Mr. Obama, of Illinois, was not present at the fund-raising event when Mr. Schultz, who has described himself as a “gun-totin’, red meat-eatin’ lefty,” made his remarks.

"Reductions in troop levels will likely result in some degree of chaos and violence no matter what," the report warns. "The decentralized, fragmented political dynamic in Iraq cannot be reversed." Creation of a strong central government that can take on security is unlikely to happen in the time left for the current expanded U.S. military presence.

The second option is unconditional redeployment of all U.S. forces in Iraq, possibly beginning in January and completed by 2011. At the same time, however, Washington would build an "enhanced" military presence in the region and stronger regional alliances, while providing political support for the Baghdad government.

There was plenty of looting and disorder when U.S. forces entered Germany. In fact, it was on a scale far greater than anticipated or now remembered, most of it due to the rage that millions of slave laborers who'd been deported to Germany from Nazi-occupied countries, chiefly Poland and the Soviet Union, vented on their captors upon liberation.

As in Baghdad five years ago, the disorder also engulfed cultural institutions. When U.S. forces entered Munich, Hitler's spiritual home and the seat of Nazi Party headquarters, scores of works of art simply disappeared from museums and art galleries. For two or three days, the northern city of Bremen was "probably among the most debauched places on the face of God's earth," wrote one witness of the frantic looting that took place after Allied soldiers entered its bomb-shattered streets.

Critics of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq point to the decisions by L. Paul Bremer, Garner's replacement, to dismiss Baathists from public office and to dissolve the Iraqi army as critical and disastrous turning points that created a vast legion of the unemployed and disaffected. Yet in 1945, the Allies implemented a similarly draconian policy in Germany. They dissolved the Nazi Party, carried out a thorough purge of Nazis in public office and even abolished the ancient state of Prussia, which they believed was at the root of German militarism. Millions of Wehrmacht soldiers languished in prisoner-of-war camps while their families struggled to survive.

Rebuilding a nation is possible. But even in the best of circumstances, it takes effort, time, patience and pragmatism. As 1945 confirms, liberation from a dictator in itself offers no easy path to peace or democracy. Battlefield victory is the easy bit. Building peace is a constant struggle -- and it's a matter of years, not weeks.

With the command-and-control propensity of contemporary liberalism, Clinton predictably advocates a policy that has a record, running from Roman times to the present, that is unblemished by success. It is the policy of price controls: Her proposed five-year freeze on interest rates would be a control on the price of money.

McCain's only solecism is his loopy idea that mortgage lenders should make a "response" that is "similar" to General Motors' policy of interest-free financing immediately after Sept. 11. Patting himself on the back, as is his wont, McCain said he is too honorable to "play election-year politics" or "allow dogma to override common sense." Then he cast this issue as he casts too many issues, as a matter of patriotism, saying of lenders: "They've been asking the government to help them out. I'm now calling on them to help their customers and their nation out."

Good grief. Where to begin? GM initiated that policy for a corporation's best reason -- business rationality. The policy's purpose was to shed inventory, not make a patriotic gesture with shareholders' money or in response to political pressure.

McCain practices the politics of honor: He thinks that whatever his instincts tell him is honorable must be so and that those who think otherwise are dishonorable. This makes him difficult to deal with but does no other harm, as long as it is kept separate from governing.

Mr. McCain this week has claimed to be the most bipartisan candidate in the race, based on his years of working with Democrats, also providing, though never explicitly asserting, a contrast to the increasingly nasty fight between Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Among the list of bipartisan efforts are proposing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, overhauling campaign-finance laws and trying to cap U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions — all stances that have alienated him at times from his own party.

But Mr. McCain said there was virtue in bipartisanship, adding that those engaged in the political debate "deserve more than tolerance from one another, we deserve each other's respect."

Jamie Selzler, head of the North Dakota Democratic Party, said he is "not going to criticize Ed Schultz."

"He gave a rousing speech that got the group excited, and we appreciated that he did that," Mr. Selzler said.

The tiff reversed the roles from February, when Mr. McCain quickly disavowed a warm-up rally introduction given by conservative talk-radio host Bill Cunningham, who called the Illinois senator a "hack, Chicago-style" politician and repeatedly referred to him by his full name — Barack Hussein Obama.

From ABCNews.com:

For the second time in recent days, Sen. Hillary Clinton has had to drop a story from her stump speech after being challenged on its accuracy.

For the past month, the New York senator liked to tell the tale of a pregnant woman who was denied health care from an Ohio hospital because she did not have $100 the hospital demanded to treat her. After being turned away, the woman was brought back to the hospital days later with severe complications. She had to be rushed to another facility for advanced treatment, but it was too late. Both the woman and the baby died, Clinton told her audiences.

For Clinton, the story was an example of how everyone should have universal healthcare. It is a powerful tale and always drew gasps from the audience.

The hospital, which was never named in Clinton's speeches, objected this weekend, saying it wasn't true and demanded that Clinton stop telling it.

Defining Dr. King Down?   [Victor Davis Hanson]

It is very odd to see a number of recent essays that attempt to redefine the healer Dr. King as a radical, as part of a defense of the divider Rev. Wright. Instead of condemning the Wright rhetoric, the trope seems to be that he is within the mainstream of political discourse since we don't realize how fiery and radical MLK really was.

The methodology is odd: the body of Rev. Wright's work supposedly proves than he is not as radical as we suppose from the "snippets"—while the snippets of MLK's speeches prove that he is more radical than we otherwise think from the aggregate body of his work. But to paraphrase Lloyd Bensten, "America knew Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Wright is no Martin Luther King, Jr."

Three o’clock in the morning

And it looks like it’s gonna be another sleepless night . . .

That’s Crystal Gayle from the opening of her hit song, “Talking In Your Sleep,” Number One on the Billboard Country charts in 1978. No, hang on a minute, it’s Hillary Clinton’s new campaign theme.

In Crystal’s case, her sleepless night was caused by her husband lying next to her talking in his sleep, moaning in ecstasy and whispering sweet nothings to some other gal. But Hillary learned to snore through that a long time ago.

Hill calculated that, given the Dems’ deference to identity politics, her gender would give her enough novelty to sail through. But Obama trumped that, and now it’s eternally three in the morning and the phone doesn’t stop not ringing. She’s like Frank Sinatra in Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s all-time great saloon song:

It’s quarter to three
There’s no one in the place except you and me . . .

Superdelegate Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey and an early supporter of Hillary, now says that if she doesn’t win the popular vote he’ll switch to Obama. Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont says she needs to throw in the towel for the good of the party.

Well, that’s how it goes
And Joe, I know you’re getting anxious to close . . .

They’re locking up the joint, and no matter how many nickels she drops in the jukebox it won’t play “Hail To The Chief.”