Black Box Report

More than 70,000 General Motors workers are on strike across the country, even as negotiators were back to the bargaining table today.

Analysts say the company has enough vehicles in stock to withstand a short strike. But if it lasts 3 to 4 weeks, GM could lose billions.

Now this strike is very different from the last one -- and paints a striking picture about how employment in America has changed in the last four decades.

Back in 1970 - there were 400,000 workers in the United Auto Workers’ union. Today there's only 73,000. The number of union workers in general has been declining, down to 12% from it's peak of nearly 33% in 1953.

The part of this story that surprises me is what you're not hearing. Where's the outpouring of concern or even the brothers-in-arms call for the UAW? Yeah, I heard the lip service from the Teamsters and SEIU , but the collective yawn from the American public sure is telling. We've gotten to the point where assembly line workers looking to hear assurances that their jobs won't get shipped overseas are told to get in line with everybody else.

The days of the gold watch after 30 years service and a lifetime pension are a thing of the past, and I get that. Economic realties and giant losses in the auto industry have changed a lot of things - but step back for a minute and consider what now rates as asking for too much: Health care.

If you think the middle class squeeze is just a cute catchphrase, take a second look at a dying breed also known as the factory worker. Outsourced jobs, vanishing benefits and a system seemingly rigged against the regular guy, have the gap between the haves and have-nots getting wider.

The bargaining between the UAW and GM is still going on, but today’s auto worker knows they've lost, the only question is how much.

He was supposed to be their savior - no pun intended - but the dream of Fred Thompson turned out to be a lot more appealing than the reality for the religious right:

It turns out that Fred Thompson, who was wooed to enter the race by social conservatives unhappy with the other candidates, can't even remotely count on any help from Mr. Social Conservative himself, James Dobson of Focus on the Family.

Ooooh! I loves me a good more-conservative-than-thou catfight! What'd he say, what'd he say?

In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.

"Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?" Dobson wrote.

"He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent 'want to.' And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"

Y'know, as soon as Thompson said he wasn't much of a church-goin' man, I thought that might be a problem.

It seems the religious right is slowly catching on to the fact that, election after election, their group gets pandered to and told how important they are, and how if they help elect so-and-so, then this will become the God-Fearin' Christians-Only nation they've always dreamed about. And then, inevitably, when their Republican suitor wins the White House...pffffttt!

In the past they've been sort of pragmatic, backing candidates who are able to hide the craziness enough to hold off mainstream America from talks of…replacing the constitution with the bible. But you get the sense that after being jerked around by Bush promising to end gay marriage then forgetting about it right after he was sworn in, they're looking for the real thing.

They're looking for a true believer, and given his blowing off of their Values Voters debate. Fred ain't it. But they say Fred's lazy crazy like a fox, so it might all just be according to his plan:

Former actor Fred Thompson’s campaign for the GOP Presidential nomination has either just been dealt a setback — or given a boost in its credibility, depending on a person’s political bias...

Dobson doesn't control every vote for every person who listens to him. But he does have considerable influence. On the other hand some voters will now feel they CAN support Thompson (particularly some independent voters) if Dobson has turned up his out-of-joint nose and walked away.

That may be all well and good for Fred's fortunes in the primary, but these folks are starting to look like no-shows for the general election as well, and that's not good for Republican chances of keeping the White House. Fred was supposed to be the has-a-chance-to-win candidate that would wave their flag for them. But if not Fred, then who? The pickins are getting slim:

Thompson, McCain, and Giuliani are out. I doubt (Dobson)'s going to throw his support behind a Mormon or a Catholic, so Romney and Brownback won't cut it. Mike Huckabee...certainly meets the evangelical Christian requirement, (but) has been straying from Republican talking points and sounding just a bit too populist lately.

And after Huckabee, you start going wayyyyy down the list to the single digit candidates. Which presents the religious right with a dilemma. Do they hold their nose and support a libertine who can win, or stand behind a true believer who doesn't have a prayer?:

The short-term task for the religious right is picking a credible GOP presidential hopeful, who will take their demands seriously, and have a realistic shot at taking office to implement the movement's ideas… But if the movement won't go with Thompson, who'll get the religious right's support? Therein lies the problem: these guys just don't have a candidate.

What, Alan Keyes doesn't have a shot?

Latinos? Ningunas gracias. Blacks? No way, baby. Values Voters? That's so 2004. Homosexuals.......OK, there was never any way they were going to that one...But the NRA? Now there's a group they can pander to!

...Except for one candidate, who faced a decidedly cynical crowd, and was lucky to get the polite golf clap.

Giuliani has supported abortion rights, gay rights, illegal immigration, stem-cell research, and condemned the NRA while supporting gun control. One of these is bound to be a problem.

Yes, Rudy's compareded the NRA to "extremists", and called the lawsuit he filed seven years ago aimed at punishing the nation’s gun manufacturers for violent crimes involving firearms “an aggressive step towards restoring accountability to an industry that profits from the suffering of others.” But that's all water under the bridge, right guys? Rudy was determined to win over this...

(*ring* *ring*....*ring* *ring*)

Oops. Sorry. Have to take this call:

So Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was in the middle of an important speech to an audience that was a little skeptical to say the least, the National Rifle Association, many of whose members have some problems with the former New York City mayor's past support for gun control.

He had reached the part where he was talking about the importance of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the part of his speech this particular crowd really wanted to hear him speak about. Then his cell phone rang.

"Let's see now. This is my wife calling, I think," says Giuliani reaching for the phone in his pocket. He then goes on to do something unheard of for a candidate to do while giving an important speech. He answers the phone.

Well, that ought to convince them he takes them seriously. And when Rudy wasn't chatting with his wife during his own speech, he came off sounding like the kind of big government politician gun owners tend to mistrust:

The more you read between the lines, the more Rudy Giuliani sounds like a big government conservative and the closest thing in this race to W …

Glossing over the less appealing line items on his gun control resume, ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani presented himself as sympathetic to the aims of the National Rifle Association and pledged, as president, to protect gun rights.

“Your right to bear arms is based on a reasonable degree of safety,” he said.

So much for the second amendment, that bit about “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Rather, America’s Mayor seems to be saying, “You can play with these as long as you behave. But I’ll be watching.” Ouch. Don’t forget, he’s TRYING to win over the NRA. He’s expressing (trying, actually) his belief in personal freedom! He’s not wrong, but it is telling that he can’t or won’t just express a simple belief in personal freedom. He’s saying “I’ll ALLOW you to do this” instead of “What right do I have to stop you?”.

Giuliani says that 9/11 - as the catalyst and wellspring of everything Rudy - made him a convert to the gun issue. Obviously not everyone there bought Rudy's new position, but it's interesting to see the lengths to which some Rudy supporters will bend over backwards to insist that this is not an empty pander or blatant flip-flop.

If one does not hold a position from birth, some fanatics reject any attempt to change one’s mind. This makes conversion impossible. And if no one is ever allowed to change his mind ever, what is the sense in ever having a debate?...

Rudy could be having an election-year conversion...

This goes beyond the gun issue. It goes to the heart of politics: Can a politician change his mind? Is evolution permissible?

I don’t mean flip-flopping. When John Kerry said he actually voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it, he was too clever by half.

So, you see, Democrats who hold a certain position, gain new insight or information, and then take a contrary position: flip-flopping. A Republican who does the same thing: their position has evolved. They've been converted.

Praise god and pass the ammo!

But whether or not Rudy's claim to have evolved on the gun issue gets him off the hook, at least he tried. Which is more than you can say for another candidate whose position on guns has evolved been converted flip-flopped:

At the very least, Mr. Giuliani is likely to get credit from N.R.A. members for actually showing up. Mitt Romney, another candidate who has faced Johnny-come-lately accusations from gun rights advocates...address(ed) the group via videotape.

Be vewy vewy quiet, Mitt's hunting varmints.

How Not to Behave*

( * for both the tas-ers and the tas-ee)

Fame-seeking amateur journalist and UF student Andrew Meyers' biggest contribution to our lexicon is likely to be the catchphrase "Don't taze me, bro!" Most writers aspire to be remembered for something more substantial, and likely Meyer himself regrets his entry, as well as the manner of its inspiration. Will Bunch looked at his body of work and is only surprised this didn't happen sooner:

Every piece written by Meyer, mostly intended for the Alligator student newspaper and one or two published in a daily newspaper, the Sun-Sentinel, is an angry diatribe against someone, no matter what the subject matter -- Republicans, his fellow students, Florida quarterback Chris Leak, even a fraternity Dance Marathon for charity.
......
He is a young journalist whose brief career has been devoted writing things to make people really angry and apparently to becoming famous, so we shouldn't be surprised that he provoked an extreme response.

Just to establish, if it wasn't apparent from his writings and the video, Meyer's a bit of an ass.

