Ill-informed Democrats like Barack's other Veep vetter Eric Holder may believe Europe will love us with Barack, but he must have missed the last few elections over there which brought center-right leaders (as best you can expect in socialist Europe) to power--Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Nicholas Sarkozy, and the irrepressible Silvio

With the 24/7 media coverage of the presidential campaign, Michelle Obama on The View and stories about what John McCain calls his wife, there's a news gorilla in the room we've been ignoring -- the Iraq War. Sure, we hear on the campaign trail that Barack Obama wants to bring the troops home and McCain, not so much. But the coverage of what's really going on in Iraq isn't making it onto the nightly news shows.

John McCain held another in his series of question and answer calls with bloggers today and BlogHer was invited to join in (though I was unable to make it into the Q&A queue before time ran out).  The call came on the heels of his speech last night in Louisiana (video available at this link to Catherine Morgan at The Political Voices of Women and his media call this morning where, along with Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) and his foreign policy and national security director Randy Scheunemann, McCain responded to Senator Barack Obama's earlier speech to  the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Today's blogger call confirmed that McCain is now campaigning against Obama and that national security and foreign policy will be key issues.

Oh the irony. After years of being told "I've never met anyone from Montana before!" my home state of fewer than one million people will have a high profile Tuesday when voters in Montana and South Dakota (with even fewer inhabitants) go to the polls to decide which Democratic nominee gets their combined 31 delegates.

Sen. Barack Obama sat down with BlogHer today to answer key policy questions developed by this community of bloggers for 2008 presidential candidates. In an exclusive on-camera interview with BlogHer, Sen. Obama (D-IL) answers questions about the economy, Iraq, health care and the environment -- including a health-care screening process for every veteran and support for their spouses and families, health insurance coverage for birth control to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and working with China and other countries on climate change, a "major problem."

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain has a vision of what his first term in office will look like, and it includes America welcoming home '"most" of it's servicemen and women by 2013. "...the following are conditions that I intend to achieve. And toward that end, I will focus all the powers of the office, every skill and strength I possess, and seize every opportunity to work with members of Congress who put the national interest ahead of partisanship, and any country in the world that shares our hopes for a more peaceful and prosperous world. By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won, " McCain said Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.

Despite the talk among public figures and commentators about the need for unifying ideas in today's political arena, the presidential candidates and their policies regarding Iraq couldn't be less suited to cross the aisle of partisan politics. In the presidential race, Senators Clinton and Obama have both put forward proposals to end the military conflict-- by bringing troops home or redeploying them elsewhere. Senator McCain believes that we need to stick with the status-quo and advocates sending even more troops.

Last month I received an e-mail from an old friend of mine who recently discovered my liberal blog. It blew me away. (And I use it here with her permission.) Here’s what it said: