Journalists were asked by the Obama campaign to hold off from reporting that Obama would visit Afghanistan and Iraq prior to his trip abroad next week until he landed safely in the region — which his campaign informed us early this morning that he has.

While a small “pool” of reporters was permitted to document his journey from Chicago to Andrews Air Force Base on Thursday, none made the journey abroad with Obama and Senators Reed and Hagael, as their visit is classified as a “Congressional Delegation,” funded by taxpayers.

The following email was received by reporters at 3:24am Eastern Daylight Time.

__

At approximately 3:15 AM Eastern/2:15 AM Central, I received a phone call telling me that Senator Obama had landed at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Since leaving Washington on Thursday, Senator Obama had stopped and visited troops in Kuwait.

What follows is a pool report by the Chicago Tribune’s John McCormick.

===================================

Background:

This is a pool report for July 17 for flight from Chicago’s Midway Airport to Washington’s Reagan National Airport, followed by motorcade to Andrews Air Force Base. All times are local for the geography mentioned. Please note that the campaign said it would be holding this for distribution until it confirmed Sen. Obama was on the ground in Afghanistan.

Report:

The motorcade left Sen. Obama’s home in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood at 11:11 a.m. There was one Chicago Police Department patrol car, followed by two SUVs, a sedan and a press van. Riding in the press van were agent Jill, Sam, John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune and Glen Johnson of The Associated Press.

The motorcade headed north on Lake Shore Drive to I-55 (Stevenson Expressway) and toward MDW. The CPD blocked traffic for our turn onto the western perimeter of the airfield, where we arrived at 11:31 a.m.

Waiting on the tarmac was a Gulfstream III (G3) executive jet (tail number N366JA). We exited our respective vehicles at 11:34 a.m.

The crew was waiting outside for the senator’s arrival and a few photos with him near a wing. He was wearing tan slacks and a short black jacket. After fishing around in the back of one of the SUVs for his luggage (he seemed especially to be checking his suits inside a garment bag), he was on the bird by 11:36 a.m.

Also getting on the plane were eight Secret Service agents and the two reporters. The senator briefly greeted us as we walked past his seat in the forward section. Seated near him was senior spokeswoman Linda Douglass, the only staff member on the flight.

After everyone found a seat on the crowded plane, the pilot announced that the flying time would be between 80 and 85 minutes. All seemed eager for him to start the engines, since the plane had been sitting under a hot sun and the cabin temperature was likely somewhere in the 90s. Sweat had begun to roll down the faces of some of the agents.

“We’re just easing you into it,” Obama told his bodyguards, referring to the heat and the desert weather they would all be traveling to in the coming days.

As the plane taxied, the senator, wearing a short-sleeve black shirt, chatted with Douglass. The plane was wheels up at 11:55 a.m.

Your pool asked Douglass if we could chat with the senator about his upcoming trip. She said she would check, but later told us that we would only get a brief chance to ask him a couple questions once at Reagan National Airport.

Janis, our stewardess, first served the senator his lunch (chicken and rice and broccoli). Everyone else had sandwiches, wraps, chips and candy (yes, just like on the bus), although we were served on china and given green place settings and cloth napkins.

As the plane peaked around 41,000 feet and 500 knots, according to the computer screen tracking our location at the front of the cabin, the senator read a copy of the Wall Street Journal. Johnson had claimed an aisle seat and reported that he first read a story about off-shore oil drilling and then one about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

By the time we were descending, at 17,000 feet, he had switched to the New York Times, spending most of his time in the Sports and Arts sections.

We were wheels down at 2:17 p.m. local and parked with the engines off by 2:24 p.m.

After getting off the plane, Douglass said there was time for “one question,” adding, “Then, we’re making him leave. He’s behind [schedule].”

Your pool, with the noise of the jet’s engines in the background, quickly asked what two or three things Obama was hoping to learn on this mission.

“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is,” he said. “I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, ah, their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they’ve been doing.”

Then, the senator was asked whether he plans to deliver some tough talk to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about doing more to stand up the instruments of self-governance in their own nations.

