CBS journalist Richard Butler's rescue a few days ago by Iraqi forces is detailed at Defense Link. CBS has this video of the man who was kidnapped and held captive for two months. He discusses his captivity and dramatic rescue following days of fighting in the area where he was being held.

It's clear that Mr. Butler's rescue was a direct result of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's political decision to retake control of Basra. The historical significance of PM Maliki's arrival in Basra with Iraqi troops able to effect the mission with the aid of US air support is also illustrated by and personified in Mr. Butler's succinct, well told rescue story.

Other videos made following the British journalist's rescue are also available at the CBS website.

You won't learn anything from from the captions of this Terra slideshow except the date on which the Republican candidate became a prisoner of war, but the photos of John McCain on the campaign trail are good.

Image: Click photo for larger version.

Barack Obama threw somebody else under the bus to get out of a jam about the anti-American company he keeps. At the Democratic debate last night Sen. Obama added his colleague in the Senate, Tom Coburn to the discard pile he started when he used his "typical white person" Grandmother to explain away the "snippets" voiced by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. ("Just words", after all).

It happened when George Stephanopoulos asked the candidate to explain Mr. Obama's association with William Ayers, Vietnam era Weather Underground terrorist bomber. The candidate sidestepped the issue by first referring to Ayers as a "Professor of English", somebody he knew from the neighborhood. His opposite number, Hillary Clinton chimed in to let the audience know that the Obama-Ayers relationship went farther still. Both had served on the same board at the Woods Foundation. Sen. Obama then tried this tack: he brought up his "friend" and colleague, Sen. Tom Coburn then compared Ayers to him. Tom Coburn once said he "supports the death penalty for abortion doctors", according to Mr. Obama. So Barack Obama thinks that William Ayers, a man who admits he committed acts of terrorism against the United States and was quoted on 9/11 saying he only wished he "had done more", can be explained away by using "his fiend" Tom Coburn defensively. Ayers, a man who narrowly escaped incarceration (and only because of a botched FBI procedural technicality that allowed Ayers to skate). Barack Obama thinks that Sen. Tom Coburn's strong expression of anti-abortion sentiment is as bad as William Ayers violent acts. Acts which included the bombing of the Pentagon and an unintentional bomb-making explosion in Greenwich Village that took 3 lives.

It's all moot, tho', according to Sen. Obama, because Mr. Ayers isn't even a supporter of his. Neither Charles Gibson nor Mr. Stephanopoulos objected to that statement, but it's been reported that William Ayers has contributed to Obama's campaigns in the past.

Barack Obama's statements during last night's debate revealed some of his thought processes, his standards and judgment more clearly, perhaps, than any of the candidate's previous television appearances. But will Barack Obama be able to retain his teflon-coating if, (and excuse the mixed metaphors), if his world-class Tabula Rasa gets a few ineradicable scratches?

Barack Obama is not the most mature politician we've ever heard respond to losing a debate. Today he said (after being trounced by Hillary Clinton last night):

"They like stirring up controversy and they like playing gotcha games, getting us to attack each other. And I have to say Senator Clinton looked in her element," Obama said. "She was taking every opportunity to get a dig in there. You know, that's all right. That's her right. That's her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit."

Is that how they roll at tony prep schools in Hawaii when their team loses at b-ball? Whine about the bad reffing and then complain about all the uncalled fouls committed by the other side?

Quote from an article at International Herald Tribune.