Rozius Unbound: Maureen Dowd: The Oval Intervention

Oh do read on. This is a good one!

Rozius Unbound: Maureen Dowd: The Oval Intervention:

MoDo suggests that this has not been a very Merry Christmas in whatever alternate reality that the Bush White House exists in. Lots of naughty and very little nice seems to be the theme this D. C. holiday season.

--The New York Times, December 9, 2006

It is not a happy mood in the Oval Office.

| Democrats frustrated by Bush's reaction to Iraq report

When will you people face it? Bush is NUTZ! Get him the hell out of there!

McClatchy Washington Bureau 12/08/2006 Democrats frustrated by Bush's reaction to Iraq report:

"WASHINGTON - Top Democrats in Congress left a White House meeting with President Bush on Friday frustrated over what they perceived as his reluctance to embrace major recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Democrats stressed to Bush in separate meetings the dire need for the administration to revamp its Iraq policy, but they don't expect him to embrace all 79 recommendations made this week by the panel, which was chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.
Bush said he talked about 'the need for a new way forward in Iraq' in his morning session with leaders from both parties and chambers of Congress, 'and we talked about the need to work together on this important subject.'

But some Democrats came away unconvinced that major changes were coming.
'
I just didn't feel there today, the president in his words or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically,' Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, D-Nev., said following the Oval Office meeting. 'He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes.'

Will Bush choose his new friends over his old?

Oh, Pulleeze! Since when has Goergie listened to anyone except Dick Cheney, posing as God?

Besides, these people are not Junior's friends, they are Poppy's friends. Given Junior's Oedipal issus, does anyone beieve he is going to really change course?

Will Bush choose his new friends over his old? Salon.com:

Dec. 8, 2006 At a press conference on Thursday, George Bush was asked whether he was 'in denial' about Iraq. 'It's bad in Iraq,' he shot back, to laughter. 'That help?' He also noted that the report of the James Baker-led Iraq Study Group, which was released Wednesday, was important enough that he had read it.

But the immediate speculation in Washington was that even if the president has really accepted that things are 'bad,' it doesn't mean he's ready to follow the ISG's advice on how to make things better. Some wondered which prescriptions he would ignore, while others suggested he might be trying to sabotage the ISG's suggested remedies altogether.

The reality is that the president, via briefings, has probably long been aware of what the ISG report would say. In fact, when Bush met Iraq's two leading Shiite politicians in the week just prior to the report's release, he was almost certainly acquainting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq party chief Abdul Aziz al-Hakim with the ISG's key proposals.

US bugged Diana's phone on night of death crash |

WTF?

US bugged Diana's phone on night of death crash UK News The Observer:

"Mark Townsend and Peter Allen in Paris
Sunday December 10, 2006
The Observer


The American secret service was bugging Princess Diana's telephone conversations without the approval of the British security services on the night she died, according to the most comprehensive report on her death, to be published this week.

Among extraordinary details due to emerge in the report by former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens is the revelation that the US security service was bugging her calls in the hours before she was killed in a car crash in Paris.

Spy widow points finger at Russia

Who the hell did this and why?

This polonium stuff is really quite scary.

BBC NEWS UK Spy widow points finger at Russia:

The widow of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has said she believes the Russian authorities could have been behind his murder.

Marina Litvinenko, 44, told the Mail on Sunday: 'Obviously it was not Putin himself, of course not.'
But she said what President Putin 'does around him in Russia makes it possible to kill a British person' in Britain.

She said she would not help Russia's planned inquiry into the death and was confident in the UK police probe.

Mrs Litvinenko told the paper Russian authorities had not yet been in touch with her.

MSNBC's Imus referred to "Jewish management" of CBS Radio as "money-grubbing bastards"

Holy Crap! 9/11 seems to have changed a few things.

I can remember a time when Imus would have been boiled in oil for a comment like this.

Looks like the NeoCons have managed to ruin more than just Iraq.