“Well, you know, I’m more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking,” he said. “And I think it is very important to recognize that I’m going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time, so it’s the president’s job to deliver those messages.”

By 2:32 p.m., the motorcade was rolling. This one included two local police cars, three SUVs, a Honda Accord, a minivan equipped with lights and sirens and another local patrol car. We were off the DCA property by 2:36 p.m.

Your pool was in the Honda with Douglass. It was driven by Molly Buford, who works in Obama’s senator office and also for the campaign.

The motorcade traveled I-395 to I-295 and then on to the Suitland Parkway, entering a northern entrance of Andrews Air Force Base at 2:57 p.m.

We passed several military helicopters and planes before arriving at 3:01 p.m. near an aircraft that had no markings, with the exception of an American flag on the tail. This was the plane that would transport the congressional delegation to their destination. A ground crew member told us it was a Boeing C-40C.

The senator greeted several military personnel waiting for him near the plane. He was carrying a laptop bag and had changed into some brown leather boots upon arrival in Washington.

The senator was also greeted by Mark Lippert, foreign policy advisor in his senate office. Douglass said he was the only member of Obama’s staff traveling with him on the congressional delegation trip. Douglass later told your pool that Lippert had returned in the late spring from a tour of duty in Iraq as a naval reservist.

By 3:03 p.m., the senator was on the aircraft, having been saluted by a member of the military on his way aboard. At 3:09 p.m., the plane’s door was closed. Four minutes later it was in motion and wheels up at 3:17 p.m., taking off to the south.

Later, Douglass confirmed that Sens. Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel were on the plane before our arrival. Your pool had not seen them at Andrews.

– John McCormick, Chicago Tribune.

ROBERT GIBBS

Senior Strategist for Communications and Message

Obama for America

The Obama campaign held a conference today call to discuss the senator’s upcoming trip to the Middle East and Europe. According to the foreign press, Obama will arrive in Jordan early next week, but until now the campaign has refused to discuss any details of the trip on the record.

Several of Obama’s top foreign policy advisors were on today’s call to talk about the purpose of the trip and with whom the Illinois senator would meet on his trip to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and the UK. Included on that list: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Opposition Leader David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, King Abdullah of Jordan, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Chimon Perez, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

But the campaign continues to refuse to discuss the dates and locations of any of the planned stops, presumably for safety concerns, and will not say where the meeting with the Palestinian Authority leaders will take place.

According to advisor Susan Rice, Obama will exchange views with these leaders on issues critical to national and global security in order to deepen relationships and explore concretely a way to discuss cooperation on these challenges.

Rice added that “it’s important to note that it is not our intent to make policy or to negotiate, we won’t do so. There’s one President of the United States at any given time and we will certainly honor and respect that.” But, she said, the candidate may “underscore” the message to leaders that “stepped up U.S. contribution should be met with a stepped up NATO contribution to the extent possible” in Afghanistan.

The campaign is not calling this a campaign event - even though the candidate will be joined by at least 19 media outlets along the way. “The trip is not at all a campaign trip, a rally of any sort. It’s …a series of substantive meetings with our friends and our allies to talk about the common challenges that we face and the national security dangers for the 21st century,” Robert Gibbs said on the call.

In fact the only speech-like event the campaign will discuss is the much talked about Berlin event, where the candidate will “underscore our shared values and our shared goals” to the German people.

The German press originally reported the Democrat would speak at Brandenburg Gate, which then was quickly made off limits by the German government. Today the Obama campaign would not confirm or deny the latest speculations on where the speech may take place, only that they were looking for a location that “meets our needs and our German hosts’ needs and interests.”

The campaign declined to say how long this trip has been in the making, but said Senator Obama reached out to Secretary Rice about his trip and that the two had “a very productive conversation.” The campaign has been relying on help from US embassies in each of the countries they are planning to visit.

GRAND HAVEN, MI — Sen. McCain took one step closer to declaring victory in Iraq today with a rhetorical shift he sought to emphasize over and over again Thursday.

