Rove and Bartlett are subpoenaed in Libby trial!

Well, isn’t this interesting? Rover and Bartlett may have to testify, and as a defense witness at that! Hilarious. I’m thinking, there goes that Libby pardon theory out the window. This is shaping up to be VERY interesting.

It looks like the smart people are a bit confused as to what exactly is the Libby defense team going for with this. At least the “I was really, really busy with really, really important things, so I forgot” defense was understandable, if a tad implausible. This new line, based on several statements the Libby defense lawyers made in the opening statement, seems to be that Libby was set up as a fall guy for the White House when things didn’t go as planned. This would actually be a first, since I thought Bushco NEVER had any sort of contingency plans. Everything was ALWAYS going to go as they planned it, down to the Iraqi flowers being thrown at soldiers, reminiscent of the American liberation of Paris in 1944. So, even if Libby was going to take the rap here, that still doesn’t excuse him lying under oath to a federal prosecutor, which is the crime of which he is accused. So, what’s the deal, then? It will be interesting to see what develops.

In any event, I cannot believe that either Bush or Cheney are very happy of these developments. There are likely to be some very uncomfortable revelations made during their testimony. Put Cheney and Ari Fleischer in the mix, well, there are going to be some goodies for the press to get their newly discovered teeth into, like some little puppy with a new chew toy. It doesn’t matter if these happen to be brand new pieces of information that no one has heard before or just a confirmation of suspicions that the WH has been constantly denying for years. This is going to be very embarrassing to Bush and his followers.

I can’t wait to hear how Limbaugh and his ilk spin this one. I already saw where Ann Coulter was off on how presidential Bush looked in his SOTU address, and wasn’t it nice we had such a president, instead of someone like Clinton, who, as everyone knows, GOT A BLOWJOB IN THE OVAL OFFICE.

"Nancy Pelosi blinks 85 times a minute."

You can watch the video at Yahoo "news". I am not going to link to such stupidity.

Jeez. The how much more trivial can we get here and still call it "news"? Can anyone imagine them doing anything as inane like that with Tom Delay? What is it with the news media that they feel they have to really make a huge point out of something like what someone wears or their hairdo or wondering aloud whether or not that person has had a face lift around their eyelids?

Of course, they did get a film of John McCain apparently asleep during Bush's SOTU speech the other night.

Molly Ivins in the hospital during her cancer treatment.

Boy, that sux. She is one smart, insightful, funny lady. I was wondering why her column had been non-existant since the election. I wish her well. I sure wish someone would find a cure for cancer, of all types. There are too many people that I know personally, know of, or respect greatly that have been stricken.

Thoughts about the Scooter Libby perjury trial.

Boy, the live-blogging, analysis, and commentary of the Libby trial over at FireDogLake has been riveting. There are a lot of very knowledgeable cookies that post and comment over there. I haven’t gotten a lot of work done in the last few days.

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t really care if ol’ Scooter gets significant jail time or not. Yes, I am fully convinced that he is guilty of the charges against him, which is lying under oath to a federal prosecutor. He was deliberately trying to hide what had occurred when Valerie Wilson’s identity as an undercover CIA agent was exposed.

However, even though that is what this trial is truly about, Libby’s lies under oath, there is a much bigger picture emerging here. That is, how this Administration, and in particular, the Office of the Vice President, was fixated and intent on undermining and smearing any critics of the Bush administration’s policies during the run-up to invading Iraq. It seems as if all the testimony in the first three days has been about how Scooter, under the direction of Dead-Eye Dick Cheney, went about trying to smear Joe Wilson in any way that they could. Personally, I don’t think they really intended to leak a covert CIA agent’s name. That probably was not intentional, at least the “covert” part of it. For some reason, these people thought that Wilson would be less believable if the country suspected that Wilson’s wife, Valerie, had “sent him on a junket”. As if people go on “junkets” to Niger. Junkets are when you go golfing in Scotland, not to an out-of-the-way place, even for Africa, like Niger. However, they WERE intent on smearing Joe Wilson in any way they could, and his wife seemed like a good way to do it.

That’s why this trial is really important to the American people. It is not to send a felon to jail. It is to expose the rotten underbelly of this administration and the lengths they would go to, and indeed went, to sell their war on whatever grounds they could find. Dick Cheney exhibited behavior that, in other circumstances, might get him classified as a stalker, complete with a recommendation to go see a good psychiatrist. “Maniacal” might not be too strong a word for Cheney’s behavior in this matter.

Until recently, the mainstream press and television has been unwilling, for whatever reasons, to say anything critical about Bush and his war. There have been some great people doing a lot of good work trying to uncover just how badly the country was mislead into this war. There are lots of great books on the subject. But the subject, even as a conversation, was not making any inroads into the broader consciousness of this country. People did not want to hear it. Bush loyalists cried “foul” and delivered slanderous accusations of treason on anyone who might offer up even the slightest criticism. They still don’t want to hear it. There was also a large block of people who probably supported the war based on what they were being told at the time, and don’t want to admit that they were wrong or might have been mislead. It takes some personal character to admit that you are wrong, and that is something that this country seems to be severely lacking these days.

But this trial might finally get out into the open about how badly this country was served by our elected officials. It is probably also going to expose how badly served we were by our national media. Reporters were either willing partners in the deceit, or just plain too gullible to know they were being had. I loved the revelation yesterday by Cathie Martin, who was a top assistant to Scooter Libby. She suggested that Cheney go on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, because that was a very good way to “get our message out”, and that they had used this method many times in the past. “Used” being the operative word here, as in “using a tool”. The press in the country has been used, and this administration knew how to do it well. They played the press like a Stradivarius. Even though there are several books out on the subject, such as “Lapdogs” and Marcy Wheeler’s “Anatomy of Deceit” (neither of which I have read but want to), no one besides the people who already believed what was in the books read them.

Maybe this trial will get the discussion about just exactly what did happen between September 11, 2001 and the day we invaded Iraq out into the open. Maybe the media will start doing their jobs, which is to be a watchdog, and stop being played for a fool. Maybe people will stop listening to people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who are just big windbags who make up whatever they need to make up that particular day in order to keep their entire reason for existence from collapsing.

Maybe this country will finally wake up and realize what has been done in our collective name by this incompetent, psychotic, power hungry freakshow that we currently have residing in the White House. Thank the Powers That Be that Congress no longer is such a patsy, going along with anything Bushco wants to do and obstructing any effort to get at the truth.

Maybe this trial will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back regarding this entire mess.

(Please go over to FireDogLake and check out the outstanding coverage of the Libby trial. It feels like watching history unfold in real time, right before your eyes.)

UPDATE: Here is a great story in the WaPo by Dana Milbank about how the White House routinely manipulates the press. I bet there are some red faces around D.C. this morning.

Best wishes and hopes for a speedy recover to Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake

I would be remiss in not mentioning that my best wishes are for Jane's full and speedy recovery from breast cancer surgery. Go see the discussion at FDL (link is at the right) for more information and an amazing list of comments in Christy's "Waiting Room" posts. Jane has given a lot of energy to the liberal blogs and should be congratulated for everything that she has accomplished. Given all the posts at other blogs about her, she has made quite an impact. I look forward to seeing her back at FireDogLake, giving Joe Lieberman hell, very soon.

Amen to this!!

I fully agree with Cenk Uygur’s post in Huffpo this morning.

You see, Dick Cheney has never believed in the American system. He believes democracies are too soft. He has lobbied for a strong executive to take nearly complete power. Some call it the "unitary executive authority." Some call it an authoritarian form of government. You say tomato, I say to-ma-to. Take your pick.

Either way, the cult of authority has never trusted the American form of government.

Judges and juries can't be trusted. We must have secret detentions and secret trials.

We can't follow rules of evidence. We must allow hearsay and evidence obtained through coercion.

American interrogation procedures don't work. We must use torture.

American Congress can't be trusted to pass wise laws. We must use signing statements to say the president is above the law.

The American justice system doesn't work. We must declare US citizens, residents and anyone else we deem necessary "enemy combatants" and take them outside of the system, so that we can detain them indefinitely without trial or evidence or justice.
Justice is too important to be left to the American justice system.

The people who believe these things - Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, David Addington, John Bolton, etc. - are profoundly un-American. I don't include George W. Bush here because he is an irrelevant member of his own administration in this regard. His mind is so pitifully under-equipped for this ideological debate that it would be unfair to charge him with having knowledge of something he can hardly comprehend.

I think it's fair to say these ideologues hate the idea of America. They are not for an open society with fair rules that trusts its citizens to be fair and to police themselves. They have never believed in the American experiment.

When I say they hate America, I don't mean that they hate the people who live here or that they lack false patriotic vigor. I am sure they would say that they love the state of Nebraska and the good people of Alaska. They salute the American flag and some of them would even do battle for this country (though almost none of them have - given plenty of opportunities).

I mean that they philosophically never bought into the concept behind the country. America isn't a bunch of rocks that happen to be on a certain longitude and latitude. America isn't a bunch of people who happen to live in certain states between 1776 and 2007. America is a noble and grand idea. And it is that idea the Dick Cheneys of the world work hard to tear down every day. It is that idea that they do not trust, do not believe in and that they commit ideological treason against.

So, it appears now that the great American system is beginning to strike back. We have arisen from our slumber and find rascals in our midst. They have awoken a sleeping giant. The giant does not move quickly and it's sometimes slow to react, but once it moves it take giant leaps for mankind.