Media Matters - MSNBC's Imus referred to "Jewish management" of CBS Radio as "money-grubbing bastards":

As the Forward newspaper reported in a December 8 online article, Don Imus referred to the 'Jewish management' of CBS Radio as 'money-grubbing bastards' on the November 30 broadcast of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning. Imus was discussing a past conflict with his bosses about hosting the musical group the Blind Boys of Alabama. Executive producer Bernard McGuirk asked, 'Even if you wear a beanie, how can you not love the Blind Boys?' Imus continued, 'I said, 'They're handicapped, they're black, and they're blind. How do we lose here?' And then a light bulb just went off over [the managers'] scummy little heads.' CBS Radio owns WFAN, the New York station that is the flagship for Imus' radio show.
From the November 30 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning: As the Forward newspaper reported in a December 8 online article, Don Imus referred to the 'Jewish management' of CBS Radio as 'money-grubbing bastards' on the November 30 broadcast of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning. Imus was discussing a past conflict with his bosses about hosting the musical group the Blind Boys of Alabama.

Executive producer Bernard McGuirk asked, 'Even if you wear a beanie, how can you not love the Blind Boys?' Imus continued, 'I said, 'They're handicapped, they're black, and they're blind. How do we lose here?' And then a light bulb just went off over [the managers'] scummy little heads.' CBS Radio owns WFAN, the New York station that is the flagship for Imus' radio show.

From the November 30 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:

Bush and the Family Franchise

So, what is Poppy really so upset about?

Georgie has effed up more than the our ccountry, Iraq, the enitre Middle-east. our military and numerous other things of importance to most Americans.

He has royally screwed up any chances of another Bush being elected dog-catcher, at least while the current youngest voting generation is alive.

The Dark Dynasty is dead!

Clift: Bush and the Family Franchise - Newsweek Capitol Letter - MSNBC.com:

Dec. 8, 2006 - On the eve of a report that repudiates his son’s leadership, former president George H.W. Bush broke down crying when he recalled how his other son, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, lost an election a dozen years ago and then came back to serve two successful terms. The elder Bush has always been a softie, but this display of emotion was so over the top that it had to be about something other than Jeb’s long-ago loss. (We thought so too. That was way over the top for the occassion)

GOP Senator Joins Call for Pullout -- Says Situation in Iraq is 'Absurd,' Perhaps Even 'Criminal'

All we have heard from pundits, as we have waited for the ISG Report to be made public in its entirety is that the Dems were hiding behind it, waiting for a cover.

Seems to us that certain Republicans are the ones who are now using it as a cover to say what should have been said a long time ago, by a member of the majority party.

GOP Senator Joins Call for Pullout -- Says Situation in Iraq is 'Absurd,' Perhaps Even 'Criminal':

NEW YORK: As the national debate over Iraq, in the media and in Washington, continues in the wake of the Iraq Study Group report, a Republican U.S. Senator from Oregon has joined the fray in an unexpected way.

In a major speech in Congress on Thursday night, Sen. Gordon Smith called the current U.S. war effort 'absurd,' perhaps even 'criminal' and called for rapid pullouts. He added that he would have never voted for the conflict if he had reason to believe the intelligence the president gave the American people was inaccurate.

Cynthia's Parting Shot: Articles of Impeachment

Looks like we are heading in that direction, especially since Junior remains in fantasy-land, even after the ISG Report, the Gates Hearing, during which Gates stated, point-blank and in direct opposition to statement by Bush, that we are not winning in Iraq and the leaked Rummy memos.

Junior is a psychotic mule!

matt pascarella:

On Monday, gathering in a conference room in Washington D.C., Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her advisors worked on a draft copy of the articles of impeachment against President Bush.

Beating off the rescue party

Bush doesn't hear anything he doesn't want to hear, period!

Beating off the rescue party Salon.com:

Dec. 7, 2006 The Iraq Study Group's report, released Wednesday, calling the situation in that country 'grave and deteriorating' is hardly the first caution that President Bush has received. Two years ago, in December 2004, two frank face-to-face briefings were delivered to him from the field. In the first, the CIA station chief in Baghdad, who had filed an urgent memo the month before titled 'The Expanding Insurgency in Iraq,' was invited to the White House. The CIA officer had written that the insurgency was becoming more 'self-confident' and in Sunni provinces 'largely unchallenged.' His report concluded: 'The ease with which the insurgents move and exist in Baghdad and the Sunni heartland is bolstering their self-confidence further.' He predicted that the United States would suffer more than 2,000 dead. Bush's reaction was to remark about the station chief, 'What is he, some kind of defeatist?' Less than a week after the briefing, the officer was informed he was being reassigned from his post in Baghdad.