“I am happy to stand in front of you to tell you that this strategy has succeeded. It has succeeded. It has succeeded,” McCain said at a Kansas City, MO town hall this morning, emphasizing the last syllable. The presumptive GOP nominee usually couches his language and argues that the surge is “succeeding” but today shifted to past tense and made his case just as his rival prepares to head to Iraq.

For any reporters who may have missed it the first time around, he reiterated it aboard his campaign bus.

“I repeat my statement that we have succeeded in Iraq, not we are succeeding, we have succeeded in Iraq. The strategy has worked and we now have the Iraqi government and military in charge in the major cities in Iraq. Al Qaeda is on their heels and on the run,” McCain said during a bus media availability after the event, though he added that progress on the ground is still tenuous.

“The success that we have achieved is still fragile and could be reversed, and it’s still - if we do what Senator Obama wants to do, then all of that could be reversed and we could face again the chaos, increased Iranian influence and American loss and defeat,” he added, noting that he hopes his Democratic rival comes around to his view during his visit to the war zone.

At a second press conference ironically called in order for the campaign to clarify conflicting messages, he was able to successfully hammer home his case that the U.S. has “succeeded” and even went a bit further in declaring a “fragile victory” in Iraq.

“We have succeeded in Iraq. We have succeeded and if we continue the strategy we will win the war. We have succeeded. The strategy of the surge and everything that goes with it has succeeded. And those are the facts on the ground. I remind you when I went over there some time ago I said we are succeeding and a lot of people laughed about that. I could see at the time we were succeeding and we’ve succeeded,” he added. “This is a fragile victory. This is a fragile success…if we will continue this, we will win this war.”

Asked whether any recent event led him to the declaration, McCain didn’t cite any specific developments, instead noting that he has witnessed “dramatic” military, economic and political improvement on the ground during recent weeks and months.

Which led to one other obvious question. “So when can you say the war is won?,” one reporter asked.

“I can say that the war will be won when we will have a majority of Americans have returned,” McCain added, though the GOPer says he depends on the advice of the military to determine when troops should leave Iraq.

GRAND HAVEN, MI — While his campaign opened up a new front on Sen. Barack Obama today in calling his planned trip abroad an international “campaign rally,” it seemed initially today that Sen. McCain was contradicting his own message.

During an interview with Fox News Channel today, McCain Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker attacked Obama’s upcoming trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and a number of European nations.

“Let’s drop the pretense that this is a fact-finding trip and call it what it is–the first of its kind campaign rally overseas,” she said in a clip the campaign put up on You Tube and sent out to reporters (above). During a later appearance on MSNBC she also called the trip “one giant photo opportunity…not designed to inform his world view.”

But when he was asked about the comments aboard his bus this afternoon, McCain appeared to disagree with Hazelbaker’s statement.

“I’m glad that he is (traveling overseas) and pleased that he is going to Iraq for only the second time and going to Afghanistan for the first time,” McCain said. “I can only give you my opinion, and I will talk to (Hazelbaker). But the fact is, I’m glad that he’s going to Iraq and I think it’s - I’m glad that he’s going to Afghanistan. It’s long, long overdue, if you want to lead this nation and secure our national security.”

The dissonant message led the campaign to organize an impromptu outdoor press conference this afternoon so McCain could clear it up once in for all. His message: the Iraqi and Afghanistan legs of Obama’s trip seem legitimate while the European portion appears to be a photo opportunity.

“As we all know Senator Obama is about to go on a trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and I understand other countries. The focus of our conversation today on the bus was about Iraq and Afghanistan and what Senator Obama does in the other countries, whether political rallies or not, obviously would then give them a political flavor to say the least,” McCain told reporters after a quick campaign stop at Pronto Pup, a local corn dog joint in Western Michigan.

“If he has political rallies in other places, then obviously it’s a political trip….apparently it’s gonna be (a photo opportunity) if he is going to have rally in Germany at the Brandenburg Gate, which is what is being publicly stated. Of course if you have political rallies then its a political event,” he added.

