Black Box Report

With only five days until Super Tuesday, when New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will have their say when it comes to our next president, it's time for me to get off the fence and stand behind my presidential picks.

On the Democratic side, voters have not been forced to pick a lesser of two evils.

Obama's abilities are obvious and his inexperience exaggerated. If elected, I believe he would more than make history, he would restore competency and leadership to the White House.

He, however, is not the best candidate. Hillary Clinton is.

While she cannot match his gift for speechmaking, or even inspiration, she is the most able and equipped candidate we have seen in years.

As a father of three young children, I choose my leaders with the future in mind as much as the present. The future worries me. Our next president inherits spiraling debt and major economic problems. We are a nation at war and our standing in the world is at its lowest in recent memory. Global warming, terrorism and a laundry list of challenges requiring leadership, innovation and, yes, compromise face our next Commander in Chief, and we don't have the luxury of on the job training.

I have covered Hillary as first a candidate then a senator, and she has made even skeptics converts with hard work and results. She will hit the ground running, knows how D.C. works and has been battle-tested. More than ever we need an adult sitting behind the big desk in the most important office in the world. Hillary Clinton is the right person at the right time.

On the Republican side, the options are less appealing. But one candidate at least has the conviction to say and stand behind what he believes in. That person is John McCain.

On many issues, including the war, I do not agree with the Arizona senator, but at least I know where he stands today and tommorow.

His courageous positions on immigration and campaign finance reform, despite the political consequences, and his record for putting principal above poll numbers is a constant with a person who has faced more than lifetime of adversity.

In a weak republican field, he is the best of the lot.

There's a new political disease afflicting the GOP base and rightwing pundits, and a Republican you know may be suffering from it - McCain Derangement Syndrome. Its symptoms include an inability to accept that John McCain is now the prohibitive GOP frontrunner:

Assuming there is no shocking revelation or health issue, the GOP nomination is over. Conservatives need to start practicing the phrase "Nominee presumptive John McCa....."

Sorry, I can't say it. Not yet...

Florida has launched the one ship that Romney's money and Rush Limbaugh cannot stop: The U.S.S. Inevitable. It's gonna happen. Even if there were a realistic pathway to stop him, the media have seized control of the process now and are declaring him inevitable. He is, after all, the favorite son of the New York Times.

So it is over. Finished...And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.

Other symptoms include incoherant rage and and a willingness to shoot their party in the foot, sacrificing a Republican White House for ideological purity (something previously rumoured to only affect Democrats):

If McCain gets the nomination, I would work towards his defeat in November before I'd vote for him...The best thing for the future of conservatism in America, would be a McCain loss in the general. And we need to start tearing the Republican Party apart and re-building, from the ground up.

The causes of MDS appear to be exposure to John McCain's positions on immigration, Bush's tax cuts, campaign finance reform and other conservative issues, but new studies show that those with hyperinflated egos and an over-developed sense of self-importance may also be at risk:

The anti-McCain contingent of the GOP, at least at first blush, looks like it should be a force to be reckoned with. Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, most of the Fox News crowd, most of the right’s talk-radio hosts, and nearly all of the leading conservative bloggers consider John McCain completely unacceptable...
......
Except, with McCain's ascendancy, these guys look like a paper tiger, who wavering GOP lawmakers may take a little less seriously in the future.

Initial treatment of threatening victims of MDS with a Hillary Clinton presidency has proved futile:

GLENN: Michelle Malkin, I've got 30 seconds. If it's John McCain, Hillary Clinton, do you pull the lever for John McCain?

MALKIN: Not at this moment I don't. I'm running a poll right now on my site and you can see that there are a majority of my own readers who are going to sit home. And I think it's a big warning to the conservative movement out there. We still have time to fix this.

The man for whom this debilitating disease is named is hoping new treatments, in the form of endorsements from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani, will help MDS victims to recover, but even that seems unlikely:

Now that I think about it, a McCain/Giuliani ticket might be the first Republican ticket without any actual Republicans on it.

Making the search for a cure even more complicated is a new theory, advanced by certain knowledgable analysts, saying the disease may have been misdiagnosed as primarily affecting conservatives:

The thing that needs to be said, over and over, though, is that Rush Limbaugh and those guys simply aren’t conservatives. They just aren’t. Radically restructuring government to create an unaccountable executive is not conservative. Building a security apparatus that is designed to spy on citizens is not a conservative principle. Runaway spending and bloated budgets are not conservative ideas. Torture and permanent aggressive wars are not conservative principles. Fearmongering and keeping the electorate scared is not a conservative principle. And on and on.

The fact of the matter is the self-styled loud-mouth conservatives just aren’t very conservative.

But whether this malady threatens conservatives, Republicans, or both, the suffering is real. Sadly, there is no known cure at this time, as Republicans continue to cut research funding, deny insurance and generally tell victims to suck it up and live with it.

UPDATE: Coulter: If McCain’s the nominee, I’ll campaign for Hillary

So sad.

There are many mysteries of the universe we may never be able to explain, like how the Egyptian pyramids were built; the disappearance of the ancient Mayan civilization; and how did John Bolton ever get a job as a diplomat? The moustache that roared is at it again, telling FOX News, naturally, that the mullahs in Iran are hankering for a Democratic president so they can freely pursue a nuclear weapons program and DESTROY THE WORLD!!!!...or something. Surprisingly enough, one diarist at Daily Kos agrees, but for different reasons:

After seven years of watching Bush and the neo-cons push for war with Iran I'd be hoping for a Democratic President too. It must have been nerve-racking for them to hear the administration use claims they knew to be false as justification for an attack. Iran knew they had no WMDs but until the NIE was leaked not a lot of other people did. The NIE concluded they had abandoned their nuclear program several years ago. The Bush Administration had had this report for a while now. They buried it, ready to lie their way into yet another war in the middle east. Now why would Iran not want another eight years of that?

That argument aside - and it's not a bad one - Bolton's comments don't make a lick of sense when you consider that it was a result of the current Republican foreign policy that Iran's position in the Middle East has been strengthened:

Yeah, i'm sure that (Iran) would rather have someone who is likely to do something in the WH rather than Bush who has played into their hands from day one.

For a party that prides itself (or used to) on being "the party of ideas," they haven't had an original idea, much less campaign strategy, for the last quarter-century. And Bolton's latest example of Yosemite Sam rhetoric is just the same stuff, different election:

Bolton's fearmongering on Iran mirrors the conservative strategy around the 2006 elections. At the time, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney, and the White House all suggested al Qaeda was hoping for a Democratic Congress.

