For some background on the current fighting between John McCain and Barack Obama on the surge and Obama's website, see here. Back in early June I asked Mark Salter about the outdated claims on Obama's website, claims that the surge hadn't worked and that Iraq was in the throes of a "civil war."

Said Salter: "It's sort of comical for Barack Obama and his foreign policy team to falsely accuse John McCain of confusion when they all seem to be suffering under some kind of mass delusion."

Obama's campaign has removed the false claims from its website, but it'll have a more difficult time explaining the comments of Richard Danzig, a key Obama adviser. On a conference call last month, Danzig claimed that Iraq was consumed with "increasing sectarian violence." The fact that someone as smart and generally well-regarded as Danzing would say such a thing indicates just how deeply ingrained those talking points had become.