President Bill Clinton said that he is willing to campaign for Senator Barack Obama “whenever he asks” adding that they had a “good talk” and that Obama requested the former President’s assistance,

“He said he wanted me to campaign with him and I said I was eager to do so,” Clinton told reporters, “But he is busier than I am on politics anyway so I just told him whenever he wanted to do it I was ready. So it is basically on their timetable. He’s got a lot of things to do between now and the convention of which this is simply one. So I will do whatever I’m asked to do whenever I can do it. “

Clinton came under fire for releasing only a brief statement of support for the Democratic nominee-in-waiting at the end of June stating that he was, “obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States.”

Clinton said he had “given no thought” to whether he wanted to speak at the Democratic National Convention where his wife is expected to give a speech at a prominent time slot.

Clinton was also asked about the recent Jesse Jackson incident where Jackson was caught saying crude and disparaging comments about Obama on an open microphone while he was preparing to tape a segment on the Fox News Channel.

Even though he hasn’t spoken with Jackson, he said that his swift apology was “a good thing” to do and had praise for the civil rights leader, “He was big enough to quickly apologize and if all of us lived on live mics then 100 percent of us in this room would be embarrassed from time to time,” Clinton chuckled, “ He’s a good man and he did what he could to make it right and I think we all know where his heart is on everything involving equal opportunity for people without regard to race and helping poor people in America and throughout the world and I think Senator Obama accepted his apology. I think its over.”

Clinton held the press conference to announce an initiative between his foundation and six drug companies to dramatically lower the price of malaria medications in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. His foundation has already worked to bring down the cost of HIV/AIDS drugs on these continents and the initiative has now expanded to malaria drugs.

The United Nations Special Envoy on Malaria and several representatives from the drug companies joined the former President at the press conference. Clinton also praised President Bush and Congress for passing Bush’s Malaria budget:

“I think it would be a mistake on all of our parts not to acknowledge the fact that the United States Senate has recently and overwhelmingly passed the President’s malaria budget and that we owe a debt of gratitude to the President and Congress for supporting this because it will enable the funds to go out across the world so that even at these reduced prices we will have countries able to purchase the medicines and get it out there to save all these lives.”

Each year 500 million people contract Malaria, and more than one million die from the disease, many of them children.

Last week the Wall Street Journal irked the Obama campaign when it estimated the presumptive Democratic nominee pulled in an “underwhelming” $30 million in June.

“The Wall Street Journal was wildly off in their estimates – I have no idea where they got their numbers. I think you guys should wait till we release our numbers to make a decision as to how underwhelming they are,” Obama told reporters on board his campaign plane last week.

Today the campaign announced those numbers in an email to supporters.

“We have some big news we want to share with you,” wrote Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe. “Because of your generosity and commitment, we’re reporting to the press today that this campaign is in a very strong financial position. In the month of June, supporters like you helped raise $52 million.”

Just shy of Obama’s record-breaking $55 million February, June is Candidate Obama’s second best month to date, and follows his lackluster $22 million May.  Good news for Team Obama, which recently opted out of public financing.

The campaign touted the most impressive aspect of its far-from-underwhelming numbers: the average donation was $68.

Read Plouffe’s email to supporters below the jump.

(more…)

While there are strategists in both parties who are eager to make the candidates’ wives a political issue this fall, both Sens. McCain and Obama have declared that they will run clean campaigns and keep the focus on one another.

Obama set the bar high last month when he said, “I would never consider making Cindy McCain a campaign issue and if I saw people doing that–I would speak out against it.”

So do accusations made by a Democratic strategist last night about Mrs. McCain’s go too far?

Democratic National Committee Adviser Jamal Simmons told CNN Tuesday night that Mrs. McCain’s financial transactions raise “red flags,” and there are questions about “whats going to happen to…Cindy McCain if he goes into the White House,” noting that she is an heiress to a beer distribution company estimated to be worth upwards of $100 million.

Simmons also alleged that the presumptive GOP nominee was only able to keep his once cash-starved campaign afloat partly because his wife incurred $750,000 in personal credit card debt during the primary season.