Reaction from the right was tentatively supportive at first, as it was assumed anyone giving John Kerry a hard time must've been a conservative:

Boy, that security team sure was in a wicked hurry to lay hands on someone disrespecting a Democrat, weren't they?

Meanwhile protesters are allowed to menace and charge conservative speakers at will.

In fairness, he seems to have hogged the mic for a while.

...I sure hope he's not one of ours..., but still, the alacrity with which campus security jumps to protect a Democrats' dignity is surprising. Couldn't they have just turned off the mic and ignored him?

But the timid defenses quickly reversed course when Meyer was found to be to the left of even John Kerry:

Good for the campus police because Meyer deserved what he got...I wish the campus police acted more like these guys when conservatives are speaking at colleges instead of sitting on their thumbs while libs takeover the stage and throw pies.

Because the only thing better than someone getting tasered is a pie-throwing liberal getting tasered. Or anybody, really. Because if you're getting punished, you obviously deserved it. That's the authoritarian way.

But on the other end of the spectrum, Naomi Wolf goes into high dudgeon, fretting about the coming police state:

A very ordinary-looking American student -- Andrew Meyer, 21, at the University of Florida - was tasered by police when he asked a question of Senator John Kerry about the impeachment of President George Bush. His arms were pinned and as he tried to keep speaking he was shocked -- in spite of begging not to be hurt...It is an iconic turning point and it will be remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded...That taser was directed at the body of a young man, but it is we ourselves, and our Constitution, who received the full force of the shock.

(emphasis mine)

Ummm...no. Not really. This isn't Kent State '70. Meyer was acting like an ass, not Gandhi, and resisted arrest. That said, Meyer may not be a free speech hero, but getting hit with 10,000 volts ought to have a higher standard:

That the cops over-reacted is clear from the tape. Sure the kid was a loudmouth jerk but he wasn't incoherent, just abrasive. That's not against the law. He wasn't presenting any threat to the public and Kerry was clearly willing to answer his question. Furthermore, with six freaking cops, there was absolutely no reason to taser the kid. This weapon was originally issued as an alternative to lethal force, not common sense.

But even that's not the most disturbing thing:

What disturbs me is that so many of his peers think this young hotdog’s behavior meets the standard at which they’re comfortable with him being punished. And what does that say about young people today? That no principles are worth making a fool of yourself in public? That dissent must take place within designated zones or you deserve what you get?

"Kids! What's the matter with kids today?"

25% said “the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees,” well below the 49% recorded in the 2002 survey that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, but up from 18% in 2006.

Wonder who they voted for?

In a situation where everyone involved acted inappropriately, no one deserves to be thought of as a hero of any kind. But in the event of a tie, the win goes to the loser - figuratively and literally in this case, Meyer:

I think it's fair to say that the kid was being a jerk. I think it's also fair to say that in the United States, there's no law against being a jerk.

Good thing, too. There aren't enough jails in the world if we criminalize being stupid.

Well, at least someone's keeping busy.

What things are important enough to fight for? What basic principles are you willing to go to the mat for, even if you know you're doomed to lose on a technicality?

"No taxation without representation?" Only a rallying cry for the US Revolutionary War and a founding tenet of this country. But giving over a half million citizens of Washington DC that right "came up short in the Senate":

Abraham Lincoln must have rolled over in his grave this morning as Republicans used the threat of a filibuster to kill the legislation passed by the House that would have provided for permanent congressional representation for the 600,000 residents of Washington, DC, who do, it should be noted, pay taxes, and serve in the military and on juries. It's also a majority African-American jurisdiction and that, of course, is why what was once the party of Lincoln...refused to let the bill go forward for a straight up or down vote.

"Support the troops" has been thrown around so many times, it might as well be made of Nerf. So how about protecting troops by keeping them rested enough between tours to maintain peak efficiency? The Webb Amendment "fell short by four votes," But protecting them from the dangers of a newspaper ad?

More U.S. senators voted to condemn a newspaper ad attacking Gen. Petraeus than voted...to lengthen the time off troops get from the frontlines in Iraq, thereby reducing individual soldiers exposure to actual attacks.

Habeas corpus, a basic human right that's been around since the Magna Carta? "Fell short in the Senate":

Let’s be clear and unvarnished...44 of our Senators hate the Constitution and basic civil rights. They do not believe in the fundamental right of due process...

Absolutely unacceptable. With all the horrors that we hear about Hamdan, about suicides, about innocent people rounded up for bounties and left to rot in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, it is absolutely immoral that 44 senators feel that entrusting basic civil rights of any person to the Bush administration is the way to go.

Now It's not that any of these bills didn't have clear majority support. They did. But a majority is no longer enough:

The reason the Webb amendment failed even though it got 56 votes was that Senators agreed by unanimous consent that the amendment should have to get 60 votes to pass, even without a filibuster.

But why would anyone agree to allow Republicans, who are already on pace to shatter all previous filibuster records, to stop an amendment this important and this sensible without even lifting a finger? And the question here is not just why anyone would allow it, but why everyone did. A single Senator could have put a stop to this simply by saying, "I object" when the unanimous consent request was made. Just one Senator.

Yet none did...

And so the Webb amendment died quietly yesterday, allowing Republicans to enjoy all the obstructionist benefits of a filibuster, without having to stand up and tell Americans and their fighting men and women in the military exactly what they were doing.

Now, the filibuster is a legitimate tool for a minority party. And no one should begrudge the GOP for using the means at their disposal to effect legislation. But besides getting entirely too carried away with the practice - and then blaming Democrats for being a "do-nothing Congress" - there is the rank hypocrisy involved:

For years, Republicans, with a 55-seat majority, cried like young children if Dems even considered a procedural hurdle. They said voters would punish obstructionists. They said it was borderline unconstitutional. They said to stand in the way of majority rule was to undermine a basic principle of our democratic system.

And wouldn’t you know it, the shameless hypocrites didn’t mean a word of it.

Republicans are obstructing legislation at 3 times the normal rate. But do you hear Democratic leadership going on the Sunday talk shows, sending out press release after press release, yelling from the mountain 'til they're hoarse that the GOP is obstructing what is very popular legislation? The silence is deafening. But what's worse is apparently all these things aren't important enough for Democrats to fight for (but MoveOn.org's NY Times ad And now all Republicans have to do is threaten to filibuster a bill, and Senate Democrats roll over like dog show champs. Digby has a solution:

It's really too bad that we now have a new rule that nothing ever passes the Senate without 60 votes. I'm not sure when this became business as usual, but the media seem to have absorbed it as if it were set forth in the constitution...

The fact that this new 60-vote gambit is purely to protect the president to ever have to veto anything that's popular never comes up. Neither, however, does the the press bother to report this as unusual or that the Republican congress is, in effect, vetoing popular legislation by filibustering everything in sight. In fact, the press is reporting this as if the democrats have failed to move their popular legislation even though they have a majority --- never mentioning that a majority is no longer enough, something that I doubt the public knows.

The Democrats are going to have to force real filibusters. I know that it will disrupt the business of the senate, but there's really no other choice. Look at that chart. The Republicans have successfully halted virtually anything worth doing with these EZ-Filibusters. Forget cloture. Make 'em talk.

Make Republicans explain - in front of cameras and with trascripts going out to every news outlet in the country - why residents of Washington DC don't deserve a voting member of the House of Representatives; why denying proper rest periods to already over-extended troops is a good thing; and why we're so eager to abolish habeas corpus, one of the central freedoms the terrorists supposedly hate us for.

They can take their time.

"Romney/McCain/Thompson/Giuliani campaign headquarters, how can I help you? Yes? Oh, hello. The value what now? Values Voters debate? No, can't say we've....Farah? WorldNetDaily? Oh, yes,of course...Uh-huh. And who'll be there? No, not the candidates...Yes, I know that's why you're calling. Who will...Uh-huh....Schlafly, you say?...Heritage Foundation, AFA, mmm-hmmmm....Roy Moore? Wasn't he the one in Alabama...Yes, with the 10...Ha-ha, yes, they did. Ruined it for all of us...Yes. Marriage, too....Darn ruiners.......Yes, what? I'm sorry. When did you say this was again? The 17th...Florida? Hmmmm [rustles some papers in background] Let me check..........Oooh, this is gonna be tough. Straight fundraising events ALL DAY...These have been planned since...Yes, of course we consider your event important. Mr. Romney/McCain/Thompson/Giuliani completely shares your concerns. If you just look on our website, you'll see his position on....Yes, I know support from your group is important to...yes, OK, crucial...But I'm afraid...Look, let me speak to him, and when I tell him about your Values Voters debate, I'm sure Mr. Romney/McCain/Thompson/Giuliani will do whatever he can to clear his schedule for it. Yes. Yes, he knows. Yes...Thanks for calling."

