I want my quagmire, dammit!

In a brilliantly conceived preemptive strike, President Bush has backed Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and rejected the Iraq Study Group's recommendations for phased drawdown before it makes them. No weenie orderly withdrawal or "graceful exit" for this tough-talking Texan. No sir, he's willing to stay until the last somebody else's son or daughter spills their blood.

"[He] remains the only man of stature so far in evidence to guide this country. . . . He has made it clear that he would give first priority to the build-up of his armed forces . . . At the same time, discontent is felt in different segments of the population for varied reasons. The base of the regime's popular support remains narrow. . . . We consider it therefore of importance that we bring strong pressure on the President to reach certain decisions basically in the economic and social fields which have been before him for some months but on which he has not acted. He has resented this and may resent it more, but in ours and his long range interests we must do our utmost to cause him to move forward in these fields."
- U.S. Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow on South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, January 1, 1957

"We will not be defeated.
We will not grow tired.
We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement."

- Lyndon B. Johnson, 7 April 1965

Freedom From Speech

In honor of his defense of freedom of speech, Newt Gingrich just gave a speech at the Manchester Awards in which he warned against...freedom of speech. According to unionleader.com Newt said we may need a "different set of rules" to limit the terrorists' ability to get out their message. "We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade." So, what we really need to do to keep our cities safe from a dirty nucular bomb is to restrict the availability of words, to prevent words from crossing the porous boarders, to beef up verbal security at our nations ports, and above all to stem the proliferation of highly explosive thoughts. Then we'd all feel a wittle bit safer. Give that man an award!

The Eternal City versus Shining City on a Hill

American Exceptionalism: We are exceptional, the ordinary rules do not apply to us. We are a shining city on a hill, a light unto the world. Out of the many that we are, we add up to one unit, one big GOOD. And at this unipolar moment we have never tasted defeat. Even Vietnam had been exorcised of its demons by Gulf War I, the new moral authority of 9-11, the extraordinary success in Afghanistan, and Iraq's mission-accomplished moment. Now, contemplate for a moment how the rhetoric of American politics never allows talk of defeat for this young nation, this baby of a state. The sacred agony of the Civil War, the WWII American heroes. Today, the insistence we will win in Iraq, that can-do positive American attitude so unlike old Europe. Yeah, old Europe...they're the ones that have tasted defeat, Bonaparte, et al....not us, US, U.S. But maybe we are afraid of defeat, not sure our adolescent national character can stand it. Maybe our hyper-muscular approach to 9-11 betrays a fear of failure. If we are so strong, why are we not able to accept a small defeat when it is staring us in the face but insist on compounding it, digging in deeper, letting the wound become bigger each day. Compare the shining city on a hill to Rome, the Eternal City. Walk through the Roman Forum where the temple of one god has been built on another, where the foundation of one administration building has been built upon the 1000-year-old ruins of another. Old Europe! Stretch out your American imagination over a longer period of time and breath in the air of one small defeat. Kick the dust off your sandals, stand up, and walk on. You'll survive. You really are strong. It's OK. It's natural. You're just growing up. And that's not easy.

Did the Media Miss This Story!

Remember when Saddam declared a general amnesty for all prisoners in Iraq? Hmm...rapists, thieves, murderers set free. Could this have played a role in the initial sparking of the insurgency or in its current dependence on crime funding? The Christian Science Monitor headline was "Jailbirds Fly Free in Iraq" indicating that "Tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners were released from custody this week by the regime of Saddam Hussein." For a blast from the past check out http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1022/p07s01-wome.html. I've never heard another reference to this event since the war began. Just wondering.

Goodbye

Please forgive my latest indulgence, but I want to say goodbye to yet another long-time animal friend, my little cat Radley. She literally grabbed me from between the bars of a shelter cage and didn't let go for 18 years (again, literally; she never bothered to sheath her claws and always gripped whatever surface she was on, concrete, wood, or flesh). The loss of one leg, the tip of her tail, and several teeth barely slowed her down. She's buried now beneath the bench in the photo, her favorite summer morning basking spot.