And when we move this country back into the light, we will show again that we are not so small that we can be taken down by petty men with old, antiquated ideas. The American system will win. And we will once again become a nation of laws, and not men.

We will show the world that we are bigger and better than the small men that lead us now. Their reign is temporary. The American system is for good. This is not a country that can be taken over by the authoritarians. We will not go the way of the tin-pot dictators. We will prevail. We will drag Dick Cheney out of the shadows and bring him into the light. The idea of America is too strong to be taken down by men of little faith.

I can only hope that this is true. It does seem to me that we are finally, at long last, pulling away from that slippery slope. This country was a long way toward becoming a fascist theocratic state. Perhaps, finally, the people and the press are beginning to finally wake up and see what is being done to them. Us.

That is what has amazed me about our society over the last 6 years. Bush and his cronies spout all this nonsense about spreading democracy and how the terrorists “hated freedom”, at the same time they are trying, as hard and as fast as they can, to dismantle the very concept of freedom and democracy here at home. And most of the people were fine with that!

I just don’t understand how most of our country could have been that blind. Were we so affected by the events of that horrible day in September that we lost the ability to think rationally and to see the plain facts right there in front of our noses? I wanted to scream and throw something at the television every time I heard Bush or one of his minions talk about democracy and freedom. If you look at their actions and not their words, they apparently have absolutely no faith in democracy and are trying as hard as they can to replace it with some authoritarian form of government. I can easily envision statements that come from John Yoo or Alberto Gonzales (two of our supposed “constitutional lawyers” that advise Bush) coming from the old Soviet Union. THAT seems to be what these people want. They want absolute power and not be answerable to anyone. That’s what they want. And a lot of our country was too traumatized to even pay attention to what was going on around them.

Hopefully, that is turning around. But boy, it was, and continues to be, a very close call. As others have noted, these next two years that Bush and his crowd of cowardly thugs are still in office but now have to deal with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress are going to be very dangerous. I am sure that these people have some limits, somewhere, on the lengths they will go to control the rest of us. I just don’t know what they are, and I don’t want to find out.

Global climate change: Hit or Myth?

I firmly believe that the phenomena of global warming and global climate change are real. They are happening in front of our eyes, albeit at a rate that is easy to miss if you aren’t paying close attention. And that leads to the easy denials from the conservative right and fundamentalists who are finding multiple reasons to dismiss out-of-hand the avalanche of evidence to the contrary.

I can’t really understand how blithe these people are in their reasons. There is not a week that goes by that I don’t see a Letter to the Editor of my local papers that blasts away at Democrats, essentially calling us all believers as “Chicken Littles”. Given the magnitude of the problem and the potentially catastrophic consequences, I would think that these people might just want to consider, just for a moment, that everyone else not wearing blinders just MIGHT be right. For instance, if someone that I didn’t really like very well and didn’t see his point of view on some issues came running in to my living room to tell me that my garage was on fire and was about to set my house on fire as well, I truly believe that I would rush out there to find out what exactly was going on. Certainly, I would not dismiss the guy as a nutcase, just because we have different ideas about taxes and abortion.

However, that is exactly what is going on here with the extreme right. There is undisputable evidence that global warning and climatic changes are indeed occurring. What is perhaps open to discussion is exactly how much human activity is contributing. Yes, this may be part of a normal cycle of the earth. However, what is not part of the question is that we are helping it along with the tons and tons of greenhouse gases our world society is pumping into Earth’s atmosphere every single day. As Molly Ivins likes to say, the First Rule of Holes is that, when you find yourself in one, stop digging!

Yet, the extreme right finds all sorts of reason to dismiss this. My belief about this is as follows. The extreme right has been so conditioned by years of right wing talk radio, conservative columnists, the vast and widening blue/red mentality in our country, etc., that they are pre-conditioned to not believe ANYTHING that anyone says outside their own little ideology. If Michael Moore were to come out and say, “The sky is blue”, there would be an immediate backlash discounting this as “ravings of a lunatic”. There would be a vast effort to immediately discredit him. O.K., this is hyperbole, but I still think it is a major reason. The thinking of these types of people are so set in stone that they are not going to believe ANYTHING that doesn’t fit in with their little world view.

This goes along with another phenomena that has surfaced in our society lately; that facts and opinions are essentially the same thing, and if you hold an opinion strongly enough, that is enough to deny any sort of fact that doesn’t fit in with your opinion.

I think Al Gore pegged it exactly. It is an “inconvenient truth”. Catastrophic climate change would upset a lot of things that people believe. So, it is much easier to dismiss it because they don’t want it to be true. Personally, I would prefer that I don’t have to change the oil in my car, ever. However, I know that if I don’t, my engine is going to conk out sooner or later. And then, it will be much harder to fix. So, I tend to believe what people tell me, that I should change the oil in my car. (I just realized that this is a very unfortunate analogy. However, I’m on a roll here, so I’ll stick with it.)

The extreme right-wingers, however, would prefer not to change the oil in their car, so they don’t. It is easier and cheaper to pretend they never have to. But guess what? That engine is getting dirtier all the time, and pretty soon, they are going to need some major engine work.

I saw one Letter to the Editor that said something to the effect, “Global warming isn’t happening. Besides, God won’t let it. Do you think He will just let us all burn up?” What a masterpiece of avoidance and rationalization. God will save us all from our folly.

Of course, these are probably the same people who believe in the Rapture, where Jesus will essentially come down to destroy the Earth. The End of Days. But yet, until that happens, don’t worry, God will save us.

People are willing to deny a lot that is sitting right there in plain sight. I think this tendency will be the ultimate downfall of our race. If not now, sometime in the future.

The President’s Bold New Plan! Lots more of the same damn thing!

I haven’t been posting too much lately. Frankly, I am just overwhelmed by everything that is going on to really digest a single part of it and write some sort of coherent and impassioned post about it. Lots of other people are doing a great job of analysis, all you have to do is go look for it on the web.

The President’s speech, though… I heard nothing new. Arianna has a very nice post that makes it very clear what she thinks about it.

Here are my Two Fundamental Reactions: 1) Sure, of course; these make total sense. But aren't these the very things we've already being doing? What exactly is new about this strategy? How is this attempt to help Iraqis protect the population different than all the other attempts to help Iraqis protect the population? Haven't we been trying to isolate extremists and create a "space for political progress" all along? (After we captured Saddam and stopped looking for WMD, that is.) Is the difference that this time we really mean it?

2) Wow, those must be 20,000 pretty awesome troops the president is sending in, if they are going to successfully do all that when the 145,000 troops we have now (or the 160,000 we had a year ago) weren't been able to.

Very succulently said. Why are we going to succeed now if we haven’t been able to do anything in the last 3 years? Are 20,000 troops really all that is required to “put us over the top”? If so, why didn’t we do that at the beginning? Insane.

The other frightening thing that I head from the speech was more very big-time saber rattling at Syria and Iran. Yes, lets go part a couple of aircraft carriers and their battle groups right off the Iran. That’s not going to be very controversial and in no way will it look at all confrontational. And no, I am sure we aren’t going around looking for an excuse to bomb some other country. I mean, we just took out a lot of people in Somalia, and most likely one or two of them were probably terrorists or something. If we got 20 or 30 innocent civilians and bystanders at the same time, well, that’s worth it.

If we really do take action against Iran and/or Syria, I just cannot imagine where we might go from there. Will we finally see mass demonstrations here at home? Will the loyal opposition party finally force a constitutional confrontation with a president who thinks that he is an emperor and answerable to no one? Will we finally see the small, regional conflicts in the Middle East finally break out into something much larger, fully drawing in Israel? Will the U.S. economy collapse because we are so dependent upon cheap energy that isn’t cheap or even available anymore? What happens if we suffer an undeniable and huge military defeat where our troops are lost on a large scale?

I imagine this period of time will be of vast interest to historians looking backwards in time 100 years from now. However, living through it is very unnerving. I am not sure things are as unsettled right now as they were, say, in Europe in 1932. But who knows where the present course may take us?

“Open letter”** to President Bush.

**Please refer to this story in order to fully appreciate the delicious irony of the title. Or not. It really isn’t all that ironic or funny, now that I think about it.

Mr. President: Or may I refer to you by a vaguely humorous sounding yet insulting and demeaning nickname, as you do with so many of your subordinates and peers?

Mr. Suppository Hemorrhoid Treatment: I am writing to you on this occasion to express to you my humble and utmost congratulations on your recent signing statement that asserts that you have the right to open any first class mail and read it, from any American citizen to any other American citizen, without a warrant, just because you say that you feel the need to spy on anyone you like.

I say to you, sir, Bravo and Brava! Or whatever hell Latin sounding phrase sounds grandiose but not too pompous, you know the thing I mean. This one master stroke is guaranteed to send chills of fear down any wannabe terrorist hidden away in our heartland! Of course, it’s too bad that you decided to not actually TELL anyone about this, since as Dr. Strangelove so succulently stated, “Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*!” And, of course, not telling anyone sort of makes you look like a voyeur or something. I know that my personal copy of Hustler better not be late because someone in the State Dept. had nothing to do. Or maybe, you see this as a way to help finance your little half-trillion dollar skirmish (i.e., The Battle Of Our Century Of Good Against Evil) over in Iraq, you are sort of foraging for un-endorsed checks that the Dept. of the Treasury could cash on the sly. Aunt Rose will never miss that subscription to TV Guide anyway.