"Book me something for Sept. 17, stat!"

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Self-described "values voters" gathered here Monday to grill Republican presidential candidates, but the forum was most notable for its empty lecterns and its unanswered questions.

The biggest GOP names — Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson — sat out the Values Voter Presidential Debate, citing scheduling conflicts. That didn't stop questioners from addressing the front-runners who didn't attend.

Giuliani, Romney and McCain were all asked questions about abortion and gay rights. All, of course, went unanswered.

"They will regret the decision," said Jan Folger, president of Faith2Action and a member of the debate host committee. "Because they snubbed us, they will not win, because we will not follow their lead."

They can run, but can they hide? Talking about Republican candidates and the religious right, but also about Mitt Romney and his own history.

Ooops...

Kind heart that he is, Aravosis says we shouldn't be too hard on Mitt:

In all fairness to Mitt Romney, he was only 55 years old in 2002 when he was a flaming pro-gay politician hell-bent on sucking up to gay activists on pretty much every issue, and thus was distributing these fliers all over Boston. But hey, that was five years ago and Mitt was a younger man. We really shouldn't hold people's youthful indiscretions against them.

In addition, Mitt probably doesn't want to be the only Mormon in a room full of people who think he's going to hell, because he picked the wrong religion.

Case in point:

Pluralism? F#@k that:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that questions over whether he identifies himself as a Baptist or an Episcopalian are not as important as his overarching faith. "The most important thing is that I am a Christian," the Arizona senator told reporters following two campaign stops in [South Carolina]. ...

McCain grew up Episcopalian and attended an Episcopal high school in Alexandria, Va. On Monday, he spoke briefly about that history and about the Baptist church he now attends. Then, after saying his overall faith is what's important, he concluded: "I don't have anything else to say about that issue."

"You see, Abdul, Yitzak and Mitt, this is a Christian nation. And I shall be its king. Booyah!" McCain continued.

So McCain shouldn't have had any trouble appearing at the debate, right? Except for that one technicality thing he probably doesn't want to talk about:

McCain and his family attend the North Phoenix Baptist Church, but he’s the only member of the family who hasn’t been baptized in the church. McCain said he hasn’t because, “I didn’t find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs.”

Not to get too theologically picky about it, but I’m fairly certain that in order to be a Baptist in a Baptist church you have to be baptized.

It seems fairly ridiculous to think a presidential candidate would claim to be a member of a faith tradition simply to curry favor with Baptists in South Carolina, but McCain’s campaign is struggling. As a candidate, he may be kind of desperate. But this desperate?

Now Thompson, Romney and McCain all claimed scheduling conflicts prevented them from attending the Values Voters debate, but Rudy? Nothing quite so coy. He was actually in Ft. Lauderdale, 4 miles away, doing a press availability session. Apparently that all-important photo op at Advanced Roofing ("Florida's Premier Commercial Roofing Specialist!") was higher on his priorities list:

This is a rather staggering slap-in-the-face to the debate organizers, because rather than schedule Giuliani to be somewhere that would at least provide a plausible excuse for not attending tonight’s debate, his campaign’s decision to drop him less than 4 miles away from the debate venue on the very day it is being held can only be seen as attempt to send an unmistakable signal to these leaders that he does not want or need their support.

So which is it? Is Giuliani in Florida today to secretly pander to the very right-wing leaders he has publicly blown off or is he there taunting them and sending them a very clear message that he plans to run without seeking their support?

Once the belles of the ball, now no one will return their calls or sit with them in the cafeteria:

Joseph Farah, publisher and editor of WorldNetDaily...states that apparently Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain do not really care about value voters because they are declining to participate.

"There seems to be a concerted effort to dodge the agenda of the pro-family movement," he says. "Some of the front-running candidates have less than a stellar record of voting and governing on those issues."

Farah admits he is disappointed that Fred Thompson has also declined to take part in the debate. "That is a real shame," he says, "because I know many people are hoping that he might be that alternative candidate [for] people who are dissatisfied with the choices of Romney and Giuliani and McCain."

While some ascribe their absences to the waning influence of the religious right, James Joyner thinks it may be more than just that:

This comes right on the heels of the same candidates blowing off Tavis Smiley's PBS forum directed at black voters.

Maybe the real lesson is that the top tier Republicans are incredibly risk averse? They may well have calculated that going to any debate that’s hosted by or aimed at a particular niche demographic is dangerous. Or, perhaps they’ve just decided that debating, period, is a poor use of their time at this stage of the campaign.

Could be, could be...Those are all good possibilities.

Or, perhaps, it's that the four GOP frontrunners recognized that it would only hurt them to be be seen at a forum with people who are a little bit...how shall I put this....

But don't just take my word for it.

[youtube]X77R_prkCkg[/youtube]

"Why Should God Bless America," as sung by the Church of God Choir.

I’m trying to imagine the response if a number of progressive activists groups got together to host a presidential candidate forum, and to kick things off, they sang a rewritten version of “God Bless America” that disparaged the United States and reprimanded the American people.

Do you suppose this would be the kind of thing that might be on Fox News? Maybe the presidential candidates on hand for the event would be asked whether they agreed with the song’s lyrical condemnation of the country? Perhaps the far-right would be apoplectic about the “blame America first” crowd? Maybe we’d hear a few words about how “God Bless America” is fine the way it is, and doesn’t need to be rewritten to serve a radical political agenda?

Just asking.

Rove would come out of retirement to spin that sucker...He'd even work pro bono.

So what's an evangelical activist have to do to get some props around here? Who shall champion their causes? What rising GOP star can they hitch their wagon to?

Well, never fear, Alan Keyes is here! The Lyndon LaRouche of the Republican party has officially thrown his tin foil hat into the ring and showed up at the debate. And for this group, Keyes has impeccable credentials:

August 2004: Alan accuses Hillary Clinton of carpetbagging and then moves from Maryland to Illinois so he can run for Senate against Barack Obama.

August 2004: Alan compares women who have had abortions to Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.

August 2004: Alan suggests that Americans should be able to openly carry machine guns on the street.

September 2004: Alan calls Dick Cheney's daughter a "selfish hedonist."

October 2004: Alan tells supporters at a campaign rally that incest is "inevitable" for children raised by gay couples.

February 2005: Three months after a crushing defeat at the polls, Alan throws his daughter out of the house for being "a liberal queer."

You know, I'm starting to think that Alan has got everything the other Republican candidates have - and so much more. Why eat hamburger when you can have steak? Given the sorry state of their other candidates, I reckon he could be the GOP frontrunner in a matter of weeks. Go Alan!

Now that's a Values Voter kind of guy.

Last night I was cleaning up some papers from the past week and it struck me how many big issues, day after day, are hanging out there both unaddressed and enormously critical not only for my generation but my kids. I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative - if you're not concerned about the following list, you're either not paying attention, or just don't get it.

Let's start of course in Iraq. Obviously we’re a nation at war, and even more importantly is the tempest we may have unleashed in the Middle East, and our indefinite commitment there. A bad situation has been made worse, and has the potential to become an outright nightmare if we don't get an administration with a clue. Loose nukes, terror networks combined with rogue leaders are an unhealthy cocktail - and a policy of not recognizing arms agreements or talking to your enemies is no policy at all. Throw in genocide and an AIDS crisis in developing nations - and you get the idea, the world is becoming a scarier place by the day.

If that wasn't enough, almost every remaining Neanderthal has finally come to the realization that our planet is getting warmer and the consequences are already being felt. Other than our president, I hope no one else really believes we can wait another decade before taking dramatic action.

Back home the squeeze on the middle class is tightening. Between outsourcing jobs and the rolls of the uninsured approaching 50 million, the gap between haves and have-nots is wider than ever. Now we have a mortgage meltdown to contend with and a credit crisis that finds so many in so much debt. Alarmingly, our personal finances may be better than our governments. Unprecedented debt and stunning deficits both promise painful cuts and limited options for the next commander in chief.

And that brings me full circle. With the litany of challenges if not crises facing our next president, I can understand why a recent poll showed for the first time parents are less optimistic for their children’s generation than their own. The next chapter in our nation’s history demands vision, competency and courage. This president sure didn't show the way.

One small step for Americans, one giant leap for bloggerkind!

Truly an historic event! A sitting president having a face-to-face meeting with bloggers! No pushover White House press corps lapdogs, but Citizen Journalists, bane of the MSM, hellbent on getting the real truth! No vague platitudes or simple talking points will do for this group! One can only imagine the tension-filled atmosphere:

Anyone who sat through an hour with this man as I did and came away unconvinced that he sincerely believes in the message of freedom and the necessity of this fight would have to be crazy. He exudes sincerity and passion when he speaks of this mission, and I'm simply baffled by anyone who tries to claim that it's all politics.

