Senator Lindsey Graham returns from Iraq with renewed hopes.

While some Republican senators break with President Bush over Iraq, Sen. Lindsey Graham has returned from his seventh wartime visit there with renewed hope that the U.S. troop buildup is producing results.

At the same time, the South Carolina Republican told Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and other Iraqi leaders that they've made too little progress on steps such as reconciling the country's warring factions and sharing oil revenues among Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslim Arabs and Kurds. [...]

Graham's guardedly optimistic appraisal of the U.S. military effort in Iraq contrasts with the views of some other key Republican senators. [...]

McCain, who's running for president, addressed the re-enlistees, and Graham led the new citizens in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. [...]

Graham and McCain ate lunch in Ramadi, a former terrorist stronghold 100 miles west of Baghdad that two U.S. senators couldn't have visited six months ago, Graham said.

Whew! I am so relieved! Now we're seeing some real progress! For a minute there--wuh-oh!--I thought this thing would drag on forever. But, what with Graham and McCain being so optimistic and all, is my face red now!

Meanwhile...

150 killed by Iraq suicide truck bomb

The blast targeting ethnic Turkmans at a market in a northern Iraqi village injures 250. A car bomb in Diyala province kills 22 Shiite Kurds. Two U.S. soldiers die in Baghdad explosion.

Never mind.