But all that is irrelevant! Your unilateral decision to open other people’s mail cements, for all time, your rightful position as The Decider! You, alone, can decide to set aside the law that you JUST signed that says just the opposite of your decision! It is worthy of a Calvin and Hobbes Opposite Day.

Come to think of it, I believe that your entire approach to foreign policy and GWOT is a direct manifestation of Calvinball. But again I digress.

My point is..... What is my point? I forgot my point. Oh, yes. I love it that you have shown such decisiveness and authoritarianism in the face of so little compelling evidence that this will actually accomplish anything! Why, you could be wasting millions of dollars protecting our ports where literally thousands of containers come from God-knows-where every single day. Your boldness shall not be contained by such niggling concepts as “results” or “pressing need”. No, your visionary approach to mail delivery and presidential authority is truly the only thing between our beloved country and ruin. Or ruination. I am not sure which that should be.

You, sir, are truly “The Decider”.

Hail, Freedonia!
zeppo

What’s “news” these days?

Oh, it’s a never-ending cornucopia of weird and disconnected people out there. Unfortunately, a lot of them seem to be in charge of running this country. How unfortunate.

This is a good one.

A conservative radio host decides to announce that he believes that congressmen and congresswomen, if they do not fall in with his current set of beliefs on immigration, should be assassinated. The following is posted on his web site.

"ANY MEMBER OF CONGRESS WHO INTRODUCES, CO-SPONSORS OR VOTES IN FAVOR OF ANY SUCH AMNESTY WILL BE DECLARED A DOMESTIC ENEMY AND WILL BE CONSIDERED A LEGITIMATE TARGET FOR ASSASSINATION,"

And this:

"We may have to ASSASSINATE some of the people you elect on Nov. 7! This could be your LAST ELECTION CHANCE, to save this Republic…

"Sorry to have to be so blunt, but the country is in mortal danger from our present government and our liberty is already near dead because of this government. If you are too stupid to turn things around with your vote, there are people out here like me who are willing to turn things around with guns, force and violence. We hope our method does not become necessary," he wrote.

But he defined his position as commentary instead of advocacy when one supporter wrote to Turner's website, "Hey Hal instead of saying 'may' SAY you WILL KILL THEM!!!"

"No no no no no. Words mean things," Turner wrote at the time. The difference between 'may' and 'will' is the difference between an opinion and a threat," he concluded. "One is lawful, the other is not!"

Uh, yeah. That’s a mighty fine distinction to make there, the legal difference between “may” and “will”. And the conservatives hated Clinton when he played games with words.

It is a mystery to me why no one, besides liberal bloggers, calls these lunatics out. Openly advocating assassinating a congressman? Boy, if someone from Left Blogistan did something like this, maybe calling for someone to knock of Rush Limbaugh or maybe Rupert Murdoch, man, would things ever go crazy then. Where is the FBI on something like this, or even the FCC? Why are these nutjobs still allowed to broadcast over the public airwaves? Stations and networks can get fined a huge amount of money because someone shows a nipple or says the F Word, but it’s somehow acceptable to openly advocated killing elected officials?

This country is insane.

Saddam has been executed in a very tawdry manner.

All sorts of people are saying that this looks more like some sort of Wild, Wild West mob justice than anything that came down from a court of law. Where’s Judge Roy Bean when you need him?

Very messy, bizarre business. I especially like the selection of Saddam’s execution on a Muslim festival day, as well as the thing being recorded on several cell phones. Boy, those things sure can come in handy.

But we all feel much better about ourselves and much safer as a nation now, right?

I like this one.

The now-in-the-minority Republicans have issued a call for a “Minority Bill of Rights”, that was apparently fashioned from a similar document that was written by none other than the Demon Du Jour, Nancy Pelosi, and was immediately tossed in the trash bin by Dennis Hastart. Yes, we should all be very nice to each other, respect each other, and not trample on the minority party. It’s just like the last six years didn’t even exist. This line in this memo kills me.

"Unfortunately, as you are well aware, the Democrats' forty-year reign over the House was plagued by consistent, systematic efforts to usurp the rights and privileges of the Republican minority," write Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Tom Price (R-GA).

I cannot understand how these people don’t understand how THEY come off looking so completely idiotic and hypocritical when they say stuff like that.

Arianna has a good smack-down of Bush’s latest approach to the war.

Well, actually, this is just more of the same; blame someone else. In this case, it is General Casey, who was one of the ones who thought he was doing Bush’s bidding. And remember when Bush kept saying, over and over, that all he was doing was listening to his generals on the ground and just giving them what they needed? Which, incidentally, was exactly what Bush was telling them that he thought they needed. Well, Casey’s now officially history.

Hate to break the news to you, General, but just in case you haven’t been paying attention, BUSH WILL THROW ANYONE AND EVERYONE UNDER THE BUS WHEN IT SUITS HIM. There is no loyalty that will come from him when he gets into trouble. The loyalty is all supposed to flow uphill. But really, these guys are without shame. I know I have come to that same realization many times over the last six years. However, I keep getting surprised by how low they can go. Each time I think they have hit bottom, they come up with a new zinger that has me shaking my head.

Thank you, John Edwards, for coining a new term to describe the upcoming “surge”; The McCain Doctrine. Call a spade a spade and get it out there on the table.

Oh, and I can’t end this without a mention of yet another gun “incident” at a school, this time in my own backyard.

One student kills another with a gun at a public school. Ho, hum. Old news, nothing to see here, move along, move along. Oh, there’s all the human interest stuff about how parents were out of their minds with worried, and then very relieved when their own kids were O.K. Yeah, that’s fine. What about the kids who DON’T come home after these “incidents”? This will all be forgotten by next week. Maybe Brittney Spears will forget to wear panties again or something.

My Lists for 2007

It seems that everyone on every blog has a list of some sort. New Year’s resolutions for the author, for George Bush, for the world. Wishes for the new year. Things from 2006 we can do without.

For no particular reason, I am going to make some lists about my favorite films. Not that I think anyone at all cares what I think. I just feel like doing it.

Laugh out loud comedies:
- A Shot In The Dark
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Young Frankenstein
- Animal House
- What’s Up, Doc?

Classic Comedies:
- The General
- Arsenic and Old Lace
- Duck Soup
- The Philadelphia Story
- A Night at the Opera
- The Importance of Being Earnest
- Some Like It Hot

Weird yet good comedies:
- Repo Man
- Six String Samurai
- Harold and Maude
- Bruster McCloud
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show
- Bedazzled

Understated, quality comedies:
- Local Hero
- My Favorite Year
- Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
- The Man With Bogart’s Face

Big budget, lotsa stars comedies:
- The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
- It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
- The Great Race
- Caddyshack
- Casino Royale

Scary:
- Alien
- The Exorcist
- Psycho
- The Haunting

Classic Sci-Fi:
- The Thing From Another World
- Forbidden Planet
- King Kong
- The Day the Earth Stood Still
- The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
- Them!

Classic Drama/Suspense:
- Casablanca
- North by Northwest
- The Night of the Hunter
- On The Waterfront
- The African Queen

Great Film Noir:
- The Third Man
- The Maltese Falcon
- The Big Sleep
- Sunset Boulevard
- The Blue Dahlia

Best Animated Feature For Adults As Well As Kids:
- Spirited Away
- Howl’s Moving Castle
- Fantasia
- Yellow Submarine
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Flat Out Unusual:
- Memento
- Identity
- The Mothman Prophecies
- Nomads
- Blue Velvet

O.K., everyone over that Post-Christmas funk?

I think I am. All the presents are unwrapped and stowed in their proper places. All those annoying television commercials for Christmas gifts (e.g., diamond necklaces that say “I love you”, electric razors) that you never see any other time of the year are off the tube. Yeah, the kids are still out of school and we are still looking toward New Year’s, with its’ bacchanalian excesses and glut of mostly meaningless football games. But, we’ve pretty much shot the wad, and are faced with the inevitable challenge otherwise known as “your normal life”.

I really can’t imagine that 2007 is going to be much of an improvement over 2006. After all, Bush and his gang of street thugs are still in power. True, the Dems are going to take over the House and Senate in very short order, and Rumsfeld is gone. Those are hopeful signs. But I am filled with foreboding about what Bush might actually do in his last couple of years to “secure his place in history”. I really think that is mostly what is on his mind these days. He keeps comparing himself to Truman, who was unpopular during the last years of his presidency but history, for the most part, has vindicated. Bush says he is reading about Lincoln. This rather tells me what in on his rather shallow mind. He wants to be remembered, and remembered warmly, among the ranks of the great presidents. And I think he will do a lot in order to secure that. I mean, have we ever had a president in recent years who was planning on building himself a half-billion dollar library intent on securing his legacy, with two years to go in office? Tell me this guy isn’t worried about how history will treat him.

To me, all this seems like maybe the ancient Roman emperors and Egyptian kings who build massive monuments to themselves, part vanity, part in hopes of influencing the opinion of the gods and the populace, in the attempt to secure their rightful place in history. I think that is how Bush views himself. His main concern is not the anarchy that he has let loose in Iraq, or the implications on the entire Middle East. He is worried about how he will be treated by future historians.