“They would not have been able to keep the John McCain campaign alive had he not had this personal wealth,” Simmons added, alluding to what would be an FEC violation given that McCain has said– and federal filings show– that he never borrowed from his personal wealth to keep his campaign in the black.

While the DNC and some outside observers have taken issue with the campaign’s reimbursement–or lackthereof –for the use of Cindy McCain’s private jet and releasing her tax return summaries instead of the full filings, Democrats have yet to solely target her wealth.

And though it can be argued that the use of the private jet saved the campaign some dough, citing her personal credit card debt to allege impropriety looks to be taking up the criticism a notch.

When asked about Simmons’ assertion, DNC spokesman Damien LaVera would only say that Democrats will continue to highlight what he called the McCain campaign’s “potentially illegal” use of her jet and “insufficient” financial disclosure.

“This isn’t about Cindy McCain. This is about John McCain and his promise to run a new kind of campaign with a new level of transparency,” LaVera said, noting McCain’s oft-repeated commitment to run the most “transparent” campaign in history. “We are going to hold John McCain accountable to his own campaign promises and we are going to make sure that when he doesn’t, the voters know about it.”

Barack Obama has been tight-lipped when it comes to his running mate selection process. Two days after he secured the Democratic nomination, the candidate told press traveling aboard his campaign plane that the process would not be made public and that there would be no leaks from his staff. “Next time you hear from me about the vice presidential selection process will be when I have selected a vice president. And if you hear second hand accounts, rumors, gossip about the selection process, you can take it from me that it is wrong because we’re not gonna be talking about it in the press,” he said. Every time he has been asked about potential running mates since, Obama has deferred to this answer.

Last week when the candidate was in Washington, DC, he spent nearly two hours inside the office building that houses veep selection team member Eric Holder’s law office. When the presumptive Democratic nominee emerged from the side door, reporters assembled feet away asked Obama with whom he was meeting and why. The candidate grinned and said, “I’m not telling you,” as he placed his briefcase in the back of his Secret Service SUV.

Today in Indiana, Barack Obama held an panel event to discuss emerging nuclear, biological, and cyber threats, and was joined by the state’s junior Senator Evan Bayh, as well as former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn - both names that would generate hits on Google if you searched their names + Obama + running mate.

Following the hour and a half long event, Nunn and Bayh emerged in the press file to take questions from reporters. The topic du jour: veep-stakes, of course.

“Do either of you want to be Vice President?” a reporter began the press conference.

Laughing, Nunn replied, “I have never aspired to that office. It’s always nice to have your name mentioned, its an honor, but I have no expectations of being offered any office and I’m not in any way sitting on the edge of a chair ready to go back into government…Certainly I would talk to Senator Obama if he wanted to talk about it, but I think the chances of an offer are pretty slim and that I would have to do a lot of thinking and talk to my family and do a lot of reflecting about what was really the best role for me. Right now I’m doing a lot of work national security arena, with the foundation I chair and we’re making some progress in some difficult areas so I’m not pining to go back into public office.”

Bayh stepped into the spotlight and demurred, “Well, I love serving the people of Indiana, and any questions about the vice presidential thing, I think, are understandable and it’s good for my ego, but I should probably let Senator Obama and his campaign address those kind of questions.”

While Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has admitted he’s being vetted by the Obama campaign, Bayh and Nunn wouldn’t say whether or not the veep team has reached out to them. “Look, I understand why you ask that kind of question - it’s part of your job - but you really have to ask the Obama campaign those kinds of things,” he said. Nunn didn’t have anything to add.

As the avail came to a close and the men left the podium, a reporter wondered if they’d remove themselves from the veep-stakes derby. Bayh smiled and joked, “I’ve got a plane I’ve gotta catch.” He paused and added, “General Sherman was from Ohio.”

No “Shermanesque” declaration from the Senator from Indiana, who was an early supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton. “I am now pledged to help him in any way I can, speaking to the people of my state, others across the country, those who supported Sen. Clinton and others in trying to convince them – and I don’t think it will be very hard – that Barack Obama has the right ideas and experience to lead America in a better direction than we’ve had these last eight years and in a better direction than Sen. McCain would offer,” he said.