They Told You So.

Yes we did.

As usual, no one heard us, let alone gave our warnings a second thought.

We were at best a "focus group," according to the Commander-in-thief, and leftist fringe, commie pinkos and stinking Hippies by many MSM corporate whore-talking heads.

Will we ever receive an apology? When Pigs fly...........


Welcome to Pottersville: They Told You So.:

Shortly after U.S. forces marched into Baghdad in 2003, The Weekly Standard published a jeering article titled, “The Cassandra Chronicles: The stupidity of the antiwar doomsayers.” Among those the article mocked was a “war novelist” named James Webb, who is now the senator-elect from Virginia.

The article’s title was more revealing than its authors knew. People forget the nature of Cassandra’s curse: although nobody would believe her, all her prophecies came true.

And so it was with those who warned against invading Iraq. At best, they were ignored. A recent article in The Washington Post ruefully conceded that the paper’s account of the debate in the House of Representatives over the resolution authorizing the Iraq war — a resolution opposed by a majority of the Democrats — gave no coverage at all to those antiwar arguments that now seem prescient.

One by One, They Tell the Truth

A bit late for hundreds of thousands of people and their families.

Independent Online Edition > World Politics:

As Tony Blair flies out to meet George Bush, the latest admission of failure in Iraq has made the two leaders appear even more isolated. (They ought to be in isolation, at Gitmo)

Apocalypse Now

Junior's Revelation: Can he deal with it?

We doubt it. He is an obviosusly sick man who needs to be removed from office.

Independent Online Edition > World Politics:

A gauntlet was thrown at George Bush's feet yesterday when a long-awaited report on Iraq recommended that he seek the help of Iran and Syria, significantly bolster Iraqi forces and prepare to withdraw most US troops within 14 months.

It warned that finding a way forward had to be part of a broader Middle East settlement that established a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict and provided peace for Lebanon.
In a 100-page, bleak, uncompromising report that contained 79 separate recommendations, the Iraq Study Group warned 'the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating' and that a regional conflict could be triggered if things continued to slide. It added: 'There is no path that can guarantee success but the prospects can be improved.'

Move Over, Hoover

No shit!

Move Over, Hoover - washingtonpost.com:

Shortly after Thanksgiving I had dinner in California with Ronald Reagan's best biographer, Lou Cannon. Like many historians these days, we discussed whether George W. Bush is, conceivably, the worst U.S. president ever. Cannon bristled at the idea.

Bush has two more years to leave his mark, he argued. What if there is a news flash that U.S. Special Forces have killed Osama bin Laden or that North Korea has renounced its nuclear program? What if a decade from now Iraq is a democracy and a statue of Bush is erected on Firdaus Square where that famously toppled one of Saddam Hussein once stood?

Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon

....And they wonder why this anti-war movement isn't like the 60s.

If they will use it in Iraq they will use it here!

Wired News: Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon:

The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you've been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards -- and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.

You've just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq -- even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.

According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force's Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.

The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.

Bush and Blair defend need for Iraq ‘victory’

These guys are really too much for color TeeVee


FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa - Bush and Blair defend need for Iraq ‘victory’:


Tony Blair announced a mission to the Middle East on Thursday as he tried to use the damning Iraq Study Group report to drive US president George W. Bush into a new peace initiative for the region.

At a joint press conference, the British prime minister and Mr Bush showed few signs of accepting the repudiation of their Iraq policies by the Iraq Study Group. They defended the need for victory and remained committed to promoting democracy in the Middle East.

The group had called the situation in Iraq “grave and deteriorating”, but Mr Bush, making his first public response to the report at the press conference, used less pessimistic language, conceding that the death toll in Baghdad was “unsettling”.

Both leaders sought to frame the debate about Iraq as a long-term ideological struggle between Islamic extremists and moderates, and emphasised the need to defend fledgling democracies in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Groups mixed on Mary Cheney's pregnancy

I feel sorry for the kid, whose grandmother is Lynne Cheney.

Otherwise, we at the Lantern congratulate Mary and Heather and wish them the best of luck and health.