This is what is behind his idea for a “surge” of troops in Baghdad. This is his last gasp at winning, even if we now have absolutely no idea whatsoever about what victory might look like. We don’t really even know whom we are fighting anymore. One day, it might be the Sunnis that are shooting at us. The next, it is the Shiites. We are “fighting ‘em over there so we aren’t fighting ‘em over here”, which is just about an insane reason as I can think of. So, our troops are sitting around over there like sitting ducks to be used as target practice for people with a grudge, so those self-same people with a grudge don’t come over here and plant IED’s in the streets of Lompoc or Grand Rapids? That is what our troops are doing?

I have a feeling that what history will be doing with Bush, given that we don’t have a complete breakdown as a country and end up like some Margaret Atwood novel, is a lot of psychoanalysis. They will be asking questions about both Bush and this country, the same way they currently ask questions of the McCarthy era or why were all those Japanese citizens interred in camps during WWII. Historians will be asking what kind of insanity was loose in this country in the first decade of the 21st century that got us into this mess. What kind of psychology drove Bush down the path that he is currently on? Was it all just a sublimated competition with his father? Was the fact that he is was a non-recovered ex-alcoholic with a God complex the thing that drove this country to bankrupt itself and destroy its’ moral standing in the world?

I hope that these are the questions that future historians ask themselves. I just wish more people were asking them right now.

The new buzzword of the month: Surge!

I am so tired of this. After an election that was as clear-cut as elections are going to be these days, all the powers that be in the White House and the Republican echo chamber have decided that the best move the U.S. can make is to vastly INCREASE the size of our military in Iraq. No matter that we have no idea what we are doing there now. We just need more troops for some as yet undefined mission that will undoubtedly result in many more causalities on all sides, including innocent Iraqi civilians. However, since we have a new cool buzzword that we can throw around, it all sounds very Important, Official, and Planned for Victory. Given how long the last buzzword hung around (“benchmarks”, remember that one?), I seriously doubt pulling some fancy new buzzword out of the hat will make a significant impact on the overall outcome. But it does keep the mainstream media enthralled for a while.

One question that is being asked now and again is, where are these new troops going to come from? All of our military is pretty much engaged already, either deployed in Iraq, waiting to be deployed, or in the short and getting shorter rotation period between their multiple deployments. The only thing that anyone can possibly do is to, once again, shorten the non-deployment time when the troops are recovering at home and to break down yet more barriers so that more National Guard and Reserves can be used as cannon fodder. We do not have the military to be used in this manner! We just do not! This is insane.

I was only in my pre- and early teens during the height of the Vietnam War, so I don’t believe I have a good basis for a side-by-side comparison. But it certainly seems that we are in the midst of the same insanity that ran rampant in the war planners in that little fiasco. And we all know how well that one turned out.

Well, so much for the hoping that the Baker Report would make Bush change his mind about Iraq.

An article in the WashPo sort of sets up the coming scenario. Bush is going to reject most, if not all, of the recommendations out of the Baker Commision and continue on with "stay the course", except he won't call it that, of course.

“President Bush vowed yesterday to come up with 'a new strategy' in Iraq but expressed little enthusiasm for the central ideas of a bipartisan commission that advised him to ratchet back the U.S. military commitment in Iraq and launch an aggressive new diplomatic effort in the region. . . .

"The emerging debate over the report sets a baseline for the administration's own internal review of Iraq policy, which officials hope to complete in time for Bush to give a speech to the nation before Christmas announcing his new plan for Iraq. . . .

"Yet, while the president called the Iraq Study Group's ideas 'worthy of serious study,' he seemed to dismiss the most significant ones point by point. He noted that Blair is heading to the Middle East to promote Arab-Israeli peace, but he gave no indication that he plans an aggressive new push of his own as proposed by the commission. Bush said he, too, wants to bring U.S. troops home but noted that the group qualified its 2008 goal by linking it to security on the ground.
"And he repeated his refusal to talk with Iran and Syria unless Tehran suspends its uranium-enrichment program, Damascus stops interfering in Lebanon and both drop their support for terrorist groups."

Eugene Robinson agrees, and comments how the report is a condemnation of how Bush and his cronies have run the war. And it doesn't even get into why we went there in the first place, which is a fiasco all by itself.

"It turns out that James Baker, Lee Hamilton and the other members of the group didn't have to worry about holding readers' attention. The 96-page main report -- an attempt to find a way for George W. Bush to get us out of his Iraq debacle without provoking World War III -- is full of solid reporting and analysis, with surprises along the way that make your jaw drop.

--snip--

"The report is harshest on the president's "stay the course" option, pointing out that the longer we remain, the worse the situation in Iraq seems to get -- and the more American troops are maimed or killed.

"The document concludes with 79 recommendations, most of which are eminently reasonable and none of which will get us out of Iraq overnight. The president will probably reject some out of hand -- talking directly with Syria and Iran, for example. And while it would be good if the president finally realized that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would lower the temperature throughout the Middle East, I'm pretty sure it will take more than a phone call to persuade the Israeli government to give up the Golan Heights."

George Bush has shown, over and over, he has absolutely no desire, or maybe even the ability, to do any sort of self-introspection or self-criticism. There was no real reason to believe, in spite of all the nice words of bi-partisanship and “Baker saving the Bush family bacon”, that Bush would ever really change his view of anything once it has become established. This is especially true of Iraq, which is this administration’s crown jewel, like it or not. This is the matter upon which his administration will be judged, Katrina and tax-cuts aside. And he is not about to allow himself to view the debacle in Iraq as anything other than what he originally intended. Now, what exactly that was, I am not sure anyone but George Bush knows, since we have been handed so many stories that have constantly changed when the rationale for the last story started to fall apart.

If any other person in any other situation that didn’t involve being the President of the United States exhibited the same traits that Bush has done repeatedly, that person would have been removed from their position of power, such as CEO of a major corporation, and would also probably be directed to some sort of counseling. Bush is in some serious need of a psychological intervention. With that hypothetical “any other person” not being the POTUS, then the damage that the other person might inflict would probably be minimal at the national level. Oh, his workers would most likely be out of a job in short order, and the stockholders would be SOL. But the country’s military wouldn’t be coming apart at the seams and the reputation of the United States might still be intact around the world. However, with such a person actually being in charge of this country for eight long years, the damage that will have resulted from Bush’s psychological shortcomings will be lasting.

Burnout. Blogger burnout. War burnout. Bad news burnout. Snow burnout.

Just sort of...... burned out. Ever since the election results, I have had a hard time getting up any sort of enthusiasm for posting much. It all seemed rather an old rehash of things that other people have done, and done much better than I would have.

Plus, I am going on a business trip for a week. So, I won't be posting anything new for a while. If anyone is out there that checks in with any regularity, check back in about a week or so. I may have something new by then.

Ta fer now.

Have yourself a guilty little Christmas.

I found myself almost going through the motions on Thanksgiving. We visited some of my wife’s friends, had Thanksgiving dinner, watched a little football, talked about kids. I have been putting time into some of my hobbies, some more useless than others. But always, there was this undercurrent of guilt. Here, at home, we have all indications of “normalcy”. There was the Macy’s Day parade on television, lots more football games whose outcomes seem to be The Most Important Thing Ever, until the next week. I went to a college basketball game and cheered wildly at the halftime half court buzzer beater shot that helped out team win. But it isn’t really normal. We just want to pretend it is.

Our service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan probably did not enjoy Thanksgiving much, and will not enjoy Christmas. In fact, there are probably a few that are not going to be around to see Christmas. This is not to say anything of the Iraqi people that are dying in pretty horrible ways by the day. Upwards of a million people are on the move, trying to avoid a similar fate because of the Sunni/Shia sectarian violence.

Yeah, Saddam was a monster and will deserve whatever he ultimately gets, which looks to be a public hanging. However, I can’t see that the situation in Iraq was any worse than what we have unleashed by invading the country with absolutely no concept of what we were doing and not doing any contingency planning past not getting hit in the eye by all the flowers that were going to be thrown at us.

I really hate this. There are terrible implications if the U.S. stays in Iraq. There are terrible implications if we leave. This is much worse that a “bad situation”. No matter what happens or what we ultimately end up doing, it is going to be a catastrophe.

Thank you, George Bush and all your neo-con warmongering friends. Thank you for bankrupting this country, for making us about the most distrusted and hated country in the world. Thank you for trying with all your might to hold onto the reins of power while doing everything in your power to dismantle a governmental system that had been working wonderfully, more or less, for over 200 years.

Merry Christmas, George. I truly hope that you can't sleep at night.

Let the madness begin!

No, not the war or the secret plot for all Republicans ousted from office to come in and stage a coup to dispose those nasty decadent Democrats who drink champagne directly from the shoes of Warren Beatty and Annette Benning. (Blech....) No, I am taking about the annual madness called Christmas Shopping.

It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I am already tired of the barrage of television commercials that imply that you can’t really have a Merry Christmas or even Being of Good Cheer, and some go more than just “imply”. Ads for jewelry are particularly noxious. All ads (unless they are of the “cute” variety such as the ad for Aflac where Santa gets stuck in the chimney) are aimed at making the audience believe that the MUST participate in this orgy of spending and buying in order to have yourself a perfect Christmas.

