy’s near the end of the Republican debate to find a liberal bar. Ignorant as most conservatives are, lefties have them beat on closed-mindedness. As I predicted, the gather.com herd at Milly’s Tavern had no interest in the Republican debate, even though a lot of them were allegedly there to write about it. The entire scene at this party was abhorrent; in addition to how the kiddies talked through the Republicans and shushed the room for Barack and Hillary, organizers had roped off a corner for about a couple dozen bloggers to set up. Since my next dispatch will feature a heavy tirade on blog culture, I’ll hold back for now. But if anyone can explain why I have to share space, air and wi-fi signals with every post-collegiate dip with a shiny MacBook Pro and trite opinions, please enlighten me in the comment section below.

I’m sorry — did you want me to tell you about the actual debate? On the Democratic side, my only notable opinion is that Barack Obama sucks every time he gets knocked off his stump. He’s a gifted speaker, but he can’t smack the curve balls. I would have something to say about Bill Richardson and John Edwards’ performances, but since they’re unpopular amongst the college weblog crowd, I was unable to hear anything they said over all the chitchat that went down when they were talking. Well, I do have one thing: I think that Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich have the same hair stylist. Either that or their mothers still lick their hands and glue their bangs down with spit before they leave their houses every day.

Sunday morning called for a bowel rupturing brunch. This shouldn’t have been a problem at 11 am; most visitors were out campaigning at events, and the few yuppies back in downtown Manchester were all in line at Dunkin Donuts playing with their Blackberries. But due to the local service industry’s drastic unpreparedness, I had to walk out of three fast fooderies after not being served for several minutes.

I would have been angry about my hapless calorie hunt had it not ended with a blessing. Just when I was about to get angry, some guy with a bullhorn announced that in minutes Kucinich would be appearing at a nearby restaurant with Hollywood heavyweight Viggo Mortensen. I heart Dennis, but I was enthralled to see Viggo, who is kind of an inside joke between me and my girlfriend; not because we think he’s a bad actor or anything like that, but because of the Vanity Fair cover on which he looked like a gay porn star, and because his name is Viggo.

As it turns out, Viggo is the Goddamn man; pretty boy is the most eloquent and enlightened star endorser out here pitching. He knows issues, and he’s right: this country really is in too much trouble to not have a real leader with compassionate convictions. Too bad we never will. Since Ron Paul had been able to sneak so much progressive rhetoric into his debate appearance, and Kucinich had been excluded from the Democratic crossfire, I asked the congressman if he’d ever considered running as a Republican. He gave me an answer so strong and so passionate that for the first time I understood how he roped that stunning wife of his. The man has heart, and next to thick cocks, that’s probably the number one turn-on for most women.

The semi-homeless guy with the five-foot dreadlock at the Kucinich press conference didn’t make it to Romney’s event at Elm Street Middle School in Nashua. It’s a good thing, too, because they would have stopped him at the door. This event — billed as “Ask Mitt Anything” — was a pristine production. Mitt rode in on a cocaine white unicorn cradling a small child. Other than a red hot blonde MySpace slut with hoop earrings, everyone on stage looked like they just jumped off a page in J Crew’s winter catalogue.

I can understand why rich, simple-minded yuppies and other assorted selfish jerkoffs gravitate to Romney. He says all the optimistic economic babble, family junk and racist anti-immigration fluff they love, which is especially easy when everybody’s lobbing questions at you. Sure, you could ask Mitt anything, but only if it’s written on a cue card that gets handed to you at the rally. To the lady who got up and gave a spiel about how her and her kid have diabetes: if that’s not true I hope your husband takes your youngest daughter’s virginity with a baseball bat.

Sorry for the aggression. I should be happy that I got into the event wearing my dingy old wax coat. Not everyone was so lucky; due to a costume ban, some global warming protestors in snowman suits were denied access, as was a girl who drove from Haverhill to hold her sign. After covering Romney for three years in Massachusetts, I can attest to the metaphorical value of their non-admittance. If Mitt pulls this off, they won’t be the only ones left outside.

Day Two – Pissing in America’s Stream of Consciousness
dispatches from one pathetic presidential primary
by Chris Faraone

I’ve been a Dennis Kucinich fan since 2003, when I was abducted by aliens who coerced me to accept a leading role in his last hapless presidential bid. In addition to the intergalactic intervention, I was also persuaded by the fact that he’s the best candidate for me. I truly respect Kucinich’s courage – always have and always will – but in this past year I’ve both admired and resented his perpetual lunge at the White House. Not because I’m one of those hack pundits who think every race should begin and end with a few top media-propped candidates, but because while I know that he’s on point – and perhaps the only one in either party who is genuinely interested in engineering social equality – I’m constantly embarrassed by his campaign.

The five minutes that I spent in Kucinich’s Manchester office gave me flashbacks of the 2004 campaign I helped run in New York City. I haven’t seen such a swarm of apathetic credit-seeking students, bleeding heart fools and barely post-pubescent Sondheim fanatics since liberal arts school. All week I’ve been griping about how a maniac fringe Republican like Ron Paul can generate so much more steam than his benevolent equivalent across the aisle, and I think I’m closing in on an answer. Instead of focusing on pragmatic people who might agree with his ideas if they paid attention, Kucinich hangs in smoothie bars and vegan delis. The highest-ranking member of his staff who was on the premises couldn’t tell me one place where the man was speaking today.

Having had enough with self-destructive loser staff types, I went back to covering the dirty rotten scoundrels who have a shot at placing in this kumite.

I’m beginning to think that Hillary Clinton’s declining popularity has to do with the aggressive presence of armed guards and police dogs at her campaign events. To cover ground, the Clintons have embarked on separate speaking tours this weekend. I went to peep Bubba at a high school up north in Dow, where I was greeted by a Reservoir Dogs-esque cop and K-9 team in the bathroom. And while it would have been mightily ironic to get busted holding weed at a Bill Clinton event, I felt relieved to have left my crops back at the car.

This was probably one of the smallest crowds that Bill Clinton has ever romanced; it was less than half the turnout that Mike Huckabee – that other former Arkansas governor – turned out in a nearby gymnasium just one day earlier. Sure, Bill Clinton didn’t have Chuck Norris in tow, but that’s just because there aren’t enough mops in New Hampshire to soak up the roaring female cum rapids that would surely flow if Chuck and Bill were in the same room at one time.

Bill was on time in a way that no other presidential candidate or celebrity has ever been on time before; Maya Angelou was wrong — he wasn’t really the first black president, which is good news for Obama. After being introduced by a local politician who said something about change, change and change – political panhandling, if you ask me – he gave the first amazing speech that I’ve seen so far this week.

I have to admit — Bill still chokes me up every damn time. He can even make this “change” shit sound convincing. Always the diplomat, he even managed to praise governors Huckabee and Romney before diving into pharmaceutical corruption and slashing Bush for appointing cronies instead of competent officials. It would have been cliché rhetoric out of any other politico’s jaw, but Bill marinates my soul. For a moment, he nearly convinced me that his wife is a committed public servant instead of a megalomaniacal carpetbagger.

And like that – we’re off to the Manchester pub scene.

LAKE BUENA VISTA — They call this “the nation’s Latino political convention.” But if U.S. demographics continue their current trends, in two decades both parties’ presidential conventions could look at lot like the 24th annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

The gathering drew more than 1,000 NALEO members to Walt Disney World’s Contemporary Hotel, where members listened to the seven leading Democratic presidential candidates on Saturday. They heard from just one Republican — dark horse Duncan Hunter, on Friday. The major GOP candidates cited scheduling conflicts; more likely, they feared fallout from the recent immigration reform battle and the fact that the nonpartisan organization’s membership is strongly Democratic.

The conference was significant beyond the presidential forum. Hispanics make up the largest minority group in this country, and are its fastest-growing bloc, too. Latinos make up more than 20 percent of the voting public in Florida.

“Whoever will be the next president will need to work with this constituency to move our country forward,” NALEO President John Bueno said.

Latino power has started to show up in election results. Just a decade ago, there were 3,700 Hispanic officeholders in the U.S., mostly at local and school-board levels. Today, NALEO counts more than 5,200 Latino elected officials, including three U.S. senators (one is Florida’s Mel Martinez) and a legit (if currently running fourth at best) presidential candidate, Bill Richardson, the Mexican-American governor of New Mexico.

Richardson, who only a few days before looked unengaged at the Howard University debate, was a different candidate in front of the crowd of supporters he called “mi gente, mi familia” — my people, my family.

Richardson didn’t overplay his Hispanic heritage. He didn’t have to. When he inadvertently burned up almost all of his allotted two minutes for his closing statement while reminiscing about the late Edward Roybal, a California congressman instrumental in founding the Hispanic caucus and NALEO, forum moderator Arturo Vargas told him he had only 30 seconds left.

“My God,” Richardson quipped, “I’m the only Latino running for president. Give me a break.”

Audience members erupted in laughter and applause. He got his full two minutes. He used it to tell them about his hopes for a better United States for everyone — en español. He got a total of three standing O’s.

The candidate forum’s format may have been largely tame — the candidates were given nearly identical questions in 15-minute sessions that kept them from being on stage together or interacting — but it had impact nonetheless, being telecast nationally on Univision.

And just because Richardson is un hermano doesn’t mean that the Latino vote is breaking all his way. For that reason, the other Democratic candidates had to show up. Sen. Christopher Dodd bounced back and forth between English and Spanish, his diction near perfect from years spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. The non-Spanish-speaking front-runners hustled to make sure the press took notice of their Latino support. Former Sen. John Edwards’ OneCorps folks and Sen. Barack Obama’s O-Train volunteers turned out roughly 100 supporters each to wave bilingual signs, chant and welcome the candidates as they drove up to the convention center.

Sen. Hillary Clinton went a step further: She held a news conference with 100 Latino elected officials and supporters to tout her newly formed National Hispanic Leadership Council, which included two Democratic Florida legislators, Darren Soto and Luis Garcia — both of whom were elected in November to formerly GOP-held seats.

In front of a podium adorned with an “América con Hillary” sign, Clinton served red meat to the crowd — universal health care, a more prosperous middle class, global warming, job creation and universal pre-K for all 4-year-olds, with an emphasis on helping non-English speakers.

She also stated that a “new relationship” with Latin America would be a foreign policy priority for her administration.

“We have ignored our neighbors to the south” and opened the door to demagogues such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Clinton told her backers. She took no questions from Florida and national media; instead, she was swept to a backroom for a press avail with Iowa and New Hampshire reporters who’d been flown in by her campaign.
Clinton, as her strategists pointed out in a lengthy e-mail during the conference, is ahead in early polling of Hispanic voters in Latino-rich primary states, including California, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and New Jersey — not to mention a 46-point lead in that demographic in a nationwide Gallup poll.

Those results didn’t faze Obama supporters.

“It’s not surprising that the name Clinton is recognized,” said Gloria Romero, the majority leader of the California Senate and an Obama supporter from East L.A. “That’s to be expected.”

Romero was worried about a shift in her state by registered Latino Democrats to the Independent category. “Latinos are beginning to move out of the party,” she said.
One of her colleagues also working the reporters in the spin room, Pomona, Calif., Mayor Norma Torres, added, “We have been disappointed in some of the leaders who have come up.”

Both said they backed Obama because he appealed to young voters and represented a part of the future, not the past.

The crowd in the Fantasia ballroom warmly received Obama, who talked about the war in Iraq with the advantage of being the only candidate in the top tier who opposed it from the start. Outside in the lobby, his supporters waved signs — “Guerra, no! Obama, si!” – that drove the point home.

Immigration was at the center of the issues for this crowd, especially since the Senate defeat of the compromise immigration reform occurred while NALEO was in session in Orlando. Richardson called out “xenophobes in both parties.” Obama pointed out the “ugly undertone that crept into the debate this year.” Sen. Joe Biden described it as a “race to the bottom” to see which politician or radio talk show host could be more anti-Hispanic. Obama, Biden and Clinton, however, had to explain why they voted for a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border, and even Richardson was called on the carpet for “militarizing the border” by sending his state’s National Guard to the Mexican line.

The immigration reform legislation that died in the Senate last week was killed by Democrats who found it too cumbersome, especially provisions that would split up families, and by Republicans who don’t want anything that resembles amnesty for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants working in this country. Even though the GOP party chairman Martinez spoke to the NALEO crowd to bemoan the legislation’s demise, it appears that Republicans are bearing the brunt of public disappointment.
“I believe that the Republican Party has hurt itself tremendously on the issue of immigration,” Richardson told reporters in the spin room after his speech.

Latinos helped elect George W. Bush in 2000 and always showed up in surprising numbers for his brother Jeb’s two gubernatorial runs in this state. Since Democrats can’t take Latinos for granted any more, they were trying hard to win hearts and minds in Orlando — sometimes a bit too hard. Poll-straggler Dennis Kucinich followed up his critique of the “illegal occupation” of Iraq in a war “based on lies” with a closing two-minute statement in halting, poorly pronounced Spanish. He patted his chest to talk about his corazon and promised to work on los derechos humanos (human rights).

The initial confusion/bemusement on the faces of the delegates melted to grins and applause as Kucinich finished. At least he tried. And that’s more than you can say for the Republicans.

First, $15 will get you a chance to hear from John Edwards, whose presidential campaign is running in third place in Florida and nationally. Edwards is speaking at the Saunders Pavilion at the Lowry Park Zoo on Sligh Avenue in Tampa.  The “Small Change for Big Change” grassroots event has a 7 p.m. start time.

For those with even less small change than that, you can meet presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich on the west side of BayWalk in downtown St. Pete from  8:4-9:30 p.m., which coincides with the opening night in Tampa Bay for Michael Moore’s Sicko.

Local Progressive Democrats for America activists will also be on hand, touting John Conyers’ HB 676 national health insurance legislation.

“It’s a tragedy that we have poorer health care in this country than Cuba,” Pinellas PDA chairman Mike Fox said in a news release.  “It’s sad to see that a movie like this is needed, but it’s great to see Moore do such an outstanding job.”