Groups mixed on Mary Cheney's pregnancy - Yahoo! News:

Conservative leaders voiced dismay Wednesday at news that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney, is pregnant, while a gay-rights group said the vice president faces 'a lifetime of sleepless nights' for serving in an administration that has opposed recognition of same-sex couples.

Mary Cheney, 37, and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, 45, are expecting a baby in late spring, said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president.

'The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation' to the arrival of their sixth grandchild, McBride said.

Mary Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign, and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL. She and Poe moved from Colorado to Virginia a year ago to be closer to the Cheney family.

Read the fine print: Posse Comatatus is dead

Apparently CQ is just now figuring this out. Congratulations guys!

CQ.com:

It’s amazing what you can find if you turn over a few rocks in the anti-terrorism legislation Congress approved during the election season.

Take, for example, the John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006, named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia.
Signed by President Bush on Oct. 17, the law (PL 109-364) has a provocative provision called “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies.”

The thrust of it seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to Katrina-like disasters.

But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president’s power to deploy troops within the United States.It’s amazing what you can find if you turn over a few rocks in the anti-terrorism legislation Congress approved during the election season.

Junior gets his ears boxed, right proper

This report is nothing less than devastating to the Bushites; appropriate, since Junior's ppolicies have been devastating to Iraq and our Constitution and our economy.

Report: Iraq policy not working Chicago Tribune:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush was presented Wednesday with both a pointed critique of his handling of the war and a road map for changing course in Iraq that would require the president to transform the military mission and recalibrate in fundamental ways his approach to Middle East diplomacy.

The Iraq Study Group, composed of a high-powered, bipartisan collection of establishment Washington figures, outlined a plan for drawing down U.S. forces by early 2008 and for directly engaging two regional adversaries, Iran and Syria. The report has added weight, and thus potentially puts added pressure on the president, because its lead architect was former Secretary of State James Baker, a long-time Bush family ally.

Unmethodical madness

Reading or, even more, watching the news has been an exercise in self-torture for years, now.

p m carpenter's commentary: Unmethodical madness:

Reading the news is no longer a mere informational experience. It has become, rather, a fretful descent into leaderless whiplash and cognitive dissonance, an unnerving peek into romper-room disarray and downright pixilation.

This dispiriting plunge, I suspect, is likely what threw Papa Bush into that contorted fit of teary-eyed gibbering the other day. Contrary to the media's psychoanalysis, he wasn't just thinking of Jeb or George, with pride or pity. He had simply read the papers that morning and shortly thereafter convulsed into a general state of neurotic despair.

Elizabeth de la Vega's Criminal Indictment of George W. Bush Et Al. -- A BuzzFlash Interview

We couldn't agree more.

Hey Dems! Are you listening.

Elizabeth de la Vega's Criminal Indictment of George W. Bush Et Al. -- A BuzzFlash Interview BuzzFlash:

The very process of getting those subpoenas out there, getting witnesses out there, getting this evidence that we already have in the public record, into a hearing format, is essential. The more we can illuminate the truth, the more people are going to understand ... we have to have these hearings in Congress. That is what I’m advocating.

-- Elizabeth de la Vega, author, United States v. George W. Bush et al.

Senators rap FBI over domestic spying

I see a bad moon risin' for the Bushites!

Senators rap FBI over domestic spying - Yahoo! News:

Senators frustrated by scant details on the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program on Wednesday rapped FBI Director Robert Mueller for refusing to show how it has curbed terrorist activity in the United States.

Mueller said he was unable to talk about the warrantless spying program because it is classified.

'What assurances can you provide that the program is worthwhile?' asked Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. 'Have arrests been made? Have terror cells been broken?'

The FBI has briefed congressional intelligence committees on the controversial program, but Mueller said he did not have permission to share that information with other lawmakers — including the judiciary panels that oversee the bureau.

'I am prepared to brief whichever committee, to the extent that I am allowed to,' he said.

Panel: Bush's Iraq policies have failed

This is bad news for Junior. There is no way he can bring himself to engage Iran and Syria after all he has said about them, and without their coopoeration, he and his misguided, disasterous mideast policy are sunk.