Back then we were told if Democrats took control of Congress, we'd lose Iraq and terrorists would invade your kitchen! So, how did those predictions work out?

The prevailing talking point before the 2006 election was that if Democrats became the majority in Congress, we'd fail in Iraq and terrorists would be everywhere here at home. However, now you can't hear a Republican speak without mentioning that we're winning the war in Iraq, and there hasn't been a major attack on American Soil since a Republican ran the White House! So given that predictions are dubious but results are rock solid, it stands to reason that Bolton's suggestion will have the opposite effect - Tehran is as good as destroyed once a Democrat gets the presidency.

John Bolton. Always wrong. Still on TV.

*For everyone.

**Depending on your point of view...

The bad news first: It was a sad day around the progressive blogosphere today. John Edwards is out of the presidential race, and many are mourning the loss of his voice:

John Edwards candidacy has been a daily reminder to pick up the charge of the better angels of our nature, and to speak up against those injustices that too often get shoved to the side for more monied and powerful interests.

Even bloggers who may not have been Edwards supporters are nonetheless tipping their caps to him:

It took me a long time to warm to John Edwards, and by the time I did it was almost over. But I think it was his presence in the race and his campaign that really set the tone for the whole thing, and he deserves an enormous amount of credit for any good things that may come in the next administration.

From healthcare, to cap-and-trade proposals for climate change, to reforming predatory lending practices, Edwards led the pack, and Clinton and Obama followed. And for that, Edwards - and America - won. But in the end, the rock star appeal of The Clinton Machine and Obamamania sucked all the oxuygen out of the room, and Edwards' campaign just never caught fire. And so Edwards' quest ended where it began, in New Orleans, helping those less fortunate. His campaign may be over; hopefully the causes he championed are not.

But for every cloud, there's a silver lining. While Democrats carry Edwards out on his shield, Rudy 9/11 Giuliani makes his exit, stage far, far right.

So what happened? Mere months ago, a Clinton-Giuliani Subway Series was all but guaranteed. And while Hillary still has an opportunity to see her coronation come to fruition, Rudy...well...Rudy fall down, go boom. Future political consultants will point to Rudy's "Florida Strategy" of ignoring every early primary until it's too late and say, "That. If you want to win, don't do that." But there's more to it than just lousy strategy:

Yes, his Florida or bust strategy was stupid. But it's not like he would have been more competitive had he tried harder in earlier states. He sunk lots of money into New Hampshire and it only caused his poll numbers to go down. Giuliani lost because he's a creepy weirdo, and the more you see him, the more that becomes apparent. Moreover, his entire campaign was built around the fact that he happened to be the mayor of a city that was attacked by terrorists, and even stupid people eventually realized that wasn't a particularly compelling rationale for being president. And, of course, it didn't help that his closet was overflowing with skeletons. In short, he was a really bad candidate and even a perfect "strategy" would not have secured the nomination for him.

I have to admit, even as late as Thanksgiving last year, while Rudy's Shag Fund scandal was in full swing, my biggest fear was a Giuliani presidency. I knew about all the scandals (and they were legion); I knew about Rudy's liberal social views that would be anathema to the base he was courting, and I didn't think any of it would matter. He was Rudy 9iu11iani, and after watching the politics of 9/11 woirk so effectively in 2004, I felt certain the GOP would complete their devolution and go all in on an authoritarian ego-maniac whose entire foreign policy boiled down to an itchy trigger finger. I've never been so happy to be wrong. And now Americans everywhere, except for those at FOX News (and boy, must Rupert Murdoch feel like a chump right now), can breathe a sigh of relief:

We can all be thankful for Rudy's implosion. A Giuliani administration would be like Bush's without all the good stuff.

And there, but for the grace of god, go we.

The president's annual state of the union address has long been, at least since the invention of television*, a piece of political theater (*SOTU trivia: The first president to give the SOTU on tv was the oft-compared-to-Bush Harry Truman). And George W. Bush's farewell performance last night had it all, from comedic tragedy...:

Bush actually said…:

"We will insure that decisions about your medical care are made in the privacy of your doctor's office, not in the halls of Congress. "

I'll respond with four words: Terri Schiavo, Jane Roe.

...to tragic comedy:

Nothing was a bigger tell of the desperation here than the heroic centerpiece of Bush's address. It's pretty safe to say that before the Bush administration, most Americans had no idea what an earmark was. But Bush, the earmark president, the man who presided over and enabled the Republican Congress during the Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals, changed that. And now he's decided that he's really going to bring the hammer down on the practice now that the Republicans no longer run Congress (actually not so much bring the hammer down as threaten to bring the hammer down right before he leaves office).

And what's good theater without suspension of disbelief and creating your own reality?

"There has not been another attack on our soil since 9/11"

-- Anthrax! Anthrax! Oh well. For some reason that whole episode has been officially erased from the historical record or something.

Individually, Bush's performance last night is unlikely to win any awards. But the production values were so luscious, the script so filled with reliable crowd-pleasers, it hardly mattered. It was a D.C. masterpiece that will go down in history for the way it took American political theater into a new whole new genre:

This Washington revival does ample justice to the definition of Theater of the Absurd as "broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism."

Or to paraphrase,

It's not about him anymore. He just doesn't know it yet.

For years, President Bush and his advisers expressed frustration that the White House received little credit for the nation's strong economic performance because of public discontent about the Iraq war. Today, the president is getting little credit for improved security in Iraq, as the public increasingly focuses on a struggling U.S. economy.

Atrios interjects:

But the reason people never gave Bush much credit for the economy was that for most people the economy was never that awesome. While Iraq is something that most people don't experience directly, the economy is. And if they aren't completely thrilled about it, there's probably a reason.

Back to the Post:

That is the problem Bush faces as he prepares to deliver his seventh and probably final State of the Union address tonight. For the first time in four years, he will come before Congress able to report some progress in tamping down violence in Iraq. Yet the public appears to have moved on from the war -- and possibly from Bush himself.

To follow up on Dr. Atrios' point, as the economy for most people was never as great as the administration said it was, the "improved security in Iraq" may not be the festival of ponies they're advertising it as either.

And did Mr. Abramowitz read his own article? The public "appears" to have "possibly" moved on from Bush? A mere 6 paragraphs later, he answers his own question, citing Bush's low low low approval rating, 32%. Yeah, I'd say they're over him. And if you wanted to know why, Mr. Abramowitz provides the answer in paragraph #5:

White House officials and their allies argue that the turmoil in the nation's housing and financial markets provides Bush a new opportunity to lead...