Real, uh, hard hitting stuff, though. This is the White House. None but the best, sharpest, most objective wits in the blogosphere would be chosen for...

But it was very cool. The President of the United States slapped my hand and called me "brutha". Top that.

Anyway, he also kidded Bill Roggio and Bill Ardolino (two of my personal heroes who were in Iraq attending the meeting via teleconference) for not wearing ties...they were wearing Under Armor shirts and Ardolino looked like a freakin' rock star...

I was able to shake Tony Snow's hand and tell him "You were there when we needed you..."

The President was very intelligent, razor sharp, warm, focused, emotional (especially about his dad), and genuine. Even more so than this cynical Chicago Boy expected. I was overwhelmed by the sincerity - it wasn't staged.

...wha...Well, I'm sure there were some pointed questions being asked:

I posed the following question to President Bush: We are fighting hot wars on two major fronts: Iraq and Afghanistan. In both conflicts, there are safe havens fueling the insurgencies in these nations. The Taliban and al Qaeda have regrouped and built redoubts in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province and are attacking the Pakistani government and military, striking from their safe havens into Afghanistan....

...That's not a question. Get to the question!

Syrian ratlines run into Iraq and feed al Qaeda and the insurgency. Iran actively arms and trains Shia terrorists, and is building Iraqi Hezbollah. Iran is also arming the Taliban in Iraq. With the current blurring of the lines between domestic politics and foreign policy, and the unwillingness of the American people to fight the current war, how do you get the American public to support the current and future conflicts?

All that, and the question is "how can you get the public to support you?" And Bush's answer "lies in national will?" The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics? You had an hour with the leader of the free world. Didn't someone ask a follow-up to that?

About that time Chief-of-staff Josh Bolten poked his head in, a signal that told the president that Marine One was ready to go. "I want to show you all the Oval Office before I go, though," he said as he rose from his chair.

I queued up behind him as he opened the big door to the Oval Office, and I was reminded of when Dorothy entered Oz. The colors, the lighting, the history (good and bad) . . . it was a rush. The president gave me one of his signature "it's good to be king" expressions and quipped, "Pretty nice, huh?"

"Yessir, Mr. President. Pretty nice."

What the....??? What kind of meeting was this?

President Bush Speaks With Bloggers and Embeds

Obviously, Blogdom is playing a key role in this fighting of the insurgency here at home.

....I shoulda known.

Milbloggers, unabashed war supporters, with nary a critical voice among them, would be the only ones the President would speak to. Like the rest of the rightwing All-Stars he's invited in to have his fluff sessions talks with, Bush guarantees himself a fawning audience. This is as good as it gets for the President in the bubble:

Opinion varied as to whether (Bush)'s doing a super-duper-great job or merely a super-great job, but one thing's for sure: he is easily able to convey his awareness that a war is going on!...Thanking a bunch of sycophants for helping him spread a propaganda message? Mission accomplished indeed!

Sigh....Still, it's a first. Bloggers in the White House. I mean, it's not like they let just anyone in there:

If you have something to say, and create the environment, you can open a pub like Castle Argghhh! where others chime in, you can learn something, and even though you're #1 in Google for "I bayoneted myself today" and you have an Outhouse Naming Contest, in America, you can still get invited to the White House to talk to the President.

And that's just cool.

And Barney is one *fine* looking Scotty.

A true meeting of the minds.

I.) The ad:

II.) Teh Outrage:

A general who "betrays us" is a traitor, like Benedict Arnold. Now that it's OK to question people's patriotism, can we start with MoveOn?

III.) The Shrug:

I just scratch my head and wonder where these people were back when similar attacks were made against anyone who dared question the intelligence of invading Iraq. Somehow those who criticized were anti-American and it was fair game to label war doubters like myself as America-haters and that was all OK. If the media was fine with those attacks a few years ago, they ought to be fine with the criticisms of Petraeus today. He's a big boy and can handle it and I don't see him as being any more or less of an American than anyone who spoke out against the invasion and who was smeared. If the GOP and their friends want to play like this - as they did back when the war was so popular - they should expect to receive as much as they dished out. If Petraeus is going to serve as the yes-man mouthpiece for the administration, he too should expect to take a bit of heat.

IV.)...With an acknowledgement of bad timing, if not taste:

A personal attack like this, when...Democrats need...a spine and a clarity of mind about holding this administration accountable only served to give the GOP one more chance to misdirect the attention of the media away from their own failings towards the overstep by MoveOn.

V.) Blame Democrats!:

The Democrats have to answer for MoveOn, especially those who get money from the group. Either they disassociate themselves from their McCarthyite tactics, or they get connected to them.

VI.) Yawwwnnn:

Dems balk at MoveOn censure resolution

Good. MoveOn is not the problem. If the right took coming up with a coherent Iraq policy half as seriously as they take some intemperate newspaper ad, the nation would be far better off.

VII.) No, really...Teh Outrage!!!1!

ABC's Jake Tapper, who first reported what Moveon.org paid for their ad, is on the story again today and reveals that a conservative organization who ran a full page ad the next day paid "significantly more."

Oops.

It appears that the NY Times may take a much bigger hit to their the credibilty and the bottom line than they ever anticipated as a result.

I doubt stockholders will be pleased.

VIII.) Sadly, No!

Mr. Giuliani, speaking in Atlanta yesterday, demanded that the Times apologize and offer him the same price.

Standby basis
But MoveOn bought its ad on a "standby" basis, under which it can ask for a day and placement in the paper but doesn't get any guarantees. Standby pricing doesn't appear on the Times rate card -- but that kind of ad at a standby rate turns out to run about $65,000.

And that's what the Giuliani campaign paid as well, according to one person close to the Times,

(Hat tip to Sadly, No!)

And so for a week, a good chunk of the left and right blogosphere was talking about - and linking to - a single ad.

I certainly hope the NYT ad department learned their lesson never to do that again....

For critics or supporters, it's easy to get dismissed by the other when it comes to this president and his administration. So when someone like Alan Greenspan speaks, everybody listens. For a self described conservative libertarian, Greenspan is not a fan of this White House, their principles or their competency. Forget the oil-grab claims for a moment. The fiscal discipline dis for a Republican is worse than Snoop Dog having his street cred called into question.

Greenspan didn't mince words; irresponsible tax cuts at a time of war, spending like a drunken sailor and an abuse of power by the Grand Old Party add up to a fiscal mess the old FED chief believes Bill Clinton wouldn't have permitted, let alone been far more competent to address.

It's nice to know Mr. Greenspan was, isn't and never will be one of all the president's men.

Expect a lot of posturing tonight - from the President of course, but also from Democrats who have to figure out what party they want to grow up to be. You can almost write the speeches for them. Bush - patience, progress on the ground, stay the course. Democrats - failure, quagmire, what’s the point with the status quo?

We've heard all this rhetoric before.

By know, I suspect most of you have made up your mind if Iraq is worth the sacrifice, and no speech will convince you otherwise. But dramatic change is possible, and it rests in the hands of a dozen Republicans. Senators like Hagel and Warner have already announced next year will be their last in Washington and their conscience, like some of the colleagues, might say “enough is enough.” Other Republicans may weigh their political prospects of re-election, as unhappy state voters may retire them against their will if they continue to support the war.

So the self-interest and soul searching of a dozen conflicted Republicans really holds the future of our military presence in Iraq in the balance. Democrats, in particular, are awaiting their decision. After campaigning and winning on a promise of bringing the troops home from Iraq if restored to the majority - they better deliver. Sure, their majority is razor thin and yes, expectations may be inflated - but thems the breaks. If they want to quell an uprising with the anti-war crowd and win big again in ‘08 they better find a way to deliver more than the President will promise at nine o'clock.

As much as some screamers on the fringe would like you to believe, America is becoming more tolerant. Whether it's who marries whom, or who can become parents or what jobs women can handle - the public seems ahead of a lot of the ugly discourse.

For what it's worth, I’ve got a theory as to why. First off, people are exposed to a great deal more than a generation ago, and the taboo of the unknown isn't so scary when you see it with your own two eyes. But secondly, and even more important to me is that we are all so busy. We live in a world and a time where there aren't enough hours in a day to manage our own lives without the added challenge of playing moral majority over everyone else. I can't fathom the concept of obsessing over my neighbors’ sex lives let alone caring about their colors of sexual preferences. For all the people who grip with white knuckles to the barrier of same sex marriage - listen, it's coming, and it's going to happen sooner than later.

For the population who still believes people can’t live and let live, I won't try and change your mind. I only wish you'd give me all that free time - I could use it.

This is big. Really big:

The White House is closing in on a nominee to replace Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, with former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson considered one of the leading candidates, administration and Congressional officials said Tuesday.