Panel: Bush's Iraq policies have failed - Yahoo! News:

President Bush's war policies have failed in almost every regard, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group concluded Wednesday, and it warned of dwindling chances to change course before crisis turns to chaos with dire implications for terrorism, war in the Middle East and higher oil prices around the world.


Nearly four years, $400 billion and more than 2,900 U.S. deaths into a deeply unpopular war, violence is bad and getting worse, there is no guarantee of success and the consequences of failure are great, the high-level panel of five Republicans and five Democrats said in a bleak accounting of U.S. and Iraqi shortcomings.

It said the United States should find ways to pull back most of its combat forces by early 2008 and focus U.S. troops on training and supporting Iraqi units. The U.S. should also begin a 'diplomatic offensive' by the end of the month and engage adversaries Iran and Syria in an effort to quell sectarian violence and shore up the fragile Iraqi government, the report said.

Bush to allow Oil drilling in the Aleutians

Prepare for a run on Flaxseed.

Environment News Service (ENS)#anchor1#anchor1:

WASHINGTON, DC, December 4, 2006 (ENS) - Sometime this week, President George W. Bush is expected to lift a presidential moratorium protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay from oil and gas drilling that was imposed by his father.

The presidential moratorium, banning exploration and production in the Outer Continental Shelf of the North Aleutian Basin was imposed in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound two years earlier.

The area includes the commercial fishing grounds of Bristol Bay, described by Professor Rick Steiner of the University of Alaska's marine advisory program as 'the breadbasket of entire Bering Sea.'
House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, says lifing the moratorium would be a mistake.

Kicking An 82 Year Old Man: The Right Attacks Jimmy Carter. Again.

It is beyond me that the Right never has a good thing to say about one of the most decent men to ever sit inn the W.H., and certainly a man who has done more good as an ex=presedent than any oteher in my life-time.

I doubt that Jimmy has either th stamina, nor the will to kick some Rightwing-butt, but plenty of us do.

So, bring it on, retards!

Seeing the Forest: Kicking An 82 Year Old Man: The Right Attacks Jimmy Carter. Again.:

Kicking An 82 Year Old Man: The Right Attacks Jimmy Carter. Again.
[Co-written with James Boyce, originally at Huffington Post]

Jimmy Carter is not remembered as a great President. Most folks might even consider him a failure, the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia. But why exactly do we hold one of the two Democratic Presidents of the last 38 years in such low esteem?

Isn't this the man that held the country together in the years after Watergate? Didn't he bring decency and honesty back to The White House?

Yes.

Isn't it a great American success story for a man to come from such humble beginnings, serve in defense of his country and then ascend to the highest office?

Yes.

Isn't it remarkable that back in 1979 he declared 'The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our Nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.' Isn't that leadership and vision?

The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War

It's amazing how long it takes Americans to wake up, once they have been shocked!

R.W. Behan The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War:

George W. Bush, who proudly claimed the mantle of 'war president,' was keenly rebuked in the recent mid-term election. The event was notable, but it merely continued the surreal politics of premeditated war - a politics that has dominated the last six bizarre, hideous years of our nation's history.

Two elements of the repudiation seem unreal, indeed. Not the fact of it, but the amazing length of its gestation period - those six years - and how tepid it was. Given the documented record of the Bush Administration - lying us into war, torturing prisoners, rewarding cronies with no-bid contracts, spying secretly on the nation's citizens, selling public policy to Jack Abramoff's clients, stating even their intent to ignore laws with dozens of 'signing statements' - one would expect the political about-face to have occurred far sooner, and the protest to have been a firestorm. Bush loyalists in Congress (and George Bush) should have been turned out angrily and en masse two years ago.

The victorious Democrats' response was even more surprising, and also unreal. 'Impeachment is off the table' quickly became the mantra: let us instead proceed with raising the minimum wage. Apparently the Bush Administration's record is flawless, showing nothing remotely approaching a high crime or a misdemeanor. Impeachment would be a 'waste of time.'
There is a good reason for these strange results: we practice a politics of surrealism, and have done so since George Bush was first put in office.

Gates: a member of the old guard!

Gates is no angel!