No. Stop right there. Watching the fire spread from the fireplace to the rug to the curtains until the whole house is ablaze AND THEN offering to get a bucket of water is NOT leadership. The time to lead would've been BEFORE the mortgage crisis exploded, BEFORE the economy needed a stmulating package. That opportunity has long passed.

But that won't stop the president this evening from taking to the airwaves and offering to close the barn door, sans cheval.

A president's final State of the Union address is generally seen as the official starting point for lame duck status, so expectations are even lower than usual. But Larry Kudlow, blogging at the Corner, urges President Bush to chin up, Buckaroo:

While all is never perfect, you have delivered on the most fundamental hopes for the nation: peace and prosperity. America’s greatness is grounded on optimism and freedom. You have spoken loudly in support of these great themes. You have succeeded to a far-greater degree than the intellectual elites will ever admit. Stay the course, Mr. President. Stay optimistic.

Puh-wha? Peace? We're at war in two countries right now, and Bush is hankering for a third. Prosperity? Mortgage Crisis! Optimism and Freedom? We practice torture and spy on our own citizens! I'm not sure what country Mr. Kudlow is talking about. Perhaps it's the one inside the president's bubble:

Bush is likely going to praise the bipartisan stimulus deal as a cure-all while continuing to tell us that America has been doing exactly the right thing for the past seven years--fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here. No bad decisions were ever made, no recession is occurring, no heads need roll.

That's to be expected from this dead-ender president.

We will see tonight the usual predictable moments. The state of our union will be called strong. New Orleans and Katrina will be mentioned only in passing if at all. Democrats will be attacked for ______, ______ and ______, followed by a plea that they should all "work together". At least one truly nutty, he-said-what? proposal will be floated, i.e. Mars. And of course, the special guest stars:

Chances are he'll have some white guy from a red state who started a business in 2007 and hired two black guys sitting next to Laura Bush, right there in the seat Ahmad Chalabi used to occupy. He'll point to that guy, who created two whole jobs, as emblematic of the success of endless tax cuts for giant corporations like Countrywide. Maybe he'll even bring back that "uniquely American" woman with the disabled son who works three jobs -- assuming she can get the time off.

Tonight's speech will have it all: the disconnect, the petulance, the duplicity. The mangled syntax. But one thing it won't have? A reason for anyone to watch:

Tune in tonight to Bush's final State of the Union address to hear what a president with an overall 32% approval rating, and only 30% on Iraq and 28% on the economy, has to say about issues no one with a functioning brain trusts him to competently address.

Yeah, but some of us will watch anyway, if for no other reason than it's the last time we'll have to watch him do this.

All last year, even as late as December, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a comfortable lead over Barack Obama in South Carolina. A few weeks and a good deal of racially charged rhetoric later, and the results? The Illinois bantam beat Clinton like the proverbial government mule:

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton so badly in South Carolina it may spawn some new kind of Southern colloquialism. When Clemson spanks an opponent by five touchdowns it will be called an Obama. Fans will taunt the losing team as they walk off the field by making an "O" against their foreheads.

How bad was it?

Obama - 295,091 - 55%
Clinton - 141,128 - 27%
Edwards - 93,552 - 18%
Kucinich - 551 - 0%

He won with women, he won with men. He won the black vote by wide margins, and a sizeable chunk of the white vote. He won in every age group except for seniors. He won more votes in South Carolina than McCain and Huckabee combined. Obviously this kind of shellacking got under the Clintons' skin, leading potential first Husband Bill to suggest that, like Jesse Jackson had done in the past, Obama only won in South Carolina because he was the black candidate. This went over like a lead balloon, causing some to worry the Clinton campaign is burning its bridges with the black community, not to mention Democratic voters:

After a very tense period where the Democrats were battling on the precipice of destruction along racial lines, just after we thought that at least the actual candidates could put these tensions away (even if the media seemed dead set to fixate upon them), Bill makes a statement so unabashedly racially charged my jaw simply dropped when I heard him say it. And keep in mind, I’ve always defended him on accusations of trying to stir racial tensions in the past...

That kind of comment may fade away for some, but I know I’m not the only one who will carry that little nugget with me at least until our next president is selected, possibly even longer.

To their credit, the Clintons seem to recognize this, and have promised Bill will be a kinder, gentler campaigner for his wife from here on out. Not that the former president is known for his self-control:

As much as I respect and admire Bill Clinton's many, many strengths, he's tough to muzzle. If the plan is to keep him on the campaign trail, but as a positive advocate instead of an attack dog, there's always the risk that BC will get asked a question about Obama, and he just won't be able to help himself.

If they run passive, the Clintons run the risk of getting swamped by what increasingly looks like a capital-M Movement for Obama. But if they let Bill continue to take pages form the Karl Rove playbook, they threaten to damage not just their campaign but their party as a whole. The Clintons have engendered much affection and respect within the party and within the black community, but even for the man called "the first black president," there may be a limit to the goodwill. Case in point, the woman who gave Bill that moniker is now endorsing Obama. And the fallout from the Clintons' hardball tactics may be spreading even wider. Following JFK daughter Caroline Kennedy's endorsement yesterday, Sen. Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama may be the most telling:

Kennedy chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions atop both Clinton and Obama. He is (also) the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee...that has supposedly served as Clinton's home school for acquiring her widely praised military expertise. He is, in other words, not just the nation's most trusted and revered Democrat, but also, coincidentally, the one who's had the greatest opportunity to see the young candidates at work. And he came away supporting Obama.

All along, Hillary's campaign has billed her as the standard-bearing establishment Democratic candidate, but the Democratic establishment may be having other ideas.

With tonight's topic I know I run the risk of coming off sanctimonious. You know what? So be it.

This past week has not been one for the time capsule. I'll admit Heath Ledger's death, while tragic, did not consume my life. I seem to be in the minority. Breathless reports on every 24-hour so-called “news channel” followed, and almost without exception got facts wrong, leapt to conclusions and recklessly implied the worst, when in reality they didn't have a clue.

somebody was obviously watching, because before the body was even cold, hundreds of gawkers and losers were camped outside Ledger’s apartment snapping shots off their camera phones with a glee usually reserved for a ticker tape parade.

It got worse. Bottom feeders like TMZ - whose explicit purpose it seems is to capture the most embarrassing, painful or even morbid moments for posterity - they instantly were recognized by every network as sober professionals dispensing deep meaning. It makes me sick even re-living it. Some clown who pays paparazzi to stalk quasi-celebrities is being asked by everybody what he thinks happened to Ledger and what it all means. With the phoniest expression just shy of crocodile tears he talks of the late actor and his family as if they were long time friends. He painfully wondered if rumored girlfriends and the mother of Ledger’s daughter would be able to come together.