Reports of Mr. Olson’s candidacy suggested that President Bush, in choosing the third attorney general of his presidency, might defy calls from Democrats and choose another Republican who is considered a staunch partisan to lead the Justice Department. Mr. Gonzales is departing after being repeatedly accused of allowing political loyalties to blind him to independently enforcing the law.

“Clearly if you made a list of consensus nominees, Olson wouldn’t appear on that list,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who led the Judiciary Committee effort to remove Mr. Gonzales. “My hope is that the White House would seek some kind of candidate who would be broadly acceptable.”

This is serious people. No fooling around. When I read this NY Times article this morning, it shocked me awake; it shook me to my core. Of course, the Times didn't follow up with the questions that beg, nay, scream to be answered. Strangely, I haven't seen these questions asked elsewhere on the blogosphere, but this is too important to let the MSM drop the ball again. So I'm going to ask them here, now.

Having replaced him with some sort of genetic doppelganger, or possibly a highly sophisticated android, what have the aliens done with the real Sen. Charles Schumer?

Of course, I'm assuming it must be an alien replicant or android, because, well...the real Chuck Schumer couldn't possibly be that gullible, could he? “My hope is that the White House would seek some kind of candidate who would be broadly acceptable???” Is he high? Where has he been for the last six years? What could he possibly be basing that hope on? What shred of evidence exists that this president - this president - is even remotely interested in consensus, compromise or doing anything but giving Democrats a thumb in the eye? This is the same old song and dance, and Chuckie's acting like he's never heard it before:

It's as if the White House only knows how to call one play: pick a partisan loyalist, and in the process, pick a fight…Alberto Gonzales allowed politics and partisanship to corrupt the Justice Department. If the point is to improve the DoJ, it doesn't make any sense to pick a notorious and shameless partisan to be the latest Attorney General who can't separate political interests from the law.

Oh no...they got Steve Benen too! "If the point is to improve the DoJ, it doesn't make any sense..." Just stop right there. The point is not to improve the DoJ. The point is to keep doing what Gonzales was doing in the DoJ, only not get caught being extremely stupid and sloppy about it.

Give the administration points for consistency, though:

(Olson)'s one of the chief architects of the White House strategy that seeks to render Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (who sits on the front lines on this nomination) utterly powerless in pursuing his investigation of the very scandals which led to Gonzales' resignation in the first place...To neuter the ability of Congress to enforce its oversight powers against the executive branch.

What better person to continue 'Fredo's work? And what better person to stick it to that meddling Leahy, who has the temerity to suggest that Bush pick a nominee with “a proven track record of independence to ensure that he or she will act as an independent check on this administration’s expansive claims of virtually unlimited executive power.” HA! Why do you think Gonzo got the job in the first place?

While I try and work out whether that last comment shows that Leahy has been captured by the aliens as well, his words leave me nostalgic. An independent AG. Ahhh, yes. I remember them well. Those were the days:

I'm so old I remember when the wise old men of Washington spent their days fulminating about Janet Reno's constant need to "prove her independence," which generally required her to appoint an independent counsel or special prosecutor on days ending in 'y.'

Whatever the merits of all of those investigations, the principle was correct. The top dog at the DOJ needs to not think of him/herself as the president's personal lawyer, and Democrats should make independence a necessary condition for confirmation.

Which would mean Olson will have to steal another election if he wants the job:

If Olson is the pick, I imagine the Democrats will pursue the same lines of criticism -- Olson as Florida recount lawyer, Olson as participant in the Arkansas Project -- that failed to prevent his confirmation as solicitor general in 2001.

I'd try an additional line of attack: I'd ask whether a guy who's already deeply immersed in electoral politics for 2008 can be an impartial AG. Ted Olson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president, he's editorialized on Giuliani's behalf, and he's the chairman of Giuliani's "Justice Advisory Committee." I'd make the point that he wasn't just a grubby partisan hack in the distant past, he's a grubby partisan hack right now.

Fair enough, but never underestimate Democrats uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory:

If Olson is indeed the nominee, how he fares should be considered a decent harbinger for 2008. If they confirm him...it means that the top Dems have learned nothing and '08 is seriously up for grabs.

But fortunately it seems that Harry Reid has escaped his alien abductors and tied his doppelganger up in the Senate cloakroom, because it looks like Capitulatin' Harry is off the scene and Boxer Reid is ready to throw a few:

Sure, Joe Lieberman will stomp his feet that another good fascist isn't being rubber-stamped into the administration, and David Broder and the rest of the Beltway class will attack Democrats for not confirming a member of the Cocktail Weenie crowd regardless of his record of gross partisanship. But if Bush wants to toss aside the imperative of finding someone who could pull the DOJ out of the partisan wreckage he and Karl Rove created, then Democrats might as well prepare for all out war now.

Now we just need to rescue the rest of the Senate Democrats from the aliens and get rid of their milksop impersonators.

Faced with a skeptical and increasingly harried congress, Gen. Petraeus knew that all stick and no carrot wasn't going to get him through his testimony. After all, this wasn't 2006, and Republicans weren't in charge of congress (if they were, there would have been no "new strategy", no surge, and certainly no need to report to congress on the status of progress in Iraq). So he put a carrot at the end of the stick and said while the surge needed more time, it was working just well enough that he was going to recommend that 30,000 troops the exact number of those sent in the surge to begin with - could be brought home next year.

The Some troops are coming home! Hooray!

Hey...waitaminnit...

Hitting pre-surge levels by mid-2008 isn't just a strategic goal. It's a practical necessity. Top military brass admitted more than a month ago that the surge cannot persist after April 2008 without extending tours to 18 months or instituting a draft. Simply put, we're out of troops.

Well, of course we are. Did anyone think we could continue the stop-loss extended tours indefinitely? This has been on the horizon for some time now, but Bush and Petraeus are trying to make lemonade out of those lemons, and in classic huckster fashion, they're trying to buy the publlic's goodwill by giving them a $100 bill - that they just picked out of our own pockets.

So we'll get back 30,000 of our men and women. 30,000 that many didn't want to send in the first place. 30,000 that were never going to be able to do what their commander in chief asked of them - provide "breathing space" for Iraqi political progress that was never going to happen. 30,000 from the 160,000 currently there, leaving 130,000...The same number we had there a year ago. Because things were going so well back then:

Shorter David Petraeus: Things are so godawful in Iraq it's going to take at least a year of increased troop presence to have even a glimmer of a hope of making things as godawful as they were in 2006. Oh, and by the way, people? I can't guarantee they won't get much worse.

An alternate theory is that the surge is working perfectly, it's just our definitions of the terminology that are wrong:

But surges take time, Petraeus pointed out. Did anyone really expect that the surge would bring a rapid improvement or a sudden onrush of success? Did anyone say that the surge would be quick, moving like advancing waves or an unexpected increase in electric current? Surges, of course, don't work that way, as every Democrat should know. Surges need to be given time to grow before we know if they are effective. It might be five to ten years before the surge has run its course and we know if it has ultimately achieved its goals. The alternative, as Petraeus warned, is to be "rushing to failure" in Iraq.

I'm willing to concede Mr. Swift has a point.

And along those lines, who would like to bet that, come mid-July 2008, things won't be going quite as good as Gen. Westmoreland Petraeus is anticipating? If the situation in Iraq "suddenly" got worse - to everyone's surprise - then we couldn't bring the troops home just yet. And we'll have to surge a little more:

The whole point of this exercise is to ensure that Bush's war continues until it's time for him to cut brush permanently. The surge can't have worked because then it could start ending, and the surge can't be not working because then it would a tragic waste of lives and money, so the surge is working just a little bit.. but might work a little bit more soon!

And so once again the Lucy van Pelt administration has planted the football and, once again, a nation of Charlie Browns is invited to kick it.

Word out of Washington is that the White House is set to announce its nominee to replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Former solicitor general Ted Olson has emerged as the likely pick, and that's a shame.

By all accounts he's a smart guy, but he's about as independent as Rosie O’Donnell is restrained. He's the same Ted Olson who represented bush before the Supreme Court in the Florida recount case back in 2000. He's also the same Ted Olson who was knee deep in the Arkansas Project, the conservative smear job campaign that attacked the Clintons during the 90's.

For a Justice Department still reeling from the prosecutor purge and warrantless wiretapping - any person with a conscience let alone a clue, would try and restore a hint of calm to a beleaguered agency with little over a year until a new administration takes charge. But doing the right let alone the smart thing has never been Bush and friends forte.

Politics is not supposed to be the job of the Attorney General and his charges, but the idea of an independent law enforcement branch is so comical to W., they've decided what the hell, let’s finish the way they started. Either they think Dems will shoot Olson down, scoring political points for the GOP or they just don't care or know any better.

No matter how you spin it, you have to wonder how they think America wins with this garbage. After 7 years they still don't get it.