What is amazing about all of this is how at least ¾ of Christmas has become this non-secular “end of the year” holiday and have very little to do with the religious holiday. I am not a Christian, but I can see why Christians are upset. They have had their holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus hijacked by Madison Avenue. There is a bit of a problem with the political correctness of not being able to say “Merry Christmas” during the Christmas season. However, I figure this is probably just karma getting back at them, since most scholars believe that Jesus was not born on December 25th, but sometime in July. The holiday was set on the date it currently has by Constantine, the first Pope, who was hoping to hijack a pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice. That certainly happened, so maybe a second hijacking is some sort of revenge by the Earth Mother. She’s still annoyed.

Anyway, back to shopping. The amount of focus and energy that people devote to getting that “perfect gift” for their loved ones, or related by unloved ones. Stores are now open at 5 a.m. on Thanksgiving for people who just can’t wait for that traditional day of orgasmic consumerism. That is today. There is no way that I am going to go anywhere near a mall this weekend. These people who brave the elements and the huge crowd of savage shoppers don’t fool around. Even if you find a parking place and make it inside the mall safely, that is no guarantee of your continued safety. People will walk right out in front of you like you aren’t even there. They will run over your foot with their shopping cart. In fact, they don’t even seem to be aware that there are any other people in the mall besides themselves, unless it comes to the point where they are both competing for the same product. And I do mean “competing”. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there today and it would be best for you to keep your puppies safely in the confines of your own home.

It’s days like today, and actually the rest of the Christmas shopping season, that people revert to their true selves that hide under the very thin veneer of a polite society. We will no longer starve if we are on the losing end of a competition for food or will be homeless if some brute with a bigger club than we have chases us out of our cave. But that mechanism is still there, buried in our primal psyche, waiting to make itself known. And this is the time. The urge to obtain and retain your “possessions”, whatever those might be, is right out there for all to see.

Heaven help the person who gets in the way. Of course, Heaven may not hear you, as everyone there is currently trying to figure out how to get their holiday back.

More television advertising that really annoys me.

One very prevalent television commercial these days normally seen during football games (and probably NASCAR races which I never, ever watch) is for KFC “Famous Bowls”. Excuse me? So, you can just declare yourself to be “famous” these days? I suppose if Paris Hilton can do it, that opens the field to pretty much anyone or anything, even if it happens to be a bowl full of cold lumpy starch with cheese. Actually, now that I think about it, those two things are somewhat similar….. Paris Hilton…. Bowl of mashed potatoes. Their talent for music is about the same, and they have about the same level of awareness of the universe outside of themselves. However, the big mound of mashed potatoes featured in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND that Richard Dreyfuss prodded so lovingly with his fork could probably out-act Paris Hilton any day.

I already think it is rather laughable that KFC is now a supposedly meaningless acronym, instead of admitting that the “F” in KFC stands for “Fried”. Oh, no. Can’t admit to the truth, you know. I am also very tired of hearing the intro to “Sweet Home, Alabama” as their little “mind hook” into consumers. Playing to the Deep South NASCAR dads much?

I just think that anointing yourself or one of your products as “famous” immediately at the product introduction is a remarkable instance of over-hype. People are famous. Bill Clinton. Luther Vandross. Jerry Mathers as the Beaver. Those are famous people. Historical landmarks like the Washington Monument are famous. Mashed potatoes with some gravy and cheese on top are most definitely NOT famous.

They also never show how big these things are. Whenever you want to hide the true size of the product you are advertising, whether it is a bowl full of mash potatoes or a small pickup truck with a max-cab but a four foot long bed, never show the product in the same frame as something recognizable, like a human. Keep the size very vague and the potential customer will never know, until he/she actually BUYS one, that they are going to be overcharged by a factor of about three.

KFC also had a good advertising campaign a few of years ago for nine different “collectable” tubs of fried chicken featuring pictures of “famous” NASCAR drivers. Collectable? COLLECTABLE?! Cardboard containers with puddles of congealed chicken grease on the bottom are now “collectable”? Please…. If anyone actually tried to display their collection of these things, they would have every stray dog and raccoon in the neighborhood scratching at the basement door trying to get in.

“Famous” bowls…. Sheesh. Yeah, and I am a “famous” blogger.

Draft? What draft? Who said anything about a draft?

Charles Rangel (NY-D) has renewed his call to reinstate the military draft. Predictably, the Democratic leadership immediately came out and said that they would not introduce or pass any legislation that included such a measure.

As someone who just missed the military draft for the Vietnam War era, I would be a big hypocrite to say that I support a draft now. I would really detest to see my kids or anybody else’s kids sent off to fight a “war” which they did not support. Politically, this is about as close to a non-starter as it gets.

However, I think this is a really good dialog to have at this point in time. There are many calls for INCREASING our military presence in Iraq. “Escalation” is the euphemism, I believe. But at the same time, so many knowledgeable people across the political and military spectrum who are saying that this is really not feasible. Our current military structure is at the point of breakdown right now. Where are we going to get 30,000 more troops, or whatever it is they are calling for? They just are not there. We already are seeing mandatory call backs of 40 and 50 year old veterans. That is just plain ol’ scary.

So, the point here is by Congressman Rangel is to point out the complete lunacy of this situation and what some people are openly advocating. It makes about as much sense as a person that wants to go buy a Lamborghini with cash when he only has enough in his pocket to go get a Quarter Pounder with fries. Plus, he is also pointing out the hypocrisy of the ruling class in this country, along with their cheerleaders and enablers, who so boldly support this war and trash anyone who dares suggest that it might not be going so well or that going into Iraq with no planning and minimal force in the first place was not a such good idea. There are very, very few Senators or Representatives who have relatives in harm’s way. There are a few, whose names escape me right now, but not very many.

Let them have THEIR sons and daughters go get shot at or blown up and see how they much they support this war. That’s the good I see coming out of this discussion. But the rest of the Dems in office are not going to let that national discussion occur. Political suicide, I suppose, and there are no doubt better ways to try to deal with the absolute mess that Iraq has become for all involved. But it sure would be fun to see how the Rethugs and neocons would have tried to talk their way out of that one.

More police state action from Southern California law enforcement.

Just a couple of weeks ago, there was another Rodney King-type video of LA police on top of a guy who was laying on the pavement, and the police were whacking his head repeatedly on the ground. Now, we have this video from the Powell Library on the campus of UCLA. The campus police or someone associated with the university came into the library and picked out a student of Iranian descent who was just sitting there at his computer, finishing up his assignment. They demanded that he produce his student I.D. He refused, asking the police to go check a bunch of the white students I.D. as well. The situation quickly degraded into a full-fledged incident where the student was tasered three different times. At no time was he actively resisting the three or four policemen. At most, he just went limp and refused to move, at which point they tasered him again. When other students demanded the policemen’s badge numbers, they were also threatened with the taser.

These things are no joke. It is not just some harmless toy. There have been something like 130 deaths in the U.S. and Canada that have been attributed to the person getting hit with the full effect of a taser. It may not be “lethal force”, but it is close. It is not a joke.

Since when do police have the authority to come into any establishment where there is no incident currently taking place, instigate one on their own by picking out some guy “randomly”, and end up taking such extreme actions when the person, at no time, was violently resisting them? What is this? Has our society gone so far down the road toward fascism and video game violence that people in authority think this is in any way acceptable behavior? And we have some defending their actions? AT THE MOST, the police should have cuffed the guy, if they thought there was reason (and I would argue that not producing a student I.D. while sitting quietly at a computer in a library hardly constitutes a reason to use force), and taken him out of the building. Where do they get off on such violent action?

First off, the guy has retained a very high profile lawyer and plans to sue the hell out of someone. Good for him. If UCLA is smart, they will disavow any connection with this incident, make a public statement condemning the police in no uncertain terms, and fire all the people involved. I hope the guy wins big.

But I always worry about the larger issues when something that seems like an isolated event happens. What does this really say about our society? Where are we going? Before the elections two weeks ago, I was very worried that the future might include a bunch of brown shirts going around and rounding up liberals and gays (the new Jews and gypsies), and sending them off to camps somewhere. Now, it seems like most of the country has repudiated strong-armed tactics out of our government. However, there is a very large percentage of the population of this country that would willing participate in such a round up and deportation. I am convinced of that. Mike Savage, Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin would be, out front, leading the cheerleading.

Douglas Feith after 9/11: “Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s attack South America!”

This is insane. More than insane. There isn’t a word in the English language, or any other language on the face of the Earth, I suspect, to describe how insane this is. And this isn’t coming from a run-of-the-mill nutjob you find on the street corner, yelling at the top of his lungs to no one in particular. This probably came from Douglas Feith, the Defense Under Secretary. You know, one of the neo-cons that worked for Donald Rumsfeld, and who helped lead us into this fiasco called the Iraq War.

The unsigned top-secret memo, which the panel's report said appears to have been written by Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, is one of several Pentagon documents uncovered by the commission which advance unorthodox ideas for the war on terror. The memo suggested "hitting targets outside the Middle East in the initial offensive" or a "non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq," the panel's report states. U.S. attacks in Latin America and Southeast Asia were portrayed as a way to catch the terrorists off guard when they were expecting an assault on Afghanistan.

The idea was to catch all those terrorists “off guard” by attacking remote areas of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, because everyone would be expecting the U.S. to actually hit the country that actually attacked us on that horrible day, like, oh, maybe Afghanistan. Luckily, no one acted on this insane recommendation. Cooler heads prevailed and we attacked Iraq instead.

That worked out well, dontcha think?