Let me remind you, this charade wasn't on some tabloid show, but on the networks.

Maybe it's me who shouldn't be surprised. This week those same networks gave us "a moment of truth," where contestants are paid to surprise their loved ones on national TV with admissions of infidelity or humiliating confessions. Lets TiVO that for the kids. (p.s. - its the highest rated new program.)

But finally, to really put our descent into context, consider the plot of the newly released film, “Untraceable.” A sociopath kidnaps victims and puts live and streaming on a web site, them being tortured. The more hits from the public, the faster the victims die. Naturally, millions visit the website dooming the innocent and confirming our voyeuristic ways. I'm sure it's just a stupid slasher film but somewhere, some bottom-feeding programmer is saying to himself, “How could I get this on TV?” He’d probably get a great rating.

As this past week proved, the media will stoop to new lows and the public will be with them every step of the way.

I find myself almost sounding like the guy looking for the black cloud in a silver lining. But trust me, if I ever wanted to be wrong it would be tonight. I believe yesterday’s inexplicable rally is a mirage. Like all mirages, if you really believe there’s water and act accordingly, you're in deep trouble. If the powers that be - that means the president and friends - start singing “don't worry, be happy,” I believe they've fatally misread the numbers and the pulse of Wall Street.

Why is Bernanke already hinting at another rate cut? Are more monster writeoffs in the offing? Are earning reports going to be bad news and mean big layoffs? I want the answers to be no - but you wouldn't bet the ranch my gut worries are wrong.

People in the corner offices of corporate America are especially worried, just listen to the dominant topic of recession at the CEO getaway in Davos. The stimulus package will be a nice Band-Aid, but this economy, I’m afraid, is like an illness that’s spreading beyond our borders. It will need some painful surgery. I hope the doctors shoot straight with us.

As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. And then there are damned lies that are statistics:

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

That the run-up to the Iraq War was preceded by a litany of false statements from the Bush administration is nothing new. But seeing them all together, and the timeline of deception it creates, is pretty impressive. Naturally, rightwing bloggers are outraged that anyone would dare bring this up again. So what do they do? Attack the messenger!

The Center for Public Integrity hardly qualifies as "independent". It gets much of its funding from George Soros, who has thrown millions of dollars behind Democratic political candidates, and explicitly campaigned to defeat George Bush in 2004...

...Besides Soros, it gets financing from the Streisand Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Los Angeles Times Foundation.

Streisand? ZOMG! And Ford? Total Commies. And everyone knows anything even remotely associated with Soros has the stench of brimstone on it. Wingnut Welfare, on the other hand, I'm told smells like roses.

...However...that would only explain the impetus behind someone taking on a project like this. It's not like Richard Mellon Scaife is going to pay anyone to put this together. Who commissioned it doesn't change any of the statements themselves, which were all a matter of public record. So their next trick, dripping in Clintonian irony, is to argue what the definition of the word "lie" is:

This is the crux of the matter. Being proven wrong is not “lying.”

The study is entitled, “False Pretenses: Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” Quite clearly, then, the authors contend that the statements were made with full knowledge that they were wrong in order to lead the nation to war.

The study finds no such thing.
(snip)
The most damning examples are along these lines:

In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: “Sure.” In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.” What’s more, an earlier DIA assessment said that “the nature of the regime’s relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear.”

Of course, there’s no evidence here that Rumsfeld was aware of these reports. SECDEFs don’t read things that don’t make it to the top of the chain of command, after all.

My strong suspicion, though, is that Rumsfeld knew that an unequivocal “Sure” overstated the case. This, I think, reflects the consensus view of all but the most rabid pro- or anti-Bush observers that the administration 1) thought Saddam was dangerous, 2) believed he had an active WMD program if not WMD possession, 3) feared Saddam would transfer said technology to terrorists and other enemies of the United States and 4) cherry picked information that bolstered their case for action while downplaying dissenting views and evidence.

That’s bad. It’s not the way democracies are supposed to work and undermines the public’s confidence in their leaders. But it’s light years away from simply lying to the people about WMD known not to exist, which is what the report alleges.

(emphasis in the original)

If I say the earth is flat just because I don't believe all the evidence that it's round, does that make me a liar? Maybe not, but it would make me dangerously ignorant. Now, what if I had a lot of money riding on a bet that I could convince a number of people that the earth is flat, but in order to do that successfully, I've got to obscure all the information that contradicts my point? Am I a liar then? What if, after I've convinced a bunch of people the earth is flat, I look at some of the evidence that the earth is round and find, in my heart of hearts, that it's pretty convincing and maybe I was wrong - AND THEN - I continue telling people the earth is flat because I don't want to look like an utter jackass...Am I a liar then? As you can see, there's more than one way to tell a lie:

Such an argument, however, relies heavily on a parsing of what the word "lie" means. Any parent is familiar with their kids using "lying by omission" to get out of trouble. That's where you don't present facts you know but which would would shed culpatory light on your false statements. In that respect, it isn't the many false statements themselves which are a mark of guilt - it's the many instances of "we are sure", "Certain" and "know without a doubt" - the "slam dunk" qualifiers - that convict Bush and his administration of lies. In every case, as James admit, they had alternative interpretations, contrary intelligence or flat-out evidence that what they were saying was untrue and continued to press their narrative anyway. That's lying by omission.

The report only covers a two year period ending in 2003......where it will all end?

Now that 935 lies to get us into Iraq have been documented, collated and counted, how many more is it taking to keep us there?

That's for another day and another, much larger, report.

Can I go home now?

Ask not for whom the bell tolls:

"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

It tolls for Fred Thompson.

Fred Thompson's campaign strategy centered on a simple 3 step plan:

Step 1 - Declare candidacy.
Step 2 - .........
Step 3 - Win the White House!

It was that step 2 that ol' Fred had a bit of trouble with:

In order to succeed as a candidate, one has to work really hard. Thompson, from the outset, wanted to be president, but he didn’t want to run for president. He expressed nothing but disdain for giving speeches, meeting voters, making appearances, and doing interviews. He would simply disappear for days, while most of the field was working furiously to rally support.

That, coupled with near-constant staff turmoil, an inability to raise money, and a jaw-dropping ignorance of public policy and current events, gave Thompson almost no hope at all.

There's a lot of navel-gazing going on today in the rightwing blogosphere as Thompson's supporters try to figure out what went wrong:

It seems like an opportunity lost, but perhaps one that may have been overestimated from the beginning.

