Free Republic

NEW YORK – John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted. A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber’s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president. McCain likes to say that he isn’t...

It may seem bewildering to Americans who see themselves as helping Iraq. The rush to blame the United States for the shrine bombing is a sign not only of the deteriorating situation in Iraq, but the tense state of West-Mideast relations overall. From riots over the prophet drawings to the United Arab Emirates ports dispute to Hamas' election win, little is going right for the United States across the Arab world. Even a supposed friend – a top Iraqi Shiite leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who President Bush once praised at the White House – took a poke after Wednesday's attack on...