CNN: The new Fox News?

You know, I am not terribly surprised that there are many racist, xenophobic and hysterical people in the United States. Fear, ambition, and downright stupidity can work wonders on the human psyche. However, it is amazing to me that a person with his very own television show on (what used to be) a rather well thought of (which excludes Fox News) 24/7 news channel can actually say this when interviewing a newly elected congressman.

"Prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."


Yeah, the interviewee happened to be the first Muslim American congressman, but this is ridiculous. Yes, I happened to have caught Glenn Beck’s little shtick several times. I just came away shaking my head thinking, “They gave this clown his own television show?” I guess CNN must be desperate to try to peel away viewers from Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the Fox News wingnuts.

“Prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.” That’s astounding. However, it is in line with the rest of the thugs running this country these days. The new standard is “Guilty until proven innocent”. You don’t like the way someone looks, or thinks, or the signs they hold up at rallies? Declare them the enemies and make them disprove it.

What a country we are living in these days.

Fear and loathing at the gas pump.

O.K., is it just me? Why have the prices at my local gas station suddenly jumped up 35 cents a gallon the two weeks after the election, after they had been doing down by almost a dollar a gallon the three months just prior to the election?

You would have thought that they would be just a tad less obvious about this. Man. I wish the new Democratic majority would look into this one as well. However, I think they are going to have their hands full with quite a lot of other things for some time.

Bad blogger! Bad!

I haven't been posting lately, for several reasons. Not feeling very well, busy weeknights, tickets to the local college basketball team for three successive nights, and mostly, just a feeling of elation and exhaustion after the election. Sort of like the day after Christmas, I guess.

I'll try to do better. Really I will...... (**whimper**)

Post election thoughts.

Maybe one of these days, I will get around to posting about something else besides politics and elections. Hopefully, things will start going well enough in this country that I have enough energy to devote to some other subjects.

I have seen several predominant suppositions regarding the blowout election. Many passionate people are making the case that their view is “the truth”.

Many of the right wing “pundits” are actually saying that this election really shows that their view was correct all along. The election was a victory for conservatives. This theme has two variations, as far as I can tell. First one goes, the Republican party wasn’t properly “conservative enough and had abandoned its’ conservative roots. I’ll go along with the part about “abandoning its’ roots”. That has been obvious for a while. This current crop of thugs in charge of the Republican party is in no way conservative, other than they think taxes are evil. In all other ways, they are not the party of Goldwater or even Ronald Reagan. This supposition is nonsense, and the people spouting this one are doing what they always do; say the first thing that comes into their minds that they think will validate their position. Truth is secondary.

The other variation on this theme is that large amounts of people voted for conservative Democrats. They contend that these new Democrats, such as John Tester in Montana and Jim Webb in Virginia, are really Republicans who ran as Democrats. If this is true, their logic must conclude that Republicans really “won”. Again, these theories are voiced without any supporting evidence. Yeah, Tester has a crew cut and wears cowboy boots. Webb is an ex-Marine and used to be Republican. The fact is that many of their policies that these two endorse are not at all conservative. I won’t go into digging up the proofs here. That has already been done by several other bloggers. Again, this theory is floated out there because it is the only way that some people can conclude that their side actually lost the election and a majority of Americans don’t agree with them on many issues.

So, the theories coming from the Right are, for the most part, complete fabrications. They are just more of the same tactics that people such as Hugh Hewitt have used as long as they have had their mouths open.

There are a couple of competing theories that are coming from the Left, and some people are getting really loud about it. One is that the very Liberal side of the party was very instrumental in winning the election, and there is no way the Democratic party should try to play the middle ground here. The left won the election so they need to play it that way. This argument is being used to say, yes, we damn well should do a lot of investigations into what BushCo. Has been doing the last six years, and while we are at it, we should impeach the President as well. Use the power of the purse strings that the Dems now have in their hands, now that they are in the positions of power in both houses.

The other side of this argument is the election was won by the fact that very many “middle of the political spectrum” independents and even some Republicans supported the Democrats. This argument goes that the Dems should be very careful that they not “overreach” like the Gingrich Revolution did, lest their new supporters abandon the party in 2008. Take the high road, try to be conciliatory and try to reach across the aisle in a bi-partisan way. Try to keep the “big tent” open to all who voted Democratic this year, and try not to alienate those supporters whom the Dems would not have won without.

Frankly, I am not sure which one of these competing theories is correct. Truthfully, I don’t think they are necessarily mutually exclusive; I think there is a more than a little truth in both visions. I think that it was necessary to get the very liberal, anti-war part of the Democratic party energized in a way they have never been since the Clinton election. But, I also think that there was a substantial part of the voters who voted not so much FOR the Democrats on the ticket. They voted AGAINST the Republicans. An example of this is Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island, a very moderate Republican and the only one who voted against the war from the outset. Yet he lost. I think people in RI were voting against the national Republican party.

I would hate to see the Democrats start warring among themselves about which way to play this. Maybe playing it close to the vest is a good way to start. I think Nancy Pelosi has been doing a good job so far. But if the Rethugs start playing games again, even though they are now in the minority with a lame duck President, the Dems should not hesitate to play hardball.

In the words of a very good Republican president, maybe the best way to proceed is “Walk softly but carry a big stick”.

Fundamentalist beliefs as seen in bumper stickers.

I probably should have posted this one prior to the election, but I was too wound up about the election to think about much else. Maybe now the election is over and “the people have spoken”, I might be able to concentrate on some other stuff.

Anyway…… I was stuck in very slow traffic the other day behind a car whose driver (unless he just bought the car and hadn’t taken off the bumper stickers, which is a possibility but I doubt it) was obviously one of the right wing, NASCAR, fundy, gun loving types. Among several bumper stickers that I could only sort of understand but were obviously tied to racing and race cars, there were a couple of really big ones that really stood out. One said “REAL MEN LOVE JESUS”. Right next to that one was one that had the traditional red, white and blue donkey symbolic of the Democratic party, shown as being viewed through a gun site, and it read “GOT AMMO?”

For me, that encapsulates the basic, very real danger that fundamentalist thinking in this country presents. One on hand, this person obviously thinks he is very religious and is the very role model of today’s Christian. On the other hand, he is also so convinced that he is morally right on every single subject that exists that he is a proponent of shooting his political adversaries. Oh, sure. If you were to confront this guy, he would say that it is a “joke”. However, jokes like that always reflect what a person ultimately believes. That’s why the person thinks something is funny.

I believe that Jesus existed. I very seriously doubt he was the Son of God. He was just a guy who went around preaching things that the Romans and their supporters didn’t like and were fearful of, so they killed him. But I do believe he existed. As such, this is what I think. Jesus probably never imagined something like a gun that can be used to kill other people with ease. However, I just cannot see Jesus, in any manifestation that you might like to see him as, would condone stoning someone to death just because they didn’t believe in him. I just don’t see it.

The New Truthfulness: Lie and then admit you are lying, but you’re O.K. with it.

The fallout of the blowout election is occurring all over the place in the ranks of the Republicans and their conservative followers. It is all very amusing to watch. But a couple of nuggets really hit me when I saw these.

Rush Limbaugh, Mr. “Dittohead” himself, just admitted that he is full of crap and doesn’t believe at least some of the stuff he says to literally millions of his listeners. This is what he said the other day.

The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, "Well, why have you been doing it?" Because the stakes are high! Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country's than the Democrat [sic] Party does and liberalism.

..snip..

I'm a radio guy! I understand what this program has become in America and I understand the leadership position it has. I was doing what I thought best, but at this point, people who don't deserve to have their water carried, or have themselves explained as they would like to say things but somehow aren't able to? I'm not under that kind of pressure.

So, here is Rush saying that he said what he needed to say because he needed to support his Republican party. No matter that he didn’t believe in what he was saying, he said it out of necessity. Hey, lying is lying; the circumstances in which the lie was told do not matter. In fact, the more serious the situation you are lying about, the more serious the lie. “White lies” that ultimately don’t do much harm are still lies. But when you are lying about the big stuff, hey, that’s some serious lying going on.

So, Rush has come out and rather admitted that he will say whatever he feels necessary in order to bolster what he believes in. Doesn’t this call into question everything that he says? Literally, everything he has ever said on the radio is now suspect.

The same goes for President Bush. Many people are now pointing out that, several days prior to the election, Bush gave both Cheney and Rumsfeld a ringing endorsement and said that both of them would be in is administration until the end. Fast forward now to one day after the incredibly devastating election. Devastating to the Republicans, anyway. Rumsfeld is gone, resigned and/or fired. When asked about it by a reporter, who pointed out the contradiction with what Bush said just days earlier, Bush replied that he responded the way he did was to deflect the question and get on to another question. Bush already knew that what he was saying wasn’t true. He said he didn’t want to get into telling the truth about Rumsfeld right before the election. End of story.

Bush apparently didn’t have any sort of problem with this. He lied when it suited him. He had already been caught out in a similar situation during the Plamegate debacle. Bush already knew that Rove and Libby were involved in leaking Valerie Plame’s name to the press when he said in a press conference that he would fire anyone in his administration who was involved. And he also knew that he wasn’t going to fire them. He said whatever he felt was expedient at the time.