Ya' think? From the beginning, Thompson's biggest assets were he was famous for playing presidential law and order types on TV and in movies, he was legitimately conservative and...did I mention he was (relatively) famous? He was supposed to be the second coming of Reagan, but he just wasn't. But all of this may have just been a ruse as Fred auditioned for the role he wanted all along - Vice President:

Now it can be told- The Thompson story

by Carl Cameron

Back in March of 07 at the CPAC convention in DC several former Fred Thompson Congressional staffers told me Fred Thompson was thinking about a run. Some of his Tennessee cronies had been talking him up too.

I reported first that he was eyeing a White House bid. At the time several insiders told me OFF THE RECORD that it was largely a trial ballon to guage his popularity and float his name as a possible vice presidential nominee. I was sworn to silence.

Those insiders have now lifted the conditions on our conversations...
......
The trial balloon soared mighty high and he found himself being dragged into a race that he was not even sure how to run.

He took third in Iowa and Third in South Carolina, after which his aides openly suggested the #2 slot on the ticket. The circle has been closed, and Fred Dalton Thompson is waiting to see if he gets the call from the eventual nominee.

He has not said who he will endorse. He is friends with John McCain. But if he doesn’t throw his support behind anyone …it makes it easier to be picked by everyone.

Let's parse this out...Giuliani/Thompson? As far as Rudy is tanking nationawide and in must-win Florida, this is probably moot, but it wouldn't be a bad choice for Rudy if he can manage to stay alive. Huckabee/Thompson? Unlikely. As the GOP debate in South Carolina showed, ol' Fred seems to legitimately dislike Huck - not Reaganish enough. Romney/Thompson? Not quite as unlikely as Fred probably recognizes the Republican establishment backing Romney and ol' Fred's nothing if not opportunistic. McCain/Thompson? This seems the most likely, but would anger Thompson's supporters to no end, as Thompson would be seen as McCain's conservative beard, masking his own shortcomings in the GOP base's litmus tests.

As for his supporters, the consensus seems to be that the "Fredheads" are likely to split their allegiances among the remaining frontrunners, with a possible edge to McCain, who's still friends with Thompson from their days in the Senate together:

While Thompson's exit could well help Romney or Huckabee in the short run, his departure could accrue to McCain's benefit in the long-term battle for the nomination...

...Given the whimper with which Thompson left the race, all of this talk about what his departure means for the race may well be overblown.

Much like Fred himself. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

Oh...alright. Hit me one last time.

Yeah, I'll miss that.

There is that overworn expression that applies to our global economy, “when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.” As the international markets proved, it could turn into bronchitis. For all the sunny optimism you'll hear from Washington shortly, trust me, don't believe the hype. Yes, maybe some of the sell off is driven by fear, but more is rooted on reality. Reality that can easily become recession.

But here’s where the headache can turn into a migraine. Because so much of our debt is in the hands of the Chinese and others, and because so much foreign investment is throughout our domestic industry, our sub-prime crisis can easily have a double whammy effect; hurting regular Americans and hurting those we've come to now rely on. I don't know how this turns out, but I know this - if Washington ever needed to shoot straight with the American public, the bill is past due.

Well, that was entertaining...

Anyone expecting another Democratic love fest like the last debate in Nevada was sorely disappointed. If Nevada was genteel exchanges among a mutual admiration society, then South Carolina was a cafeteria free-for-all. Particularly between frontrunners Clinton and Obama, there weren't just jabs; large wrenches were used, brass knuckles, the works. "Present" votes! Iraq! Reagan! Rezko! Unfortunately, this kind of heavy artillery was not what Democratic voters wanted to see their candidates using on each other:

By the time Democrats are done running for president, there may be no class Democrats left. Did somebody mention class? Class is left to Edwards...

Someone might say nasty is the new black this year. But then someone else would accuse him of a certain insensitivity. Someone might say everyone needs to stop bitching. Someone might say we need to be more uplifting. And someone else might say we need to be more real. More likely someone else will say all this for him, or her.

Class acts? This year the Democrats battle by surrogate and code. What blood is left on the ground, Republicans will use to track the Dems later in the year.

Ugly? Yes, but......illuminating. And not just because they tried the novel concept of letting the candidates debate the issues instead of answering inane process questions. For example, one thing that became clear was the dynamic between the three major forces in the Democratic race, just not the three you might think:

...finally, this race is out in the open. It's between three people: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton...
......
Clinton now automatically uses the first person plural. It's not the Royal "we". It's an empirical "we."...(It) implies a team behind a candidacy. But it also reflects the unitary thinking of the biggest power-couple in America. Obama showed - in a way never before asked of a presidential candidate - that he could take on both a major rival and the last president of his party. To win, he has to take on and defeat them both. That's a tall order.

That's just Hillary's way of telling Barack, "If you feel like you're running against me AND my husband, it's because you are."

And while most Democrats found all the mudslinging distasteful, it's important to know who knows how to throw elbows, and who knows how to take a punch:

Hillary can be relentless and like a sledgehammer delivering tendentious but probably effective attacks. But whatever you think of those attacks, Obama isn't very good at defending himself. And that's hard for me to ignore when thinking of him as a general election candidate.

Obama's call for a kinder, gentler politics may be noble, but when the general election comes, Republicans aren't likely to play by the Marquise of Queensbury rules. They'll come at the Democratic nominee with one rhetorical cheap shot after another. At least Hillary looked like she enjoyed that kind of thing.

So who was the winner, after all the dust settled? Many blogs were saying, as much for his own performance as against the squabbling of the other two, that it was that nice Edwards boy (caution - Rude language - link VERY not safe for work):

It's sad, really, that the thirst for symbolic difference makes us overlook the obvious.

So it was, speaking of obvious, that the winner of last night's Democratic debate was John Edwards, the odd average man out. While Obama and Clinton went at each other in an entertaining slap fight, there was Edwards, calmly speaking for the vast majority of Americans, even if that majority won't ever get to hear him. The only candidate to mention New Orleans during a Martin Luther King Day debate hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, Edwards articulated again and again the vision of economic justice and empowerment that eluded his rivals. And he had to...beg for air time while the other two squabbled over who hates Republicans more.

Edwards should have jumped into the pit bull ring more than he did to assert his ideas. That he didn't doesn't take away from the power of them. That the moderators and the media refuse to take his candidacy seriously, however, does leave him, alone, at the end of the bar, waiting for someone to notice.