As lawmakers in Washington heard a crucial report on the troop surge in Iraq, a new ABC News poll reports discouraging news. The survey of 2200 Iraqis finds a large majority takes a damning view of the troop increase. In Baghdad, and even in Anbar, a stunning review: responses about the surge were 100-percent negative.

So Iraqi and American hearts and minds are not behind the war. And who in their right mind can blame them? By every indicator, every promise hasn't been met, every goal unachieved. The palpable skepticism on Capitol Hill, the frustration of the American public and the despondence of the Iraqis leads many to be angry. Last night, however, I found myself depressed.

If any of you get the opportunity to see the HBO special Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq, you'll see profiles in courage of 10 new veterans back from Iraq, a handful of the 25,000 Americans wounded there.

Our administration doesn't deserve these soldiers.

The thought that stuck with me when the credits rolled was, “what a waste.” Beyond the more then 3,700 dead and all those injured, look around the globe. Somehow, since 9/11, we've gone from "we are all Americans" to an international punch line. Somehow, Afghanistan and Pakistan are as bad - if not worse - than before. Somehow, a picture of our president serves as the greatest recruitment tool for terrorists. Somehow, he has turned a collapsed statue of a tyrant into a symbol, for some Iraqis, of nostalgia.

We will continue to talk about Petraeus and his testimony - but as I heard his words, I kept thinking about what might have been, and what a waste of an opportunity our leaders have made.

It's like Groundhog Day, except with a lot more people getting killed.

For four years we've been told progress is being made in Iraq; and for four years, things have gotten worse. So, for four years, we've been told, "Be patient. Wait another six months and then judge." And so it has gone, Friedman Unit after Friedman Unit, chaos ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Until, finally, the usual standby of accusing those who were impatient of being traitors or not supporting the troops wasn't working anymore. And so, we were given the Ultimate Friedman Unit! "Give the surge a chance," they said, "Wait until September for Gen. Petraeus to deliver his report."

Ummm, yeah, about that "report":

While Petraeus' statement to Congress will be made available, the public will not know what information he is providing to President Bush. The lack of transparency over Petraeus' "report" will only intensify the high level of skepticism surrounding his statistics.

Okay, well, so there was no written report showing data, sources, methodology...nothing that, say, a skeptical onlooker could verify and check to see if Petraeus was maybe rosying up the picture a bit. But still, the nation waited with bated breath for Gen. Petraeus' sober, unbiased assessment of the progress made in Iraq.

You'll never guess what he said:

Six months. It's always six months.

No, you're not having a flashback, or experiencing déjà vu. We have been here before:

The irony is, the policy the White House unveiled earlier this year was supposed to eliminate these constant requests for “Friedman Units” (6-month increments). Bush announced the “surge” policy and agreed to a series of 18 benchmarks. If the policy worked, Iraqis would complete the benchmarks; if the policy failed, the benchmarks would remain unmet.

Here we are in September, and only three of the 18 benchmarks have been checked off the to-do list. And yet, lo and behold, we need another six months to evaluate a policy that already doesn’t work, and already can’t produce the expected results.

So, after giving their performance in front of congress - and make no mistake, it was a performance - what do Petraeus and Crocker plan to do? They're going to Disneyland! Or, in this case, an exclusive interview with Brit Hume at FOX News, which for them is the same thing:

If there was any doubt to the US public that Gen. Petraeus was being used a puppet for Bush’s war—it should be gone now. Brit Hume of FOX Propaganda was granted an exclusive interview with the general, who is supposed to be giving an honest assessment of the “surge” and the state of affairs in Iraq. Bush might have well as given Rush Limbaugh the honors. No longer can the administration claim he is the voice of reason or not acting as an echo chamber for their plan to keep the surge and the war going as long as possible.

Well, if the administration thinks that Democrats are going to just lie down and let this pass without putting up so much as a peep, well then, they've got another think coming!

Oh...nevermind:

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying a new approach: He wants to find common ground.

"We're working on consensus," Reid said. "We're willing to go halfway with [Republicans] as long as everyone understands that we're not going to do something that's cosmetic in nature."

Some Republicans, like presidential candidate John McCain, say Reid is talking with Republicans only because Democrats are losing the war of public opinion.

"They've lost the momentum," McCain said. "Otherwise, they wouldn't want to sit down with Republicans and negotiate a different resolution."

Gosh. If only Harry Reid and Democrats had the benefit of having public opinion on their side. Then they could surely take a stand against such baseless accusations.

Hey, wait...They do:

[McCain]'s right. Democrats are talking as though they've lost the war of public opinion. Except that Democrats aren't. They're winning it.

Yet they talk like losers.

60 percent agree with a hardline position in this debate, yet Democrats -- who won in 2006 on platform of ending the war in Iraq -- are talking like losers before the debate is even engaged.

Actually, Democrats have been acting like losers long before the debate over the efficacy of the surge came around:

[T]he stark inability of Democrats to think 6 or 12 months ahead on the issue has been revolting. Waiting for the ponies, or president Bush to come around, or the ISG to save the universe, or sensible Republicans to do the right thing has always been their strategy. But should have always assumed the obvious, that 6 or 12 months from now there would be no ponies, no sensible Republicans, and no wise old men of Washington to save the day. September is here, nothing will change... and these people appear to actually be surprised by this.

If the last 4 1/2 years have taught us anything, it's that Bush will not compromise. Republicans will not compromise. The only ones to compromise will, once again, be Democrats because they don't want to be attacked as being soft in the GWOT. In other words, they've learned nothing:

Public opinion has already concluded that the Petraeus report will sugarcoat the statistics, that the Crocker report will move the goalposts, and that "victory" in Iraq will be no less absurd an American mission at the end of the week than at the beginning. Magical September will make Republicans no less likely to wag their lapdog tails at the White House, or to rattle their cut-and-run sabers at the Democrats, than will Magical March, the probable next location of the turning-point mirage. Democrats, for their part, will seize on the possible January withdrawal of one brigade of the surge as a bipartisan triumph, and their fear of being branded anti-troop and pro-terrorist by a bunch of chickenhawk demagogues will lead them to hail a non-binding non-deadline nonconditional footnote to the next defense appropriation as though they had drawn some heroic line in the sand.

You may now commence pounding your forehaed against the floor.

Now, one could easily point out that Bush and Republicans would've attacked Democrats as being soft anyway, no matter what, so you might as well do the right thing and stand by your principles even if (and Rich, I'm talking to you here) you don't have enough of a congressional majority and don't have the votes to actually stop the war or set a firm timeline for withdrawal. Oddly enough, voters tend to reward people with principles, especially when they stick by them...Even moreso when they've campaigned on doing everything they can to honor those principles.

Crazy idea, I know.

Now, in case you happened to miss the Petraeus/Crocker show, or don't feel like watching Brit Hume's pander-fest tonight, don't worry.

In six months, you'll get another chance.

Two mediocre actors. Two great conservative hopes. That may be where the similarities end between Fred Thompson and Ronald Reagan. Thompson may wear the costume of a movement conservative, but blogger David Corn says it doesn't fit him well:

Besides the fact that both men combined politics with acting, this characterization is a stretch. Reagan was what's known as a "movement conservative." He identified with the conservative movement, he became a leader of that movement, he championed its many causes. Sure, he did not always live the family values preached by the movement (he divorced, enacted an abortion law as California governor, ran a highly dysfunctional family). But no president of the 20th century was so closely connected to an ideological movement and its adherents as Reagan.

That cannot be said for Thompson. As a senator, he had a conservative voting record, but he was never seen as a leader of the right. In fact, he pissed off conservatives with several moves.

Immigration, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, tort reform, abortion and big, fat pork-laden earmarks, Fred Thompson has gone against the conservative line on all of them. Reagan spent 30 years becoming one of the stars of the Republican party and of the conservative movement. As such, you knew Reagan what Reagan was going to support ahead of time. With Fred, it's far less certain. It's one thing to talk a good game and drop a few base-pleasing soundbites, but you have to have a firm grasp on the "big-picture conservatism" to be able to claim the Reagan mantle - and then you have to follow it up with action, not just words. Take it from someone who would know - Michael Reagan:

To begin with, he has to give the voters in the primary states a good reason to pick him over all the other Republican candidates. He has to tell them not only where he stands on the issues, but also what he plans to do about them.

It’s not enough to say he wants a better America -- after all, everybody wants that. He has to spell out how he plans to get there.
.........
Fred Thompson must realize that Republicans are looking for more than a presidential candidate -- they’re hungry for a leader. The GOP hasn’t had a genuine, inspired leader since Newt Gingrich, and before that, my dad, Ronald Reagan.

Given that fact, how does Fred Thompson plan to fill that void? How does he plan to provide the leadership his party craves?