Tin Ears on Mullet Heads

Nice job, Republicans, choosing Trent Lott as minority whip. That should play well in your outreach campaign to black voters. Maybe Macaca Allen could be the new RNC chair (if David Duke isn't available) -- or hey, Ken Blackwell needs a job ----

And . . . . they're off!

I've got weird synergetic war news clashing in my brain today - teaching about World War II in two different classes, reading Vietnam material for next semester, listening to Rachel Maddow talking about Iraq on Air America, and ruminating about the similarities and differences. Any guesses as to American death count by the time we finally pull our heads out of our asses and our asses out of Baghdad?

But enough about real things. John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Joe Biden, and the immortal Tom Vilsack are running for president and Russ Feingold isn't (see the Washington Post article linked above).

I got $100 bucks that says neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama make it to the Democratic National Convention as viable candidates.

W is for Wrong

Gloriously, magnificently wrong was I and I couldn't be happier about it. This is the first time we've had something to celebrate in politics since 1996. (I bet $10 on Bush in 2004 in a misguided attempt to jinx him). Not just the House, but the Senate too; George Allen is a dead man walking whether he realizes it or not. Think what this means:

- no more Rick Santorum
- no more Richard Pombo and his badly masked attacks on the Endangered Species Act
- no more Speaker Denny Hastert
- no more Genius Karl Rove
- no more Donald Rumsfeld

The Democrats have even learned the lesson of 2000 in Virginia: they've declared Victory and planned the transition. Never mind the failings and shortcomings of the Democrats, which are legion. Even if we get nothing but two years of gridlock and delay, that's far better than the aggressively stupid and vicious attacks on a century of needed social reform that we've weathered over the last six years. All Hail Victory!

Still More Good News!!

Congress has snuck a provision to close down the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction's office into the latest military authorization bill. If what we hear is true (in the NY Times' article at the above link) this clause magically appeared in conference but not in either the House or Senate version.

Let's see if we can follow this: a war/reconstruction that we were told would only cost about 3 billion, and pay for itself through Iraqi oil revenue, has proven to instead cost hundreds of billions and feature massive corruption (warehouses full of stacks of hundred dollar bills distributed to all and sundry), cost overruns (Halliburton), shoddy workmanship (see above) and general incompetence with no end in sight - and we're eliminating the one tool that has actually exposed some of this venality. Oh, and we're also losing the war and getting thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and the nation is descending into civil war and becoming a magnet for jihadis throughout the world who want to kill Americans.

Hey, what time does "Deal or No Deal" come on?

The War on Terror is Over

At least that is the word on the street. Usually they talk about the "Arab Street" but somewhere in this rambling country is still an "American Street," a Main Street and the sense I get is that the American people are ready to move beyond the perpetual state of war preferring a nice warm bowl of mushroom soup to disingenuous mushroom cloud talk. OK, so there is a real threat of a mushroom cloud from that handful of radicals but is victory in Iraq really have anything to do with this possibility? Maybe in one sense - our presence there is helping to create more radical discontent in the Muslim world. Imagine we were quote victorious unquote in Iraq: would the threat of a nuke being smuggled into our country be any less?
Let me ramble back to my point: the war on terror is over. Americans are moving on, one by one, past the war on terror. Can you rev us up about Korea? No. Could the prez talk us into invading Iran? Doubt it. This administration wants to talk about terror, war on terror, war against terror, war on islamo-fascico-extremos, terrorism, stay the course, finish the job, war on, war on, war on terror. Someone should tell these nutjobs that the American people have moved on!

Vote Early and Often

Never in my life did I think I'd care this much about a Congressional midterm election. But I'm obsessively following every twist and turn, while trying simultaneously not to get my hopes up. I'm going to stick to my long-ago prediction: despite all the polls (like Gallup's most recent at the above link), and the hopes, and the hard work and money spent, Karl Rove is going to find a way to hold onto both houses by the sagging corrupt purulent skin of his decaying fingertips, and on November 8th, I plan to hunt down John Kerry and kill him with a spear.