Sorry, John, nice guys finish last

That was then:

August 8 2007
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Bush said Wednesday the U.S. economy is thriving and he is doing what it takes to keep it strong.
The president spoke with economic advisors at the Department of Treasury and discussed how the United States' economy has flourished and played an important role globally.
......
Bush quoted Paulson as saying, "This is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime."

...and this is now:

January 21, 2008
FRANKFURT — Fears that the United States is in a recession reverberated around the world on Monday, sending stock markets from Bombay to Frankfurt into a tailspin and puncturing the hopes of many investors that Europe and Asia will be able to sidestep an American downturn.
......
“There is indeed some panic,” said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist at Deutsche Bank in London. “What we’re seeing, in Europe and Asia, is that the markets are pricing in a recession.”
The sell-off was evenly distributed from East to West, with indexes plunging in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul and Bombay. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange’s Dax index plummeted 7.2 percent, its steepest one-day decline since Sept. 11, 2001. The 7.4 percent drop in Bombay’s Sensex index was the second-worst single-day tumble in its history.
Stocks followed suit when markets opened in the Western Hemisphere. Canadian stocks closed down 4.75 percent, and a key market index in Brazil was off 6.6 percent.

From Germany to Hong Kong, from Bombay to Brazil, foreign stock markets are taking one look at le grand monticule de la merde that is the American mortgage meltdown and decided to git while the gittin's good. Apparently the rest of the world isn't buying President Bush's happy talk about the U.S. economy or his stimulus package:

The slide began last week while President Bush was unveiling his inchoate plan to fix everything with a small handout to the peasantry and a cheerful dose of oblivious optimism. The worst week for US stocks in five years followed apace. The rest of the world has caught on that their US investments are only as sound as the withering Dollar and nothing Bush is capable of doing will do anything to postpone or lessen the coming crisis.

Al Franken once said the following:

"If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America....They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different Way. You see, they love America the way a 4-year-old loves her Mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups.

To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow."

The reason I bring this up is the following post I found from the rightwing Publius Pundit. In (perhaps intentionally, perhaps not) claiming that the global markets are selling off their American investments out of spite, or by way of capitulation to the terrorists, she dismisses the fact that the mortgage debacle was the sole fault of America's businesses (who engaged in practices both manipulative and short-sighted), and the American government (who neglected to monitor the banking industry and now tries to close the barn door once the horse is out, galloped off down the road and enjoying some nice juicy apples over in the next county). In a burst of self-importance you can only find on rightwing blogs, she says those foreigners better not panic if they know what's good for them:

See, the world depends on our purchasing power, and if that's taken away, the world's economy will collapse. The world depends on American buyers just the same way America depends on foreign oil suppliers, except to a far greater extent. America has made itself indispensable to the world. Checkmate. Game over.
......
Americans routinely ask what we might do to encourage foreigners to hate us less. But when was the last time you heard a foreigner ask how he might help the American economy do better, and thus help themselves as well? When was the last time you heard one speak up and say: "Hey, our future depends on these people you want to destroy. Shut up, already." Instead, it seems there is a whole host of benighted morons who delight in American difficulties, seemingly oblivious of the horrific impact on their own lives. Or else, they're simply overcome with bitterness and suicidal impulses.

Yes, I can't imagine why foreign countries are reluctant to bolster our purchasing power by loaning us money we can't pay back:

Somewhere along the way our culture forgot the meaning of the word 'credit' and literally a generation of people have been spending like drunken sailors on borrowed--not earned, money. It appears that the bill, at long last, may be coming due.

It may be time to cut up the government's Chinese VISA card. In the meantime, the best advice I've seen comes from the Agonist:

Hold on to your job, whatever that may be. Pay down your debt and watch your expenses. Monitor the credit and market risks in your investment portfolio, and if you have any real concerns, U.S. Treasuries earning 2% will be a lot better than stocks or bonds that might collapse in value. As of now, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are mowing down the big players, but the little guy will be in their sights eventually.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

UPDATE (1/23/08): And speaking of which, the Fed Chairman "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke's decision to slash a key interest rate by .75% - the biggest cut of its kind since the last Bush recession - seems to have stemmed a potentially brutal 48-hour rollercoaster ride on Wall Street.

Good news? Not exactly:

Stephen Roach, head of Asia for US investment bank Morgan Stanley: "We have a market-friendly Fed possibly injecting a lot of liquidity in the system which will set us up for another bubble economy.

"I'm sort of worried that all they did yesterday was to hit the snooze button. (This is) excessive monetary accommodation that just takes us from bubble to bubble to bubble."

How's that saying go? "Those who fail to learn from history are...something, something, something." I can't remember how the rest of it goes.

Apparently, neither can Bernanke.

In a Republican field that's been too crowded for too long, things finally look like they're thinning out. Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson, both of whom needed South Carolina to remain competitive, are all but done. Even Duncan Hunter, in case you didn't know he was still in, is now out. So who is now the GOP frontrunner? If you said John McCain, there's a good chance you're not a member of the Republican base:

Mr. McCain is undoubtedly a war hero, but he is no conservative. He is barely a Republican. Mr. McCain has been an obstructionist of the conservative cause throughout his career in the Senate. And his nomination would spell the end of the Reagan coalition and probably of the GOP.

It's important to note that McCain's 2 primary wins have come largely from the help of independents, and there aren't many open primaries left. And if you want to get technical about it, Mitt Romney is actually the statistical frontrunner at this point:

With his "three golds and two silvers" and his delegate lead, Romney still looks sufficiently viable that he, not Rudy, is shaping up to be the natural "stop McCain" candidate in Florida for movement conservatives who can't stand the Arizona Senator.

McCain's so-called "maverickness" (defined here as "accessibility") may win him love letters in the media, who have practically declared him the frontrunner since his 4th place finish in Iowa, but Romney can counter that with some talking heads of his own:

I see a definite up-side for Romney — it looks like a two-man race. Romney can tell everyone in the Republican base and establishment who loathes McCain — and that’s a big group — that he’s the only thing standing between them a McCain nomination.

In a wooly contest with an ambiguous top tier, Limbaugh, DeLay, the religious right, and far-right blogs all expressed their contempt for McCain, but they divided their loyalties in a wide-open field. Now, they have a choice — and an opportunity to do something about it.

Yep. Something......weird:

The irony that so many of these people are lining up behind Mitt Romney, a guy who was a Massachusetts liberal until he started running for president, is simply bizarre.

Who said irony was dead?