Al Franken nailed it with the title of his book, “Lies And The Lying Liars That Tell Them”. These folks have now admitted that they lie whenever the need arises, and they do so without any sort of guilty conscience about it whatsoever. They see nothing wrong with this. By extension, everything that the Bush administration or Rush Limbaugh is now suspect. (As if we didn’t know that before.) Everything. Truth is secondary to supporting whatever it is you believe in, in whatever way necessary. The war in Iraq, outing Valerie Plame/Wilson as an undercover CIA agent, tax cuts for the top 1% of the country, being concerned about the devastation and anguish caused by Hurricane Katrina, everything. Every single thing that these people have ever told us is now under suspicion, by their own admission!

At least they are straightforward enough to admit it. However, I just can’t understand how they think that the country will casually accept being lied to as a matter of policy. That is what we came to expect out of the Soviet Union and Pravda. That is not what we expect out of the United States of America.

Wheeeee!!!!!

I went to bed last night (after the election) jubilant, and I am not in that mood very often. Just not my style, really. I just hope that we can get Senate wins in both Montana and Virginia. Both are leading, but Tester apparently has only about a 2000+ vote lead. How can so many elections across the country in the last few years come so close? I know that the country is “divided”, but to have so many races come down to tenths of percentage points seems, to me, to be statistically very improbable.

Anyway, I wonder what Bush and his cronies are thinking today. Somehow, I doubt he is going to come off as a conciliatory, gracious loser. That’s not HIS style. (As an aside, as much as I wanted to see Santorum lose in Pennsylvania, he certainly did give a very gracious concession speech.) I almost would like to see Bush come out today as some sort of wounded dog, snapping at everything that comes into range. And Tony Snow, the Presidential Press Secretary, is also going to have an interesting couple of weeks or months.

Maybe he could get caught making passes at some young lady (or guy), blame it on his “drinking problem”, and disappear into “rehab”. That’s what everyone else seems to be doing these days.

Wheeeeeee!!!!

Soldier commits suicide after two days of administering Cheney’s “aggressive interrogation techniques”.

This is a repost of this one from a few days ago. Blogger seems to have mysteriously "disappeared" it.)

This story, via Taylor Marsh, tells about how a young woman in the military apparently became so despondent after two nights of interrogating prisons at an air base at Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. I say “apparently”, because the military has again tried to hush the story up, just as they did in the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman and no doubt countless other stories. Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, died September 15, 2003 due to “non-hostile weapons discharge.” The reporter that uncovered the story only did so after years of digging around, trying to uncover the truth, and after filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Here is a snip from the story at Editors and Publishers.

She was only the third American woman killed in Iraq, so her death drew wide press attention. A “non-hostile weapons discharge” leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials “said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging, or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian.” (Her parents now say they were never told about her objections to interrogation techniques.)

But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, unsatisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told E&P today. He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here’s what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday:

“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. ...".

She was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. “But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,” the documents disclose.

This is such a tragedy, albeit a small one in the midst of the much larger tragedy that is Iraq. This fine young woman joined the military as a translator. She was fluent in Dutch. She looked to be equipped to go amazing places in this world. And yet, the Army assigned her to a detention center to help wring “the truth” out of detainees who have not had a day in court and had not been found guilty of anything. She killed herself after only two nights, and the Army once again tried to hush it all up, lie about it if necessary and hope it all goes away. Which, in this particular case, it almost did.

This is the policy that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney have gone to great lengths to defend. This is what is vitally important to our country, something that makes a young lady kill herself after her participation.

I feel sick over this.

“Oh, Lord. Please deliver me from your True Believers!”

There is so much hypocrisy in the Republican Party and their supporters these days. You can hardly pick up a newspaper or go on-line without tripping over yet another story involving the Republicans and/or their evangelical supporters saying one thing and getting caught in another. Rush Limbaugh and his “drug problem”. Anyone involved in the Abramoff scandal. Duke Cunningham and his program of legislation for profit. George Allen, the candidate for the Senate in Virginia, and his history of nooses hanging in his office, his love for the Confederacy, his famous “macaca” statement. The list goes on and one.

This latest one (via Huffington Post) has me simultaneously rolling my eyes toward the ceiling and laughing hysterically. Ted Haggard, the leader of about the biggest evangelical groups in the country and who is said to meet with Bush or his advisors on a weekly basis, has been forced to resign because it appears that he paid for sex from a male prostitute. Oh, yes. He also bought crystal meth from the guy. His excuse? He didn’t have sex with the man, only got a massage. And he threw away the drugs, even though he “was tempted”. Yeah, sure. I really believe that. What do you bet that he will now go into a drug rehab center for about three months until this all dies away?

This is all starting to look like a pattern. Several years ago now (it seems like a thousand), we had “Jeff Gannon” and his extremely bizarre questions to the Presidential Press Secretary. He was a male prostitute with his own website, and yet continually got a “freebie” pass to the press briefings in the White House, when reporters from legitimate news organizations could not get them. And then, just recently (also seems like ages ago), we have the whole Mark Foley chasing young male pages around, sending them really creepy and disturbing e-mail, offering up his house for an ex-page to stay in if the said ex-page would perform sex on Foley. That’s just icky. And now, we have this one. Haggard was dismissed from his post after all this went public.

"It was an easy decision once we discovered there was a sexual immorality," Ware said, noting that Haggard agreed dismissal was the right course. "He has a concern and a love for this church. He knows he has hurt people and he needs to heal."

Ware said he believes Haggard was not honest in his statements to the media last week because of the stress and pressure on him.

"This is a clash between divinity and humanity," Ware said. "We're all human, and we make mistakes."

The oversight board will continue to investigate Haggard so "a plan of healing and restoration can begin.”

What IS it with the Republican party and the evangelicals and homosexuality? There has been some things written lately about the possible psychological makeup of people like this. They have such desires (i.e., lust) that they may or may not act upon. Many times, it appears they do act upon them. But apparently, they feel so guilty and immoral about it, they go out and use the position of power (i.e., the bully pulpit) to go disparage gays and try to make them seem like inhuman monsters.

Almost like a projection of self-hatred, yes?

When I heard about this last week, I will admit that I said to myself “Oh, boy. I really, really hope this is true.” I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. It smells like victory. Hopefully on this coming Tuesday, but perhaps also for the ultimate smashing open of the dark soul of these True Believers. That might show the country what they are truly made of.

Read more in this story at Huffington Post

Ouch! NY Times throws a right hook to the chin.

Here’s the link.

As President Bush throws himself into the final days of a particularly nasty campaign season, he’s settled into a familiar pattern of ugly behavior. Since he can’t defend the real world created by his policies and his decisions, Mr. Bush is inventing a fantasy world in which to campaign on phony issues against fake enemies.

…snip…

In Mr. Bush’s world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don’t. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don’t support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.

Mr. Bush has been pushing these divisive themes all over the nation, offering up the ludicrous notion the other day that if Democrats manage to control even one house of Congress, America will lose and the terrorists will win. But he hit a particularly creepy low when he decided to distort a lame joke lamely delivered by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry warned college students that the punishment for not learning your lessons was to “get stuck in Iraq.” In context, it was obviously an attempt to disparage Mr. Bush’s intelligence. That’s impolitic and impolite, but it’s not as bad as Mr. Bush’s response. Knowing full well what Mr. Kerry meant, the president and his team cried out that the senator was disparaging the troops. It was a depressing replay of the way the Bush campaign Swift-boated Americans in 2004 into believing that Mr. Kerry, who went to war, was a coward and Mr. Bush, who stayed home, was a hero.

It’s nice to see that most of the country is now fully aware that, not only is the emperor sans clothes, he would stand out in a nudist colony. Only about six years too late, but still, it’s nice to see.

Some conservatives are truly upset with Bush and the current Republican party.

Boy, this conservative is really upset. I admire John Cole for writing this and admitting his disillusionment with his identified political party. That takes a lot of guts, as well as the ability to go back and reexamine your belief system. That is never easy. He is already getting his very own personal character assassination from the attack dogs on the extreme right. Andrew Sullivan, whom I read on a regular basis and quote from often, is another person who regards himself as a conservative but has totally lost faith with the current Republican party. Almost daily, he says something like “Abstain from voting, or vote Democratic”. Those things must be hard for a person to say after a lifetime of saying you are a Republican.

Here is a reply to John Cole’s post from Kos. It’s quite nice. I didn’t realize that Marcos used to be a Republican.

Here is how I guess I view it. Although I do consider myself a liberal and a Democrat, I wonder how much of that is really saying “I am against everything that the current conservatives and Republicans stand for”. I don’t really want to make the same mistake that the Republicans always make (if it can actually be called a “mistake” and is not, in fact, a cold calculation). Hardly anything is a “black or white and that’s the only choices you get” proposition. There are all sorts of shades of gray in this society of ours. So, just because I am infuriated with this current crop of Republicans, I wonder if that automatically makes me the Democrat I think I am. Yeah, I am rather liberal when it comes to social issues. For instance, I think what gay people do is their own business and the government has no damn business interfering. When it comes to fiscal matters, I think I am more on the conservative side. We have no business giving huge tax cuts to anyone, much less the top five percent of this country, at a time we are running up huge deficits. That is more than just irresponsible. That’s criminal. I don’t know what that makes me. I know I just feel much more comfortable with the label of liberal Democrat than I do with “independent”.