For a guy that seems to have spent his life stumbling through doors that have been opened for him, as opposed to getting ahead via his own grit and moxie, the closest Thompson has come to displaying leadership is in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Last Best Chance - and those weren't exactly barn-burning memorable performances. The problem is there doesn't seem to be any evidence that ol' Fred has the leadership qualities of the Gipper:

Reagan may have been a "B-movie" actor, but in more than a few of those B-movies, he was the star....Thompson, on the other hand, has made a career as a supporting character, never a lead...

His political career has followed the same pattern...

Fred Thompson has been a supporting character his entire life -- whether as counsel on the Watergate committee, a senator, a lobbyist and as an actor. Yet, now he is being called upon to launch a campaign to become the biggest "lead" in the political show.

Is that why Thompson didn't come across as the all-conquering hero when he finally hit Iowa on Thursday? Did Iowans turn out expecting a Bruce Willis and instead found a taller version of Charles Grodin?

But there is one area in which Thompson is the rightful heir to the Reagan mantle, and it may be the only one that counts:

What matters to conservatives, and what always mattered about Reagan, is performativity. It isn’t that they don’t care about policy — they have an entire network of think-tanks and communications outfits and so on to enforce their policy aims. But when it comes to unifying the party, what they really seem to want is an actor.

Even if it’s an actor acting the part of another actor.

Conservatism. Brilliant! Thank You.

On Monday Gen. David Petraeus will try to sell the administration party line; that the surge is working and “trust us this time we know what we’re doing.” The problem is - forget Democrats - Republicans aren't likely to be buying what Bush and friends are selling. And do you blame them? His war and his approval ratings are in the toilet - and every headline they seem to generate only has GOP lawmakers reaching for the Tums.

But Republicans quick to place all blame on the Oval Office ought to look in the mirror as well. Resignations, scandals and investigations seem all too common for GOPers. The Grand Old Party, long admired for its discipline and unity, has fractured at the seams with all factions pointing fingers at the other.

But here comes the scary part, it's going to get worse before it gets better. The faithful are uninspired by the crop of presidential hopefuls, and for good reason - are they moderate or conservative? They and their party seem at a loss for that answer and the Republican way forward. Bush, Cheney, Rove and Delay may have gotten them into this mess but I’m still waiting for the person with a plan to get them out.

Republicans, get ready for a long, cold political winter.

As Mark Twain once said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." The military's numbers purporting a decrease in sectarian violence would be of the third kind:

The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

It's cherry-picking time again!

According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

It's really not all that complicated. See, the amount of violence in Iraq is down, if you don't count all the violence:

The violence numbers do not include: 1) Sunni on Sunni violence. 2) Shi'a on Shi'a violence 3) Car bombs 4) Getting shot in the front of the head.

But violence is down. Trust me.

At first blush, it's easy to dismiss Sunni on Sunni violence and Shi'a on Shi'a violence as just plain old regular crime, unrelated to the rest of the violence in Iraq, and therefore justifiably not included in the military's statistics. But it's this kind of ignorance about the makeup of Islamic sects and their internicine histories that got us into this mess in the first place:

Among the most worrisome trends ... was escalating warfare between rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that has consumed the port city of Basra and resulted last month in the assassination of two southern provincial governors. According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics....

Hey, we have great numbers now on people being killed for political reasons -- why would we want want to mess them up by including people being killed for political reasons?

And don't even ask about the deaths of 500 Yezidi Iraqis that were killed last month...The Pentagon certinaly didn't. But they're not Muslims, so they don't count.

But those arguments are positively lucid compared to some of the other qualifications of "sectarian violence." Not counting car bombs? That's like counting murder rates in the US but excluding all gun violence. And I had no idea that it was against the rules of engagement for sectarian warfare not to shoot each other in the face. From the WaPo article:

Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

Uh-huh. This is why some people consider the term "military intelligence" to be an oxymoron. But this is what happens when you give someone a test, let them set the standards and then grade themselves:

Not that any of this should be a surprise. When you get someone to rate themselves on how good a job they're doing, and their boss wants to present that to the board as indicative of his performance... well, strangely enough, they're doing great.

But facts don't matter much. What matters is which set of numbers and assessments get repeated more. And odds are high, despite the media doing some pushback, that the White House will be able to push their numbers with greater repetitiveness. Congress will give Bush another 50 billion, and the war will continue.

And so, Gen. Petraeus will do his best Colin Powell impersonation in front of congress and sacrifice his credibility and reputation for the sake of his commander in chief's pet war. Like Petraeus, Colin Powell was once both respected on the left as well as the right and thought of as his own man, immune to the politicization of reality. But with one fateful appearance before the UN, complete with bogus powders and marked up photos of the Winnebagos of Death, Powell cut his own throat. The difference is, Powell was lied to by others in the administration - Petraeus is cooking the books of his own free will:

They're making up standards as they go along, in the hopes they can keep the charade up just long enough to fool policy makers....

But as the administration's need for some kind of public relations boost became more desperate, so, too, did the administration's willingness to play fast and loose with the numbers.

There are some statistics that are immune, however, from administration finagling:

Frank de Libero put together the chart you see reproduced above. It compared GI deaths in Iraq in any given month of 2007 to the deaths in the corresponding month in 2006. In summary, January '07 was deadlier than January '06. February '07 was deadlier than February '06. March '07 was deadlier than March '06. April '07 was deadlier than April '06. May '07 was deadlier than May '06. June '07 was deadlier than June '06. July '07 was deadlier than July '06. And August '07 was, well, deadlier than August '06.

That shouldn't come as a surprise, as the "surge" strategy specifically contemplated risking higher American death rates (and having Americans kill more people) in order to accomplish some larger political goals. Unfortunately, those goals weren't achieved so we just have more dead people.

But again, as long as you don't count all the violence, then violence is down. And that's the way Bush and Petraeus are going to play it.

Unfortunately, there will be some people counting ALL the violence - the familes of the dead.

I'm sure the military's statistics will be very comforting to them.

Can you win a debate even if you don't show up? Fred Thompson made his official entrance in the '08 race last night, but ducked out on the televised New Hampshire debate with his fellow Republicans. Conservative blogger and Mitt Romney man-crush victim Hugh Hewitt thinks this just shows ol' Fred doesn't have what it takes:

Hillary is running as hard as is possible, and she won't be beaten from the couch on the set of the Tonight Show… Skipping (the) FOX debate is just another indication that Team Thompson hasn't figured out the dynamics of '08 yet. Running a Rose Garden campaign when you don't own the Rose Garden is a sure way to signal an indifference to the realities of the long campaign ahead, and naiveté about the Clintons.

But like the empty seat for Elijah at a Seder dinner, Fred Thompson's absence created perhaps as much of a stir as if he were there:

They're spending a tenth of the debate, debating Fred Thompson. Who says that Fred can't dominate a debate which he doesn't attend?

Given his previous lackluster speeches and his tendency to be a little too casual when suggesting, say, invading Iran would be a good thing, it's hard to argue that Fred didn't get more bang for his buck in the controlled evironments of his TV ad and Jay Leno's couch:

It might seem arrogant of Thompson to avoid the debate, run an ad just before it began, and announce his candidacy on Leno just minutes afterward...Yet Thompson may have still done better than any of the other eight candidates — by attrition, anyway. None of the others really gained from participating…Had Thompson shown up, potentially ill-prepared and at the last minute, he could have done just as badly as they did — or worse, which would have killed his candidacy.

In any other year, waiting until Labor Day to announce your candidacy, much less begin debating in earnest, might be a problem. but in this, the longest campaign season ever, ol' Fred's slow pace might actually be good for him:

There are now so many debates between the two parties that it’s coming close to where networks may well simply want to allot time for weekly series. And while debates are watched by many Americans, and scrutinized by the press and webloggers, the impact of an individual debate is not quite what it used to be. So Thompson will take some heat for skipping the debate and be the subject of a few jokes but is unlikely to lose many votes due to it.

Not everyone agrees, however. Red State says ol' Fred can't hide forever:

I have to think that Fred Thompson was a loser with the people who watched this - unavoidably, perhaps, but we need to get him out there and see what he's made of in these things. Fred needs less tell and more show.

It's time to face the music Fred. The other candidates have all worked up a sweat. It's time for you to put on your Guccis and dance.

OK, even by Washington scandal standards, this one has gotten pretty weird.

A gay-Republican-in-a-men's-restroom sex scandal is odd enough; this was the second one of the summer. Larry Craig first pled guilty to the charge in an attempt to make the story go away; then went on national television to vociferously proclaim his innocence. Then, in a second attempt to make the story go away, Craig announces his imminent retirement. Now, as with his guilty plea, Craig is trying to get a mulligan on his retirement announcement.