Mike Huckabee really wants to win South Carolina, and apparently he's decided there's no pander too shameless, no policy too insanely impossible to support to help him do that:

I’m fully expecting Mike Huckabee to hold a presser tomorrow claiming that he can deliver mild weather complete with all the sunshine you can take if you’ll only elect him president. That’s how ridiculous his campaign has gotten.

Truth be told, it’s still kind of hard not to like the Huckster; that “aw shucks” persona of his can get infectious. But just beneath that classic rock and apple pie veneer lies sheer madness...

After his absolute failure to grasp foreign policy in even its most rudimentary form, after promising to change the Constitution to be more in line with the “word of the Living God”, he’s now promising to make all illegal immigrants in this country go away.

*poof*

And yes, *poof* seems to be the extent of Huck's explanation on how he'd achieve getting rid of every illegal immigrant in the U.S. But Huck doesn't do nuance, or common sense for that matter. He just picks the most socially conservative pitch and swings for the fences:

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

Maybe Huck doesn't read blogs; and even if he does, he probably doesn't read the ones that, from 2003 all the way through his defeat in 2006, hounded former PA Sen. Rick Santorum for his comment suggesting repealing sodomy laws would lead to man-on-dog sex. Or maybe he already knew about Santorum's gaffe, agreed with him, and thought Santorum just didn't take the analogy far enough when bashing teh gays:

That's pretty clear cut. Changing the definition of marriage so it can mean "two men" or "two women" is equivalent to changing it to mean "a man and an animal." No ambiguity here whatsoever.
......
Huck's quote above doesn't even use the tried-and-true "slippery slope" argument to couch his view that homosexuality is akin to bestiality. It's a direct equivalence.

Not to mention one of the all-time dumbest arguments ever. But at least immigration and gay marriage are issues people are talking about. But no one was talking about the Confederate flag until Huck brought it up. Now others in his party wish he'd just shut the Huck up:

Republicans have once again fallen into the trap of talking about the use of the Civil War flag in a presidential campaign, and the national media seems more than eager to highlight it. For this, we can thank Mike Huckabee...
......
People criticize South Carolina's use of the flag, but the criticism aims at getting the Palmetto State to dump the flag on its own. What connection that has to a Presidential campaign, other than pandering, eludes most people outside of South Carolina.

Why are the rest of us cringing? Most of the country wonders why some Southerners insist on celebrating the flag of rebellion, a symbol that came to be associated over the years with some ugly practices. Those same people will wonder why its preservation seems such an issue for Republican presidential candidates, when the best course of action would have been to ignore it. Making it a campaign issue gives it more credence and more import than it deserves, both inside and especially outside of South Carolina.

It's hard to muster any sympathy for Republicans aghast at the Huckabee phenomenon. For years, the GOP has pandered to the religious right winthout ever giving them anything of substance in return. And clucking one's tongue over the use of a racial dog-whistle like the Confederate flag is disingenuous at best (see Horton, Willie). The Republican party has fostered these attitudes - and the people who cleave to them - for decades. Watching it all come back to bite them is just poetic justice.

But there is one remark of Huckabee's that even I'm embarrassed for the GOP over. For the absolute best pander to voters in South Carolina, Huckabee touted his taste for their local cuisine.

Mmmmmmmmmm. Popcorn-fried squirrel. That'll play well with the rest of the country.

Less than two years ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki said they would be able to take over all security concerns in Iraq by...well...now. Clearly, that hasn't happened. President Bush, while being careful to avoid any specific timelines, has long claimed that we would be in Iraq until Iraqi security forces "stood up," a somewhat nebulous goal. Fortunately, Iraq's defense minister clarified all that this week. We're no longer measuring Iraqi security readiness in terms of years, but of decades.

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.

Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year.

2018. That's the earliest Iraqi security forces will be able to take the training wheels off the bike and ride around on their own. Until then, US troops will bogged down in the deadliest babysitting job ever**. The Marine Corps Times says that's fine, as long as nothing else happens between now and then:

If the U.S. were to face a new conventional threat, its military could not respond effectively without turning to air power, officials and analysts say.

That is the ultimate upshot of the war in Iraq: a response elsewhere would consist largely of U.S. fighters and bombers — even, perhaps, some degree of nuclear strike — because so many ground troops are tied up in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

An increased chance of nuclear war? Why do I get the feeling this administration would consider that a feature, not a bug?

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. Qadir's projections - and the Pentagon's response - leads to a couple of more immediate questions:

One, if the surge is working so well, why is it that Mr. Qadir's projections are getting less optimistic? Answer -- maybe the surge isn't working so well and maybe this Upright Citizens Brigade strategy doesn't contain the seeds of any kind of stable equilibrium for Iraq. Two, why is it that officials "expressed no surprise" at projections that "suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated"? Answer -- both governments have not been indicating things accurately. They've been misleading.

Well, of course they have. The plan all along was for a permanent American presence in Iraq. This is no mere foreign policy misadventure, it's a way of life:

We're not just stuck in Iraq, we're creating a culture of Iraq, a living history of how this occupation is impacting our lives and our decisions. The politics of the conflict are shattered, with nobody even willing to offer a critique. We are living in a time when children born during the Bush-Gore recount in 2000 may be putting on the uniform and going off to fight in Bush's war in 2018.

By which time, Iraq security may still have not gotten its act together. Yet we will continue to give them money, resources and training. You know, the kind of welfare Bush and Republicans don't like to give to Americans:

Bush didn't create a democracy, he created a failed state…Thank you, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and the rest of the Bush crew. You created the world's largest welfare program in 5 years and our young men and women are dying from it.

Apparently "personal responsibility" doesn't apply to Iraqis fighting their own civil war.

**As for the idea that we're "stuck" in Iraq due to Bush and Maliki's "enduring" agreement - in the form of a Status of Forces Agreement - it's unclear to me just how binding that agreement would be to the next president. To my decidedly non-legal eye, it appears to be an agreement between Bush and Maliki - no one else. A SOFA is not a capital-T "treaty," it doesn't require Congressional approval. However, as an executive agreement, it appears there is no legal obligation for the next president to honor it. There is an historical precedence for them doing so, but that's it. And as we've seen from our current chief executive, there's no agreement or even capital-T "Treaty" that the president can't break if he/she damn well feels like it.

And even if that weren't enough, there's a pair of bills making their way through both houses of congress to prevent just this sort of end-around when it comes to establishing a permanent military presence in Iraq - or anywhere else.

Congratulations, Democrats...

Mitt Wins! Mitt Wins! Mitt Wins!

OK, so exit polls show that, despite the attempts of mischief-making bloggers, Democrats did not flock to Mitt Romney in Michigan's open primary, but to runner-up John McCain. Still, the desired outcome was the same...

