PITTSBURGH, PA — Sen. McCain, joined by his wife Cindy, made a previously unannounced visit to the Primanti Brothers Restaurant and Bar, a famous Pittsburgh-area sandwich shop, Tuesday evening for a retail stop-turned media availability.

After briefly greeting a couple dozen patrons, including an Arizona family, McCain took questions from the gathered local and national press as he and Cindy were seated on stools at the counter, waiting for their cheesesteak sandwiches.

Asked for his reaction to recent Maliki calls for troop withdrawals from Iraq, McCain said he is confident that the Iraqi Prime Minister will allow the U.S. to withdraw forces in direct relation to the reality on the ground.

“I am confident that he will act, as the (Iraqi) President and foreign minister have both told me in the last several days, that it will be directly related to the situation on the ground–just as they have always said,” McCain said. “And since we are succeeding, than I am convinced, as I have said before, we can withdraw and withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable. And I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about since he has told me that for the many meetings we have had…he doesn’t want to give up these hard won victories in Basra, in Mosul, in Sadr city.”

Additionally, the candidate who received much grief last year for singing “bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ ‘Barbara Ann’ at a campaign event, made another joke regarding Iran that could also potentially be seen as offensive.

Informed of a report that U.S. exports to Iran have “increased ten-fold” during the Bush administration, with the biggest export being cigarettes, McCain interrupted the reporter before he could finish:

“Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” he said, before quickly adding, “I meant that as a joke–as a person who hasn’t had a cigarette in…29 years.”

When a local reporter queried the presumptive GOP nominee about his chances in Pennsylvania, where he currently down by nearly double digits in the polls, McCain said he is confident about his chances as he got in a “bitter” dig at Obama.

“We are going to be spending a lot of time here. We are going to be getting on the bus and we are going to go to the small towns in the state of Pennsylvania. And we’re going to tell them that we don’t agree with Senator Obama when he said that they cling to guns and to religion because they are bitter about the economy,” McCain added. “We are going to tell them that we love them and we appreciate them and that they’re the heartland of America and they believe in these things because that’s the abiding faith that they have in America, in their families and their future.”

The 24-hour eatery, which includes a wall-full of caricatures of famous Pittsburghers and Pittsburgh athletes from Andy Warhol to Terry Bradshaw to Dennis Miller, is widely known for adding french fries, cole slaw and mayo to the sandwich of your choice

BATON ROUGE, LA- Sen. McCain called on Hillary Clinton supporters to cross the party lines and vote for him Wednesday, arguing that he is the most qualified candidate to keep America safe.

“I think that could attract some of Senator Clinton’s voters…who believe that I am by far best qualified to secure this nation’s future,” McCain told reporters a press conference following a town hall meeting in the Bayou State. “I think there (are) a lot of Senator Clinton’s supporters who will support me because of their belief that Senator Obama does not have the experience or the knowledge or the judgment to address this nation’s national security challenges given we are in two wars.”

The presumptive GOP nominee said he can attract Clinton supporters on both domestic and foreign policy grounds–even on the issue of Iraq.

“I believe that there are Senator Clinton supporters who oppose wasteful spending, pork barrel spending in our nations capital. I believe that there are those who want genuine reform, not just talk about it. Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record, the most partisan of any Senator in the United States Senate,” McCain said.

And just as Clinton was asking her voters to trust Obama on foreign policy, McCain argued that he has stronger national security credentials, adding that there are supporters of the NY Senator, “who don’t want us to sit down with (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad and other tyrants, who don’t want us a to set a date for withdrawal and declare defeat in Iraq.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Ridiculing the idea of negotiating with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “spectacle” that would embolden extremists, McCain jabbed Obama on Iran and Iraq before more than 7,500 members of the highly influential pro-Israel lobbyist group.

“We hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before,” McCain told AIPAC members, adding that Obama is engaging in a “serious misreading of history.”

“It’s hard to see what such a summit with President Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants, and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another,” he noted. “Such a spectacle would harm Iranian moderates and dissidents, as the radicals and hardliners strengthen their position and suddenly acquire the appearance of respectability.”