Anyway, although I don’t agree with a lot of things they say and think that they tend to be overly patronizing and insulting at times, I do commend John Cole and Andrew Sullivan for coming out as strongly as they have, publicly, when they know they are going to get slammed by the thugs of the Republican party for it. I believe there are many, many very principled people who are just as mad at how the Bush administration and his enablers are manipulating this country down a very dangerous path.

One of Sullivan’s regular readers makes this point about the need for principled people to come together and really get this country back pointed in the right direction.

I do not agree with all your views on particular policies - but that's not necessary, because I respect and trust your good intentions and good faith, your essential humility and humanity.

--snip—

In any case, we agree on the bedrock issues, which utterly transcend left and right. We can agree to disagree on particular policies here and there - and get on with it. The challenges we face in the coming years - from global warming to nuclear proliferation to economic instability - will require us to meet on common ground.

This country really need two healthy, principled, and respectful political parties in this country. They act as a constant check that neither goes too far astray, which is unfortunately what has happened now with the Republican party. They do not stand for the same things now as they stood for in the past. No, things will never, and have never been in the past, ideal. There has always been and will always be people who try to manipulate the system for their own gains. However, the system we have now has not just jumped the tracks but has fallen off the cliff into the river. We need to find a way somehow to get back to political discourse as a way to resolve issues. Vowing to destroy your enemies, which are defined as “anyone disagreeing with you about anything”, and doing whatever you can, no matter how devious, cynical or manipulative just to stay in power, is not how this country became great.

Gort, Klaatu barada nicto.

As it is Halloween evening, I’ll take a break from ranting about politics for a bit. I am really getting into a rut. So, I’ll talk about one of my other favorites subject, films.

Because of my training and employment as an engineer and scientist, I tend to analyze a movie to death. The first time I see a film, I usually just sort of “go with it” as the filmmaker probably intended. But on a repeat viewing, I’ll sit and go “Wait a minute, didn’t this just happen? So, what’s up with this new thing here? That doesn’t make any sense.” Or, “Now, that was really a cheap trick there, that wasn’t necessary.” In other words, I am an overly anal retentive, overly analytical engineer. (When you get right down to it, is there any other kind?)

One of my favorite sci-fi films is THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. It’s still a classic, although I wonder how it could have been directed by the same person who did THE SOUND OF MUSIC and WEST SIDE STORY. Here are some of the things that occurred to me when watching it for about the fourteenth time. O.K., I’ll admit up front that most of these can be attributed to “artistic license” or “the need to advance the plot regardless if this makes sense or not”. Still, these things bug me as obvious discontinuities.

Anyway, here’s the deal. A flying saucer from somewhere in outer space has landed on the mall in Washington D.C., rather close to some very special national landmarks. There’s a large robot standing there that has already evaporated a number of jeeps and tanks with his death ray. An alien, whose intentions are as yet unknown, is on the loose in the city after having escaped from Walter Reed hospital. Yet, at night, there are a total of TWO soldiers standing guard at the ship, and there are absolutely no gawkers around checking out this once in a millennia event!?! Where’s the National Guard? The Army? Multi-departmental civilian force? If an interplanetary spaceship complete with giant robot just landed in my city, I would be standing there taking pictures and checking that thing out, no matter the time of day or night. But there’s a total of two guards with a couple of rifles just standing around like some sentries at a desolate Army barracks somewhere in the middle of Montana! Weird.

Next, after Klaatu was shot by the Army and his body was being held in some downtown jail, Gort the giant eight foot tall robot is able to stroll through downtown Washington D.C., find the jail, blast a hole in the prison wall with his death ray, grab Klaatu’s body and then walk back to the spaceship, all without anyone ever seeing him!?! I don’t think so. If nothing else, someone should have at least tried to mug him.

And what was Klaatu’s ultimate message that he had to deliver to all mankind? “Don’t be violent, or we’ll blow you up.” Wow, that’s a real uplifting message, although just a tad on the hypocritical side. It is rather a one-sided version of the Cold War’s philosophical approach of Mutual Assured Destruction. I suppose if it works for the rest of the universe….

One of my later thoughts about the film is that, given what I know now about computers and how they are continually screwing up, crashing, and doing things that generally you would prefer they not do when you are in the middle of entering vast amounts of data in a multi-dimensional spreadsheet, I would be really hesitant in putting the fate of all civilized worlds into the hands of a bunch of all-powerful robots who can never be turned off. More than likely, we would instead end up with HAL, the psychotic computer with a persecution complex, only this time he would have his own spaceship complete with weapons that could vaporize the Earth or any other planet whose inhabitants accidentally entered an incorrect keystroke and caused a system crash.

What a cheery thought. And here I was, looking for something to distract me from politics, the war, the election, North Korea with The Bomb, Iran with The Bomb, Pakistan with The Bomb…..

Cut and Run ex-general!

This is a pretty amazing column by one Lt. Gen. WILLIAM E. ODOM (Ret.) that was run in the L.A. Times today. I don’t know if you have to be registered at the LATimes web site in order to get this story or not. Just in case, here it is. I’ve highlighted some very interesting sentences.

THE UNITED STATES upset the regional balance in the Middle East when it invaded Iraq. Restoring it requires bold initiatives, but "cutting and running" must precede them all. Only a complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops — within six months and with no preconditions — can break the paralysis that now enfeebles our diplomacy. And the greatest obstacles to cutting and running are the psychological inhibitions of our leaders and the public.

Our leaders do not act because their reputations are at stake. The public does not force them to act because it is blinded by the president's conjured set of illusions: that we are reducing terrorism by fighting in Iraq; creating democracy there; preventing the spread of nuclear weapons; making Israel more secure; not allowing our fallen soldiers to have died in vain; and others.

But reality can no longer be avoided. It is beyond U.S. power to prevent bloody sectarian violence in Iraq, the growing influence of Iran throughout the region, the probable spread of Sunni-Shiite strife to neighboring Arab states, the eventual rise to power of the anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr or some other anti-American leader in Baghdad, and the spread of instability beyond Iraq. All of these things and more became unavoidable the day that U.S. forces invaded.

These realities get worse every day that our forces remain in Iraq. They can't be wished away by clever diplomacy or by leaving our forces in Iraq for several more years.

The administration could recognize that a rapid withdrawal is the only way to overcome our strategic paralysis, though that appears unlikely, notwithstanding election-eve changes in White House rhetoric. Congress could force a stock-taking. Failing this, the public will sooner or later see through all of the White House's double talk and compel a radical policy change. The price for delay, however, will be more lives lost in vain — the only thing worse than the lives already lost in vain.

Some lawmakers are ready to change course but are puzzled as to how to leave Iraq. The answer is four major initiatives to provide regional stability and calm in Iraq. They will leave the U.S. less influential in the region. But it will be the best deal we can get.

First, the U.S. must concede that it has botched things, cannot stabilize the region alone and must let others have a say in what's next. As U.S. forces begin to withdraw, Washington must invite its European allies, as well as Japan, China and India, to make their own proposals for dealing with the aftermath. Russia can be ignored because it will play a spoiler role in any case.

Rapid troop withdrawal and abandoning unilateralism will have a sobering effect on all interested parties. Al Qaeda will celebrate but find that its only current allies, Iraqi Baathists and Sunnis, no longer need or want it. Iran will crow but soon begin to worry that its Kurdish minority may want to join Iraqi Kurdistan and that Iraqi Baathists might make a surprising comeback.

Although European leaders will probably try to take the lead in designing a new strategy for Iraq, they will not be able to implement it. This is because they will not allow any single European state to lead, the handicap they faced in trying to cope with Yugoslavia's breakup in the 1990s. Nor will Japan, China or India be acceptable as a new coalition leader. The U.S. could end up as the leader of a new strategic coalition — but only if most other states recognize this fact and invite it to do so.

The second initiative is to create a diplomatic forum for Iraq's neighbors. Iran, of course, must be included. Washington should offer to convene the forum but be prepared to step aside if other members insist.

Third, the U.S. must informally cooperate with Iran in areas of shared interests. Nothing else could so improve our position in the Middle East. The price for success will include dropping U.S. resistance to Iran's nuclear weapons program. This will be as distasteful for U.S. leaders as cutting and running, but it is no less essential. That's because we do share vital common interests with Iran. We both want to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban (Iran hates both). We both want stability in Iraq (Iran will have influence over the Shiite Iraqi south regardless of what we do, but neither Washington nor Tehran want chaos). And we can help each other when it comes to oil: Iran needs our technology to produce more oil, and we simply need more oil.

Accepting Iran's nuclear weapons is a small price to pay for the likely benefits. Moreover, its nuclear program will proceed whether we like it or not. Accepting it might well soften Iran's support for Hezbollah, and it will definitely undercut Russia's pernicious influence with Tehran.

Fourth, real progress must be made on the Palestinian issue as a foundation for Middle East peace. The invasion of Iraq and the U.S. tilt toward Israel have dangerously reduced Washington's power to broker peace or to guarantee Israel's security. We now need Europe's help. And good relations with Iran would help dramatically.

No strategy can succeed without these components. We must cut and run tactically in order to succeed strategically. The United States needs to restore its reputation so that its capacity to lead constructively will cost us less.

This is pretty frank talk from an ex-military man who probably prefers twelve simultaneous root canals while getting a screening for colon cancer at the same time than to go public with such hard hitting criticisms of the current “commander in chief”. That is usually a “not done” thing. However, many ex-military types have been lining up these days to give their assessment of the situation in Iraq.