He needed a win badly there, so Mitt Romney campaigned as if he were running for President of Michigan, and it paid off. Sure, he had to promise more pork than Jimmy Dean and touted a decidedly un-conservative, big-government-will-solve-your-problems approach to Michigan's economic woes ("a Kruschev-style five year plan for Detroit."), but he got the job done. Romney supporter extraordinaire Hugh Hewitt took to his blog for his chance to, finally!, have something to brag about:

Mitt Romney has now re-established himself as the candidate to beat...Republicans are now voting in large numbers, and they are voting for the Reagan conservative. There is no reason to believe that John McCain will be able to recapture his New Hampshire moment or Huck his Iowa surprise.

Hewitt's enthusiasm aside, there's also no reason to assume Mitt is going to be able to keep this up for much longer:

The biggest question now is when will Romney’s money start running out. Because by some estimates, he has spent upwards of $40 million of his own money on the campaign so far. And if this contest continues in the same manner and these candidates keep splitting up the delegates can Romney spend his way to a brokered convention?

And speaking of brokered convention, in case you hadn't noticed, the race for the GOP nomination is now clear as mud. John Dickerson at Slate gets the funny-of-the-day:

So we're back to square one in the Republican Party. Mitt Romney beat John McCain handily in Michigan, which means there have now been three major GOP contests and three different comeback winners. At this rate, Thompson will win South Carolina and Giuliani Florida. The GOP primary is starting to look like a Pee Wee soccer tournament: Everyone gets a trophy!

Meanwhile, the only major Democratic candidate on the Michigan ballot was Hillary Clinton, which is not to say she had an easy time of it. Clinton eked out a narrow victory over an emerging dark horse candidate, a Mr. Uncommitted:

Clinton split the male vote with Mr. Uncommitted;
Clinton lost the black vote overwhelmingly to Mr. Uncommitted; Clinton lost the under-30-years-old vote to Mr. Uncommitted;
and Clinton lost independents to Mr. Uncommitted.
......
Just to make things even more interesting, Edwards could win Nevada. And they say the GOP race is wide-open.

This Uncommitted guy seems to do well among Democrats and Republicans. Maybe Michael Bloomberg should make him his running mate?

Because the DNC stripped them of their delegates for moving up their primary date, Michigan Democrats wouldn't have had much to do today except stay inside with the TV turned off and the phone off the hook. Instead, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, noting a history of the GOP meddling in the open Democratic primary there, suggests they have some fun:

In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state's Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters (PDF) in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes. In 1988, Republican voters again crossed over, helping Jesse Jackson win the Democratic primary, helping rack up big margins for Jackson in Republican precincts. (Michigan Republicans can clearly be counted on to practice the worst of racial politics.) In 1998, Republicans helped Jack Kevorkian's lawyer -- quack Geoffrey Feiger -- win his Democratic primary, thus guaranteeing their hold on the governor's mansion that year.

With a history of meddling in our primaries, why don't we try and return the favor...Michigan Democrats should vote for Mitt Romney, because if Mitt wins, Democrats win.
......
If Romney loses Michigan, he's out. If he wins, he stays in. And we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us.

From there, the idea caught fire. The Democrats for Mitt! organization, such as it is, even got themselves a fancy-schmancy campaign ad:

Democrats, do you want change? Mitt Romney has changed just about every position he's ever had! Mitt Romney is change! And keeping Mitt in the race means he can keep pushing for change in the Republican party, in this case from a far-right ideology to an extreme fringe rightwing ideology:

If Romney can stay alive in Michigan and Rudy takes Florida, the GOP nomination process will be a mess. The GOP convention is in September, which gives the candidate who tacks far enough to the right to win the nod about two months to recover for the general. Very tough to do.

Actual Republicans for Romney, however, are naturally not amused. Apparently they'll only accept help if it comes in the form of one of Mitt's checks:

Markos Moulitsas is an ideologue, not a strategist...A strategist would also know that tricking Democrats into backing a handsome, rich, well-spoken Conservative in a desperate ploy to beat the perceived Republican front-runner would backfire...Mitt Romney is an intelligent, articulate, likeable Conservative. Let Kos plan, it'll only hurt their chances in November.

Let's just say Romney does win Michigan due to his newfound support, procedes to run the table to win the GOP nod and somehow reverses every political trend since mid-2005 and wins the White House...all while penning a TONY Award-winning play and curing cancer, since we're pie-in-the-skying here...Some progressives think even President Mitt wouldn't be so bad, as he seems to be the least scary of the bunch:

Mitt Romney would be the least horrible President among the Republican candidates. Demonstrably, he has an IQ statistically significantly different from zero, isn't demonstrably bonkers aside from his narcissism, and doesn't actually believe in anything. That's a big improvement over much of his opposition.

Sounds about right. But it's all moot, as - Michigan win or not - there will be no President Romney. Consider that an official prediction, if you will, but...Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Still, I would like Mitt to stay in, if for nothing else than to see the 5 Romney sons watch dad spend their entire inheritance.

Poor Tagg.

Council takes step to link up with immigration enforcement

DANBURY, Conn. - Danbury's Common Council has taken another step that would have some police officers receive training from a federal agency to crack down on illegal aliens.

The council has voted as a committee of the whole to recommend the police chief be given the authorization to enter into an agreement that would have some officers receive training from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
......
Backers say the training is needed because of the federal government's lack of action on immigration reform.

Opponents worry the training will result in racial profiling and will lead to a fear of police among immigrants, both legal and illegal.

If anyone hasn't translated what's really going on here, let me strip away the B.S. Some in Danbury see a population in their city speaking Spanish, living in large groups and changing the complexion literally and figuratively of their backyard - and assume these new residents are illegal aliens. For all I know, they may be right, but what role the police should play in deciding who stays and who goes, that's where any agreement disappears.

Now before any Lou Dobbs wannabees start screaming, “They're illegal! Round em' up and deport em' all!” be careful what you wish for. First off, I know to some the Constitution has become an optional document, but humor me and remember the fourth amendment - it protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. In Long Island a few months ago, the aforementioned ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raided hundreds of homes in the dead of night, guns drawn, forcing residents to prove their status. And even after some did, in their own homes, they still reportedly were disbelieved. An interesting thing happened after the raids - even though only a handful of alleged gang members were detained, a multiple of that were held even though they had no criminal record but were illegal immigrants.

Cracking down on illegal immigration is one thing but when our police also have to add border patrol agent to their resume we are looking for trouble. It's not good policing and it's not who we are.