Instead, McCain called for a stepped international political and economic sanctions regime against the Iranian government and the country’s banks.

“Rather than sitting down unconditionally with the Iranian president or supreme leader in the hope that we can talk sense into them, we must create the real-world pressures that will peacefully but decisively change the path they are on,” McCain said, arguing that the U.S. should lead an coalition of “like-minded” nations in a sanctions effort if the UN Security Council fails to tighten the noose on the Iranians. He also called for a worldwide divestment campaign against Iran.

In touting the Senate bill passed last fall to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, he mocked Obama opposition to the legislation

“He opposed this resolution because its support for countering Iranian influence in Iraq was, he said, a ‘wrong message not only to the world, but also to the region.’ But here, too, he is mistaken. Holding Iran’s influence in check, and holding a terrorist organization accountable, sends exactly the right message — to Iran, to the region and to the world,” McCain said to a standing ovation.

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Barack Obama dropped by a Boca Raton synagogue today, where during his town hall meeting, he was asked about his relationship with Israel and the Jewish community - something that has plagued his candidacy as rumors over his religion have caused concern. As he wrapped up his prepared remarks, Obama invited “the tough questions” - which was exactly what he got.

The first questioner wondered why he didn’t change his name back to Barry - the name Obama went by as a child. Obama acknowledged the name sounds Muslim and said he wanted to clear up the matter. “My father was from Kenya and Barack actually interestingly enough means the same as Baruch. It means one who’s blessed. And the reason—the reason that that’s interesting is that it’s the same Semitic root. The same source. My father was basically agnostic as far as I can tell, and I didn’t know him. He left as I said when I was two years old. So I was raised by my mother who was from Kansas. And it’s true they called me Barry when I was young, but as I got older, I thought it was important to acknowledge this other side of my heritage and so I was called Barack,” he explained.

For good measure, he observed, “You’ve had a prime minister named Barack in Israel. It should be pretty familiar to this audience.” The crowd applauded.

Two questions later, Obama was asked about his connections to a pro-Palestine scholar named Rashid Khalidi as well as proof that he has pro-Israel friends and advisors. The questioner rambled on a bit and as the crowd got restless, Obama cut off the man as diplomatically as he could. “There’s a question in there that’s important. Let me respond to the question,” he said.

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Chicago, IL — Sen. McCain continued his assault on Sen. Obama’s foreign policy experience, arguing today that the Democratic front-runner has ” very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess.”

“Senator Obama claimed that the threat Iran poses to our security is “tiny” compared to the threat once posed by the former Soviet Union. Obviously, Iran isn’t a superpower and doesn’t possess the military power the Soviet Union had. But that does not mean that by any stretch of the imagination,that the threat posed by Iran is insignificant,” McCain said Monday responding to comments Obama made yesterday in Oregon. “The biggest national security challenge the United States currently faces is keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, that danger would become very dire, indeed. They might not become a superpower, but the threat the Government of Iran poses is anything but ‘tiny.’”

Making the case that the U.S. should engage current adversaries like Presidents Reagan and Kennedy diwth the Soviet Union, Obama told an audience Sunday that that countries like Iran, Cuba and Venezuala pose a “tiny” threat compared to that of the U.S.’s cold war enemy.

“I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we’re going to wipe you off the planet. And ultimately that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war, and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall. Now, that has to be the kind of approach that we take,” Obama said. “You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen.”

During his remarks before the National Restaurant Association, McCain also continued his criticism of Obama’s statement that he would hold talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions, saying the statement “betrays the depth of Senator Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment. Those are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess.”

“An ill conceived meeting between the President of the United States and the President of Iran, and the massive world media coverage it would attract, would increase the prestige of an implacable foe of the United States, and reinforce his confidence that Iran’s dedication to acquiring nuclear weapons, supporting terrorists and destroying the State of Israel had succeeded in winning concessions from the most powerful nation on earth. And he is unlikely to abandon the dangerous ambitions that will have given him a prominent role on the world stage,” McCain said.