How do we know this? Because he laid out his clever scheme in a message on the answering machine of a total stranger, apparently thinking he had called his lawyer.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig says he might reconsider his decision to resign if he clears his name in his arrest for disorderly conduct in a restroom sex scandal.

That’s why Craig chose his words carefully during his resignation speech Saturday in Boise, according to a voice mail message he mistakenly left on a stranger’s phone. In the message obtained by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, Craig tells a man named “Billy” that his choice of language is deliberate because it leaves the door open for him to stay in office.

Craig made the call just minutes before his speech.

“We have reshaped my statement a little bit to say it is my intent to resign on Sept. 30,” Craig said. “I think it is important for you to make as bold a statement as you are comfortable with this afternoon, and I would hope you could make it in front of the cameras. I think it would help drive the story that I’m willing to fight...”

Republican leadership was keen to bury this story deep. They wanted to get rid of any signs of icky gay sex so as not to upset their base, while fumigating the stench of hypocrisy over their Craig/Vitter double standard for the rest of us. The RNC was already mulling over Craig's replacement by Republican governor (nicknamed "Butch" by yet another bizarre coincidence), and all but shoved Criag off the ledge. But now Craig is struggling to stay on, and maybe get some revenge in the process:

Sure, Larry is looking for vindication. Let's just say, this also feels like payback. The Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, publicly chastised Craig last week -- and basically forced his resignation. But, now Larry's fighting back -- and blatantly challenging McConnell and his leadership.

Despite whatever crack dreams Tom Delay is having these days, Craig expected his GOP stalwarts to rally 'round him, blame the media and help him work out a strategy, possibly involving additional admissions of "alcohol issues" and a stint in rehab. You know, the usual course of events. Imagine his shock, then, when he was stripped of his committee assignments, mocked by his peers, and quickly hounded into an early retirement by a torch-and-pitchfork-carrying RNC mob.

But Criag may have some legal recourse here, so as if Craig's apparent refusal to go quietly wasn't bad enough for the GOP, it appears there may not be a lot they can do about it:

Next press conference: coming soon, to announce he’s un-resigning, the war effort be damned, and putting the Specter “GOP nightmare” master plan into action...

He doesn’t need to overturn the plea to keep his seat, either. It was only a misdemeanor so they don’t have cause to expel him, and the last thing the GOP wants is a debate over why Vitter skated on a reprimand when Craig likely won’t. McConnell tried to answer that today with the point about how Vitter wasn’t prosecuted for anything, but that’s not going to do him much good if the media gets a chance to take a sustained look at the gay/straight double standard. So the ethics committee will probably back off too. Suddenly Craiggers is holding all the cards.

Which suits Democratic bloggers juuuuust fine:

Please, Senator Craig, by all means, you must appeal. We really, really want you to run in 2008. It would mean the world to us. I think I speak for everyone in Lefty Blogistan when I say that it is you, Senator Craig, who symbolize everything that the Republican Party stands for, and that no one would be better suited to carry the water torch for the GOP in Idaho in the coming election cycle.

And in an interesting bit of timing, it isn't just Republican electoral chances that Craig's un-resignation will hurt. He could go and ruin the whole kabuki show:

If Sen. Larry Craig reconsiders and steps all over Gen. Petraeus' week of surge, Bill Kristol's head will explode. That Penatagon media war room they set up will be useless in the face of this cable TV zoo.

Because if there's anything the media loves covering more than administration happy talk on Iraq, it's a drawn out political sex scandal.

Craig even hired Michael Vick's lawyer ("Billy" Martin) to defend him. They'll love that.

God knows I do.

[UPDATE: McConnell, realizing he may have been outplayed by a homosexual, blinks]

Perhaps concerned with his place in history, President Bush recently granted a series of interviews with author Robert Draper for his book, "Dead Certain." While the book's title is seemingly in earnest, it doesn't exactly reflect its subject. From the NY Times article:

And in apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq, he continued, “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ — there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.”

Yes, he's The Commander Guy. The Decider. Ecept when he's not:

Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.

"Didn't happen." Well, why didn't it happen? "Yeah, I can't remember..." The Decider seems less clear on that, content to pass the buck and leave the decision at the feet of an underling.

Now it seems that underling doesn't feel like getting thrown under the bus:

A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

[SNIP]

In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.

“We must make it clear to everyone that we mean business: that Saddam and the Baathists are finished,” Mr. Bremer wrote in a letter that was drafted on May 20, 2003, and sent to the president on May 22 through Donald H. Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense.

After recounting American efforts to remove members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein from civilian agencies, Mr. Bremer told Mr. Bush that he would “parallel this step with an even more robust measure” to dismantle the Iraq military.

One day later, Mr. Bush wrote back a short thank you letter. “Your leadership is apparent,” the president wrote. “You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence.”

Apparently Bremer didn't read the fine print when he accepted his Presidential Medal of Freedom - "By accepting this medal, you hereby swear to not contradict anything The President says, even in the event that you are being scapegoated for someone else's (i.e. his) mistake." Bremer's letter to Bush means one of two things:

First, if Bush was keeping up with Iraq policy and read Bremer’s letter, he was lying about his role in the mistake that helped create the Iraqi insurgency.

Second, if Bush never read Bremer’s note and was detached from policy decisions, major consequential transformations were underway in Iraq while the president had no idea what was going on, even when given information in print by his own administrator on the ground.

Or it may be a third option:

Maybe when Bush said Bremer had his "full support and confidence" as he conducted these measures he had his fingers crossed behind his back and didn't really mean it. Bet the liberal media didn't consider that angle.

Paul Bremer gets no pat on the back here for outing this particular lie. He was as complicit in the de-Ba'athification of Iraq as Bush was, with one small difference - he was following orders:

Why should people have to provide evidence to force the president to take responsibility for key decisions about the war? He may not have been aware it was a key decision - that seems to be the case - but not understanding how important it was doesn't absolve him of responsibility for it. Instead, it highlights the poor understanding he and others in the administration had about what postwar conditions would be like, and what would be needed to stabilize the country.

It's hard to comprehend the overwhelming lack of foresight this administration demonstrated in the run-up and execution of their pet war. Perhaps because too many of them never actually served in the military, they do not seem to understand that a soldier's duty is to follow orders. That perhaps just because Saddam was a terrible person, and had his army do terrible things, that it does not necessarily follow that the soldiers were terrible people too. Indeed, many of them, in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, were actively campaigning to help restore order, optimistic of the possibilities following the fall of a brutal dictator. But not only were they shunned, they were summarily fired - and no one bothered to even disarm them. Brilliant idea! Put thousands of angry, armed militants out on the streets with no way to support themselves or their families, just when you're trying to restore order. And in their place, hire RNC loyalists who know precisely squat about rebuilding a country, nevermind having any useful knowledge about the people they were supposedly there to help.

But no one could have predicted an armed insurgency....

You'd have to be pretty drunk on the kool-aid to find a way to defend the Decider on this, and finding such a rube was difficult, but that's what I'm here for. The Elephant Bar says it all depends on what you mean by "dissolving Saddam's military and intelligence structures":

I do not believe this is the same thing as saying..."we will disband the army." On the other hand, it would have been a good idea to get a clarification of Bremer's intent.

Ahem.....

ar·my (är'mç)

a) A large body of people organized and trained for land warfare.

b) A tactical and administrative military unit consisting of a headquarters, two or more corps, and auxiliary forces.

Yeah, I don't know how anyone could've thought Bremer was referring to the Iraqi Army.

President Bush may like to compare himself to Harry Truman, but unlike the 33rd president, with this administration the buck stops...somewhere else:

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether Mr. Timberland was freelancing or if he got his orders direct from Dear Leader, though of course dishonesty about such things should matter...Either way, Bush was in charge. Or should have been, despite his busy mountain biking and brush clearing schedule.

But Rove knew better. He knew if he could get Bush in front of some cameras and military personnel, saying things like "I'm the Decider," that's what the public would take away. Perception is everything in politics, and the administration did everything they could to pass of the perception that Bush was in charge to further their political ends. Thus does the Bush myth perpetuate itself:

The bulk of the public who do not bother to go fact-checking between carpools and soccer practice drop-offs and such will never, ever know the depth of their craven public farce.

But the problem with treating everything as a political excercise, telling convenient lies to bolster your positions, is that the web gets so complicated, you not only forget which lies you told to cover up other lies, but the new lies can tend to really tick somneone off, someone you had already relied on to help further your political goals. Bush shouldn't be concerned about his place in history - it's pretty much in the bag already:

This is a case of everybody trying to blame everybody else for the purposes of keeping their lagacy intact. Hey, I've got news for you guys: NONE OF YOU are going to come out of this looking good. In fact, the only way it'll go without mobs carrying torches chasing you everywhere you go is by acknowledging your mistakes.

And the dustbin of history fast approaches