Consortiumnews.com:


The nomination of Robert Gates to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense has fueled claims that Gates is part of the realist-pragmatic group of advisors that served Bush the Older and now are being called upon to help Bush the Younger extricate the United States from a quagmire in Iraq.The nomination of Robert Gates to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense has fueled claims that Gates is part of the realist-pragmatic group of advisors that served Bush the Older and now are being called upon to help Bush the Younger extricate the United States from a quagmire in Iraq.

Peter Rost: Whistleblowers: Fired, Silenced . . . and Killed.

So, this is, possibly, what we face; all of whom tell the truth, or seek it with too much vigor.

Peter Rost: Whistleblowers: Fired, Silenced . . . and Killed. BuzzFlash:

Whistleblowers are traitors. There is no question that this is what most corporations and government entities think. It doesn't matter if the target is a private corporation, such as Enron with whistleblower Sherron Watkins, a government entity such as the FDA with whistleblower David Graham or an entire country, such as President Putin's Russia, which former Russian KGB agent and whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko harshly criticized.

All these entities react the same way: Shut down the whistleblower. Fire him, silence him, or kill him, whatever it takes.

Ray McGovern: A CIA Insider's Take on Robert Gates

I doubt he will even be questioned about his dark past with America's "Dark Dynasty."

Ray McGovern: A CIA Insider's Take on Robert Gates BuzzFlash:

The lame-duck Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee seems determined to force through confirmation of Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. The hurry is synthetic -- and totally unnecessary.

I know, I know -- everyone but Barney the dog wants Rumsfeld out of the Pentagon tout suite. According to a Pentagon spokesman, however, Gates has commitments that would preclude his taking the reins at the Pentagon until January. So, senators, relax already. Let Rumsfeld spend December at one of his houses in Taos, while you do your homework. There is no exaggerating the importance of the Gates candidacy.The lame-duck Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee seems determined to force through confirmation of Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. The hurry is synthetic -- and totally unnecessary.

Frank Rich: Has He Started Talking to the Walls?

Again, it seems, we are back to the question of whether or not the preznit has gone over the edge.

We would say: Yes!

Rozius Unbound: Frank Rich: Has He Started Talking to the Walls?:

Frank Rich wonders if the Great Pretender will ever face up to the reality of the damage that he has done not only to the people of Iraq but to the good name of the United States of America. Or, will the Crawford frat boy spend his last two years in office just roaming the halls of the White House chatting up the portraits like his GOP forefather Richard Nixon.

Bush aide: 'We have not failed in Iraq'

The people should institute a new policy of our own.

Anytime a government official tells an outright lie that a 5 year old could recognize as such, said official should be put in a stockade on the National Mall, where visitors could hurl rotten fruit and eggs at him, for a dollar a pop.

Bush aide: 'We have not failed in Iraq' - Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON - While President Bush acknowledges the need for major changes in Iraq, he will not use this week's Iraq Study Group report as political cover for bringing troops home, his national security adviser said Sunday.

'We have not failed in Iraq,' Stephen Hadley said as he made the talk show rounds. 'We will fail in Iraq if we pull out our troops before we're in a position to help the Iraqis succeed.'

But he added: 'The president understands that we need to have a way forward in Iraq that is more successful.'

The White House readied for an important week in the debate over Iraq: Bush planned a meeting Monday with Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite leader of the largest bloc in Iraq's parliament, and awaited the recommendations Wednesday from the bipartisan commission.

A Split in the GOP Tent

We have seen this possibility for quite sometime; that Libertarians could join the Democrats and, even some Liberals.

However, here are the problems we see with Liberals and Libertarians trying to join forces:

There would have to be some fairly big compromises in the two groups usuals stances on at least a couple of issues.

Libertarians would need to give in on some of their "everyman for himself attitudes" It is not in the best interests of the country to have the elderly, the disabled and the poor and their cchldren living and dying in the streets of this country. Universal healthcare, for example, is now more than just a good idea for the health of the nation, but also for national security, if there is, indeed, a threat of bio-terrorism, or even the threat of an Avian Flu outbreak.

Libertarians, however, are right about getting government off the backs of individuals and small business, though not large corporations, which have certainly shown themselves incapable of or unwilling to police themselves.

