A Note to My Fellow Hawks  —  President Obama opposed the war in Iraq.  He still thinks it was a mistake.  It's therefore unrealistic for supporters of the war to expect the president to give the speech John McCain would have given, or to expect President Obama to put the war in the context we would put it in.

Obama's Speech  —  Yes, there were some fine parts.  How could there not be?  —  But I really disliked it.  Maybe I'm letting other factors poison my take, and I should probably sleep on it before rendering final judgment.  But here are a few things that really stuck in my craw.

Iraq Through the Looking Glass  —  Most Americans will support President Obama's call for patience in Afghanistan and his policy of continuing the long-planned drawdown in Iraq.  —  But there was something bizarre about his entire Iraq speech — it was as if it were being delivered …

Bush-Era Iraq War Architects Emerge To Demand ‘Credit’ For Iraq War ‘Success’  —  In April 2006, ThinkProgress produced a report titled “The Architects of War: Where Are They Now?”  We wrote at the time, “a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded — not blamed — for their incompetence.”

Saying anything about Palin  —  A former aide to the McCain campaign got in touch with me this morning to cop to being the half-serious progenitor of a story which, embellished almost beyond recognition, appears in Vanity Fair's portrait today of Sarah Palin as monster.  —  Reports Vanity Fair:

No Help On The Horizon For Dems  —  Labor Day is almost here and Democrats are still waiting for the cavalry to arrive.  An exhaustive scan of the horizon reveals no rescuers and none of the things Democrats badly need to save them from tough midterm election losses on Nov. 2.