“An unconditional summit meeting with the next American president would confer both international legitimacy on the Iranian president and could strengthen him domestically when he is very unpopular with the Iranian people. It is likely such a meeting would not only fail to persuade him to abandon Iran’s nuclear weapons; its support of terrorists and commitment to Israel’s extinction, it could very well convince him that those policies are succeeding in strengthening his hold on power, and embolden him to continue his very dangerous behavior,” McCain said, adding “the next President ought to understand such basic realities of international relations.”

***UPDATED 7:45pm***Obama responded during a speech in Billings, MT:

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President Bush seemingly waded into the ‘08 fray during a speech before the the Israeli parliament yesterday, causing a firestorm of back-and-forth between the three ‘08 contenders. The offending comment - “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along…We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

While Bush didn’t name names (and the White House says the President was not specifically referring to Obama), of course it has been Barack Obama who has said on the campaign trail that he will meet with friends and foes - including Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Obama campaign quickly responded to Mr. Bush’s statement, saying it was “sad” that the president used his speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to “launch a false political attack.”

Later when John McCain “embraced” Bush’s statement, an Obama spokesman replied “It is the height of hypocrisy for John McCain to deliver a lofty speech about civility and bipartisanship in the morning and then embrace George Bush’s disgraceful political attack in the afternoon. Instead of delivering meaningful change, John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s irresponsible and failed Iran policy by refusing to engage in tough, direct diplomacy like Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan have done.”

Today, Obama responded with anger and forcefulness, while criticizing Bush’s “failed” policies abroad and hammering McCain for supporting them. “They’re trying to fool you. They’re trying to scare you. And they’re not telling the truth. And the reason is they can’t win a foreign policy debate on the merits, but it’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work this time and it’s not gonna work this year,” Obama told voters in Watertown, South Dakota. “If George Bush and John McCain want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that’s a debate I’m happy to have, anytime, any place, and that is a debate that I will win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” he said.

As evidence, Obama cited what he sees as foreign policy failures implemented by the Bush Administration. “Our Iran policy is a complete failure right now and that’s the policy John McCain is running on. He has nothing to offer except the naïve and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program in support for terrorism. I’m running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush’s course,” he said to applause.

Later at a press avail, Obama was asked if he took the White House’s word that President Bush was not referring to him. “For them to suggest that somehow they weren’t aimed – who’s this “some” that they were talking about? Is this some amorphous “some”? Or is this just a straw man that they were setting up? And if so, what was the purpose of the remarks? That’s being disingenuous,” he responded.

Of Obama’s South Dakota remarks, a McCain spokesman noted, “It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned.”

COLUMBIA, SC — Asked if he is prepared to take on Barack Obama today, John McCain didn’t pause.

“Oh I’m ready,” he told reporters at a press conference in South Carolina. “I’m ready to take to the American people the challenges of the issues we face. Whether it be raising your taxes as Senator Obama wants to do. Something like capital gains where 100 million Americans have an investment or have the government make the decisions on health care or the family or certainly issues such as national security.”

McCain continued his assault on Obama’s foreign policy vision in his second media availabilty in less than four hours.

“Senator Obama continues to say he would sit down and negotiate with the president of Iran who yesterday called the state of Israel a stinking corpse,” McCain said. “That’s a dramatic difference between my view of the relations with a state sponsor of terror that is exporting lethal explosive devices into Iraq killing Americans and I would not give them the respect or the ability to enhance their prestige by sitting down and talking to the head of the state sponsor of terrorism who repeats his country’s dedication to the extinction of the state of Israel.”

The Arizona Senator also commented on the escalating violence in Lebanon, condemning what he feels is Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs.

“The Syrians are obviously playing a role and would like to a reassert or increase their influence in Lebanon and its affairs,” McCain said. “I think that obviously pressure (has) to be brought to bear on Syria, who is the major motivator I think of a lot of their continued effort to gain control of Lebanon and continue the influence they have had for a long period of time. And I would recommend that we of course convene other and work with other nations who have an interest in Lebanon and peace in the region.”

WASHINGTON — Seconds into HIllary Clinton’s remarks at a fundraiser for women in Washington, she was greeted with a silent protest by one of the few men in attendance — who stood on his chair to unfurl a huge black banner reading “Obliterate Iran? Apologize” in bold pink lettering.

Clinton told “Good Morning America” a day before the Pennsylvania primary that the US would react strongly if Iran ever launched a nuclear attack on Israel, saying “we would be able to totally obliterate them.” That

As one woman fought the lone protester for his sign and the crowd began to boo, Clinton silently waited it out — until finally the man was escorted from the room by security amid chants of “Hillary! Hillary!”

“I certainly hope he didn’t step on any of the cookies,” Clinton said.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Just a few minutes later, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin stood up near the front of the room and began shouting about the children in Iran and Iraq, and demanding that Clinton apologize for her “obliterate” comment and her Iraq vote. This time, as Benjamin was escorted out holding up two-fingered peace signs, Clinton acknowledged the protest.

“That’s alright,” she said. “I’m happy that people feel so intensely. And I hope they paid to come.”

But she took umbrage at press reports suggesting that only Barack Obama’s supporters feel so strongly about their candidate. “There seems to be a lot of coverage about how passionate the supporters of my opponent are,” she said. “I think I’ve got some pretty passionate supporters myself.”

She credited those supporters for keeping her in the race. “We’ve been voting now for about four months. It seems like four years, but it’s only been four months,” she said. “I’ve been counted out more than once, but thanks to all of you, I’ve come back.”

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Little Rock, AK — Despite criticism from his Democratic rival, Sen. McCain defended his campaign’s use of Obama’s endorsement by the Hamas terrorist group for political purposes and attacked him for being “very lacking in experience on national security issues.”

“It is just a fact that apparently the North American spokesperson is endorsing Senator Obama. People can make their own judgment from that,” McCain said at a media availability today, referring to comments made by Ahmed Yousef, a top Hamas adviser

Yousef told WABC Radio on April 13 that, “we like Mr. Obama, and we hope that he will win the election. I do believe he is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great principle.”

McCain was first asked about the endorsement during a conference call with bloggers today where he said,
“I think it is very clear who Hamas wants to be the next President of the United States…if Senator Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly.”

The McCain campaign has previously used the endorsement as part of a fundraising appeal.

Obama has condemned Hamas and never solicited the “endorsement,” and an Obama spokesman today accused McCain for use of “the politics of association and…claims he knows not to be true to advance his campaign.”

“This type of politics of division and distraction, not only lead to a campaign not worthy of the American people, but also has failed to help our families for too long,” added Obama spokesman, Hari Sevugan.

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Kansas City, MO — Expect General Petraeus to discuss increasing Iranian ties to violence in Iraq as well as the state of affairs in Basra this week, McCain told the press corps aboard his plane Sunday.

“I think you’re going to hear more about the Iranian influence, the arms they’ve provided, the money, the training, particularly the extent of their influence in Southern Iraq. It’s pretty extensive and I think he’s going to be talking about that,” McCain said en route to Kansas City, where he is preparing to deliver an address on the war Monday.

The presumptive GOP nominee said he has not spoken with Petraeus about his testimony but said of Iran: “I hope that we can present the facts this time and they would be irrefutable, and they would be based on concrete evidence.”

McCain said the Iranians are “stepping up some of their efforts” because they are worried about an effective Iraqi government taking control, adding that some of the evidence he is seeing of increasing Iranian military involvement are not “Curveball’s allegations.” ((Curveball was the infamous Iraqi CIA informant whose stories about Iraqi WMD development in the leadup to the war turned out to be false.))

Queried whether his Iran talk is part of a drumbeat for war, McCain retorted that “because I’m worried about Iranian influence doesn’t mean that I’m ready to go to war with Iran.”

Petraeus is set to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday.