nowhereman

OBAMA VISITS IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN...

Far from Amman, Jordan, where the world's news media was fixated on Sen. Barack Obama, his presidential rival, presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain told a town meeting here that U.S. troops "have succeeded and we will win the war in Iraq."

In midday remarks to a lively crowd in the old Rochester Opera House, McCain criticized Obama for sticking to his proposal for a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from the war zone. "Now he wants to reverse the success we have had and set a date for withdrawal," McCain said. He ignored recent statements supporting withdrawal by 2010 from the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush White House's implicit recent support of the idea. McCain accused Obama of stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the success of the surge that McCain proposed and President Bush adopted last year. He credited himself with having the "courage and judgment" to say last year that he would rather win the war than lose a campaign, and today said "it seems to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war" than change his mind about the surge publicly. "I hope that he will have the courage to reverse his position," McCain said.