Er, horizon.

Given all the domestic muck John Kerry got into over his infamous “global test,” I’m really not sure how politically savvy it is for Obama to be talking about the “burdens of global citizenship” at a time when the burdens most Americans are feeling are right here at home.

Just sayin’.

UPDATE: The McCain camp pounces:

While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a ‘citizen of the world,’ John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election.

The ACLU has winkled more torture docs out of the Justice Department.

In one, Jay Bybee (the John Yoo overseer who is now a judge on the “liberal” Ninth Circuit) provides the “mental harm” corollary to the advice that physical torture must arise to the level of pain caused by organ failure or death:

Prolonged mental harm is substantial mental harm of sustained duration, e.g. harm lasting months or even years after the acts were inflicted upon the prisoner.

So if the terror of thinking you’re going to die of drowning is temporary, by all means use it.

Bybee (and let’s be honest, this is probably Yoo’s handiwork, too) are also big on the intent to torture. In other words, it’s OK for your actions to otherwise constitute torture, as long as, deep down, in “good faith” you don’t intend to torture. And as long as you’re relying on the advice of experts, even unreasonable good faith is all the good faith you need.

A defendant acts in good faith when he has an honest belief that his actions will not result in severe pain or suffering. Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it. Good faith may be established by, among other things, reliance on experts. [emphasis added.]

Based on the information you have provided us, we believe that those carrying out these procedures would not have the specific intent to inflict severe physical pain or suffering. The objectives of these techniques is not to cause severe physical pain.

The evil circularity of this gives me a nosebleed, it makes me so angry.

I freely admit I thought the surge was going to be a disaster — at best a way of kicking the can down the road and delaying the inevitable implosion of Iraq.

But now that some genuine stability has been brought to bear in Iraq, why isn’t John McCain getting the credit he thinks he deserves.

Two reasons:

Petraeus. No matter how much McCain crows about it, the general is seen as the godfather of the surge. To the “New Jesus” goes all praise.

The endgame. Victory to John McCain has somehow become the same as staying. This wasn’t always the case. As late as last year he was rejecting the South Korean model for Iraq, saying we’d eventually need to come home.

I don’t know if the shift was the result of some neo-con/neo-colonial conversion on McCain’s part, or part of his election strategerie to paint Obama as a surrender monkey.

My guess is that it’s the latter — that even McCain didn’t really think the surge would get us to this point this quickly. He likely imagined that it would allow us to see a bit of daylight at the end of the tunnel. And then he could paint himself as the Churchill who would lead America with determination and grit tow