CINCINNATI, OH — While Sen. McCain intended to defend his record before the NAACP Wednesday, he began by treading very lightly and lavished some praise on Sen. Obama to start his address.

“Don’t tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways. He has inspired a great many Americans, some of whom had wrongly believed that a political campaign could hold no purpose or meaning for them. His success should make Americans, all Americans, proud,” McCain said, adding that as the first-ever African-American presidential nominee, Obama has made history and “achieved a great thing for himself and for his country.”

But McCain was quick to joke that, “of course, I would prefer his success not continue quite as long as he hopes,” getting some laughs.

With that the presumptive GOP nominee began his full-throated case for school voucher programs and greater accountability, also returning fire at Obama for accusing him so using “tired rhetoric.”

“Senator Obama dismissed public support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans as, ‘tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.’ All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?,” McCain asked. “When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children. Some parents, some parents may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private school. Many will choose a charter school. No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity.”

McCain also attacked Obama for opposing the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, a federal voucher program, and committed to expanding similar programs if he wins the White House.

“If I am elected president, school choice for all who want it, an expansion of Opportunity Scholarships, and alternative certification for teachers will be part of a serious agenda of education reform,” he said to scattered applause.

McCain faces very long odds in gaining any percentage of the black vote this year and asked for members’ support despite receiving a 7 percent on the NAACP’s most recent legislative scorecard for the 109th Congress. The group gave the Arizona Senator a Grade of F for opposing 26 of their 28 legislative priorities during the term.

Recent polling also does not bode well with the CBS-NY Times poll out today showing McCain with a five percent favorability rating (57 percent not favorable) with the community.

Additionally, he will likely struggle matching Bush’s totals in 2004, who pulled in 11 percent of the African-American vote. The NY Times poll currently has McCain at 2 percent.

Though he may have gone one step in the right direction today as McCain received a standing ovation at the conclusion of his remarks.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Seeking to counter Sen. Obama’s major foreign policy address today, Sen. McCain pounced on his Democratic rival for announcing his strategy for Iraq and Afghanistan before he is set to travel to the two war zones.

“I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time,” McCain told about 200 voters at a town hall meeting in Albuquerque, in remarks originally set to be delivered Thursday but moved up to coincide with Obama’s speech. “In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around. First you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy. So this is certainly a departure to what I have usually done.”

The presumptive GOP nominee also criticized Obama’s recent statements about the surge as taking flip-flopping to a “new level”–pointing to Obama’s remarks that he had “no doubt” the military surge would succeed despite other statements to the contrary.

“My friends, flip-floppers all over the world are enraged..it give new meaning (to the term),” McCain told the town hall, later adding aboard his bus that Obama’s evolving position on Iraq “exceeds every (flip flop) that I have ever observed and I have seen some egregious ones.”

His criticism came during a speech where he called the current situation in Afghanistan “not acceptable” and laid out his “comprehensive strategy for victory,” which includes sending up to 15,000 additional troops to that battlefront in order to turnaround recent Taliban advances.

“Our commanders on the ground in Afghanistan say that they need at least three additional brigades. Thanks to the success of the surge, these forces are becoming available, and our commanders in Afghanistan must get them. But sending more forces, by itself, that by itself is not enough,” McCain said, later clarifying that the brigades would not just be American but be made up of a combination of U.S. and NATO forces. But the GOPer added today that more troops is not the only solution to bringing down the violence.

“What we need in Afghanistan is exactly what General Petraeus brought to Iraq: a nationwide civil-military campaign that is focused on providing security for the population. Today no such integrated plan exists. When I am commander-in-chief, it will,” he added.

Speaking to reporters aboard his bus, McCain also had some uncharacteristically tough words for Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, stating that he has not met U.S. expectations.

“Karzai has not been effective. Karzai has not been the strong leader that we hoped he would be,” McCain said. “He’s a very fine man–just not has (exercised the) strong leadership that we would (have) hoped.”