For example, the "war on drugs" should be immediately ended, as it has been a huge failure, except for trial lawyers and privately run prisons, and it provides cover for American intervention in countries where we have no business interfereing. In addition, the criminalization of drugs like Cannabis ruins lives far more so than the drug itself.

Yes, there would have to be compromises, but Liberals are far more in-step with Libertarians today, than the conservative authoritarians who now occupy D.C. and many State Houses.

Sebastian Mallaby - A Split in the GOP Tent - washingtonpost.com:

You can see this possibility in ' Liberaltarians,' an essay in the New Republic by Brink Lindsey, the director of research at the libertarian Cato Institute. Lindsey is not merely joining the large crowd of disenchanted conservatives who believe that the Republican Party has betrayed its principles -- spraying money at farmers, building bridges to nowhere and presiding over the fastest ramp-up in federal spending since Lyndon Johnson. Rather, Lindsey is taking a step further, arguing that libertarians should ditch the Republican Party in favor of the Democrats.

For Defense Nominee, Echoes of Old Questions

Would someone please go back and read Larry Walsh's final Iran/Contra report? (Walsh was a Republican, by the way)

This administration is already full of Iran/Contra felons and liars.

For Defense Nominee, Echoes of Old Questions - washingtonpost.com:

When President George H.W. Bush nominated him to lead the CIA in 1991, Robert M. Gates was at 47 the youngest intelligence professional to achieve that distinction.

But during his Senate confirmation hearings, Gates -- a brilliant, smooth-operating Soviet specialist -- lost some of his luster. CIA colleagues came forward to testify that he had kowtowed to the wishes of his superiors and had manipulated intelligence to suit White House policy. Questions also arose about his involvement in the Reagan-era Iran-contra scandal.

Early ‘Maybe’ From Obama Jolts ’08 Field

Still don't know much about Obama, but there is still plenty of time to learn, and what I do know about him, I like. He is a little short on experience, but his instincts are good.

I would feel better if he ran with somone like Wes Clark.

Right now, my dream ticket is Gore-Clark.

Early ‘Maybe’ From Obama Jolts ’08 Field - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — Senator Barack Obama’s announcement that he might run for president is altering the early dynamics of the 2008 Democratic nominating contest. The move has created complications for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as she steps up her own preparations and is posing a threat to lesser-known Democrats trying to position themselves as alternatives to Mrs. Clinton, Democrats said Sunday.

Can Bush Find An Exit? (Get Real)

He plans on leaving the mess to the next president, presumably a Democrat, just as Vietnam was dumped on Nixon, who, of course, pledged to end it and then made it worse.

If Iraq is left to a democratic president, let's hope he or she is prepared to do the right thing and stop the occupation of a labd into which we were never invited in the first place.

TIME.com: Can Bush Find An Exit? -- Dec. 11, 2006 -- Page 1:

George Bush has a history of long-overdue u-turns. He waited until he woke up, hungover, one morning at age 40 before giving up booze cold. He fought the idea of a homeland-security agency for eight months after 9/11 and then scampered aboard and called it his idea. He dumped Donald Rumsfeld last month as Defense Secretary, although lawmakers and even some generals had been calling for his head since 2005. Bush's biggest reversals usually come after months--even years--of stubborn resistance, when just about everyone has given up on his having any second thoughts at all. That's always been the point: he's a decider, he says, and deciders aren't supposed to undecide. When he does have to Kojak the car and head down the street in the opposite direction, he takes a little extra time getting it done.

But Bush has never had to pull off a U-turn like the one he is contemplating now: to give up on his dream of turning Babylon into an oasis of freedom and democracy and instead begin a staged withdrawal from Iraq, rewrite the mission of the 150,000 U.S. troops there as they begin to draw down, and launch a diplomatic Olympics across the Middle East and between Israel and the Palestinians. Even calling all that a reversal is a misnomer; it would be more like a personality transplant.

Senator Feinstein: Report Highlights Need for New Legislation to Reform Electronic Voting

Much Thanks is owed to you, Senator!

Now, let's get that legislation through and operative before 2008 or we may have Jeb as president, at which point I shall have to blow my brains out.

Senator Feinstein: Report Highlights Need for New Legislation to Reform Electronic Voting:

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), scheduled to become the new Chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee for the 110th Congress, today issued the following statement regarding electronic voting reform: