Obama speech endorsing indefinite detentions for "preventive" purposes...

Rachel Maddow is a very liberal political commentator on MSNBC who typically gives Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt on everything he says/does. However, in her reporting of President Obama's speech at the National Archives in late May regarding President Bush's "ad hoc legal framework" for indefinite detentions of POWs at Guantanamo Bay she does her fellow liberals, and all Americans for that matter, a great service by reading through Obama's B.S.  

In his speech, after artfully chastising the Bush Administration's alledgedly unconstitutional policies, the president argues for establishing what amounts to an ad hoc legal framework for PREVENTIVE INDEFINITE DETENTIONS!! The only real distinction between Bush's policy and Obama's would be that Bush detained indefinitely for crimes committed, while Obama would indefinitely detain for crimes to be committed one day. Watch this video and hear it from straight from Maddow herself...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Rachel Maddow Calls Out Obama On "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• "The Rachel Maddow Show" Only Cable News Program Nominated For TV Critics' Award (huffingtonpost.com)

Goodbye Mr. Russert, We Will Miss You...

Image via Wikipedia

Tim Russert passed away Friday while taping the introduction to his weekly broadcast of Meet The Press, unquestionably the most watched and respected hour in all of political television every Sunday morning. He was a tremendous personality and a great lover of all things political, a passion I certainly understand as well as anyone.

One of my high school English professors at Loyola Academy, Father Robert Ytsen S.J., was a college roommate of Tim's at John Carroll in Cleveland, OH. The stories he shared with us were among the greatest college stories I have ever heard. According to Father Bob, he and Tim invented the drive thru one evening when they drove through the front window of a local White Castle to place their order, which is a story I doubt many people have heard.

Sadly, but perhaps appropriately, this Sunday is Father's Day and nobody has done more to remind America of the importance of fathers than Tim. It has been a few years since I have seen Father Bob, but the last time we had lunch together he recommended that I read Big Russ and Me, Tim's renowned and touching book about his father. I went straight from lunch to Barnes and Noble to buy myself a copy of the book, but it ended up getting lost among my piles of political biographies, weekly magazines and daily sections of the Financial Times. I went back and found the book last night and moved it straight to the top of my reading list.

Below I have included three videos from Hulu, the first is an excerpt from Friday evening's Late Show with Conan O'Brien during which he gives his own tribute to the lighter side of Tim Russert. The others are full episodes of Meet The Press featuring Tim Russert at his best with the 42nd and 43rd Presidents of the United States.

Goodbye Tim, America will miss you.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Death of Tim Russert: NBC's Weekend Plans
• Death of Tim Russert: Steve Capus Statement
• Top US TV journalist Russert dies
• Tim Russert - The 2008 TIME 100 - TIME

Welcome to the circus Ralph...

Ralph Nadar announced today on Meet The Press that he has decided to enter the 2008 race for the White House. Word of Nadar's consideration of another campaign only surfaced in the last few days, at least in the mainstream news or on Drudge Report. Exactly what impact he will have on the campaign is unclear, but this makes the hill Obama needs to climb to get to Pennsylvania Avenue perhaps to large for even the biggest of personalities (however empty and without substance it may be).

Chris Matthews throws watermellon-sized softballs to Democratic candidates...

Chris Matthews might as well have let the candidates choose the questions he was going to ask him today during MSNBC's "Super Tuesday" joke, and he spent more time facilitating the anti-Bush talking points and exchanging banter with the embarrassingly disrespectful crowd than he spent pressing the candidates about the issues. It was almost as pathetic as his interview with Nancy Pelosi, which left him looking like a star-struck teenager as he literally answered each question in the process of asking it while simultaneously drooling all over himself.

The most infuriating question so far was his lame attempt at pressing John Edwards about what he WOULD HAVE DONE IF HE WAS PRESIDENT DURING HURRICANE KATRINA! What an absolute joke. Nobody could stop what happened in New Orleans, NOBODY, and what good does it do the city to belabor the issue of how the initial response was managed? Is it not more important that we realistically address what we are going to do with New Orleans from today forward? It is irresponsible to dodge the matter of whether or not we are actually going to rebuild below sea level, which should be at the top of the Democrats list of things to avoid considering they have all embraced Al Gore's forecast of a several meter rise in global sea levels. Where is the justice in rebuilding people's homes in a place that might be completely indefensible against the forces of nature ten or fifteen years down the road? Clearly this is too complicated for Chris Matthews to wrap his mind around.

Well, as usual Matthews delivers on his daily unspoken promise to wet himself in the presence of the modern day "Bobby Kennedy", as he ridiculously referred to Barack Obama, who apparently captures all of the "magic" that Chris is still clinging onto from his free love and world peace college years. There are two different Chris Matthews; the bulldog that doesn't let Republicans finish a sentence that casts Bush in a positive light, and there is the fourteen year-old school girl who stares dumbstruck at his 'heroes' and lets them get away with intentional distortion of history and marginalization of the future.

That is just my take though.

Tags: Chris Matthews, MSNBC, Cable News, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina

Tucker Carlson is a pathetic sell-out...

Ever since leaving CNN for his own show on MSNBC, Tucker Carlson has misplaced his spine and abandoned everything that made him the prominent conservative commentator that he used to be. Ever since he was sandwiched between Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman, Tucker has made a mockery of his reputation and does very little other than bad mouth Republicans at every turn. This might be due to the fact that no self-respecting Republican will any longer be a guest on his show, which has left him with random Democratic operatives who make bad points to which he lamely responds, "I agree, I agree." Chris Matthews may as well be standing behind him pulling the string, because I haven't heard anything other than pandering to his now liberal audience for months.

When his book came out a few years ago, Politicians, Partisans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, I read it in one night. I used to ask for bow ties at Christmas time because I was the biggest Tucker Carlson fan in the entire Chicagoland area. But for whatever reason, Tucker has changed, and I don't buy for one second that it is because of the war in Iraq. Personally I think he is drinking the kool-aid Chris Matthews brews for him every morning, because he sounds like an idiot a lot of the time. I know he is smarter than that, but it is difficult to tell anymore when the best part of his show is when he brings on Willy Geist to poke fun at Paris Hilton.

He constantly wants to assert that Bush lied, which is the most intellectually dishonest position that the fringe Bush-haters have taken, when there is so clearly a difference between being wrong and being disingenuous. Unfortunately Tucker has lost touch with common sense and has bought into the left-wing spin machine talking points. I am sure that when he realizes that he has contributed to the emergence of a Democratic decade in control over government, he will change his tune real fast. Unfortunately, by then the damage will be done and America will be much, much weaker than it has ever been at any point in our history. Apparently that is the America that Tucker wants to live in...

Tags: Tucker Carlson, Chris Matthews, Tucker, MSNBC, Pundits, Cable News

One thing Obama got right in debut debate...

Joe Scarborough, former-Republican Congressman and host of MSNBC political talkshow Scarborough Country, wrote on his Huffington Post blog of Barack Obama's performance in the first Democratic Primary debate, "Let's face it, the guy wasn't JFK or Bobby last night. He wasn't even Mario Cuomo. Instead, Barack Obama acted like a candidate who was a state senator last time a presidential debate was conducted."

Senator Barack Obama has had more impressive performances than his recent debut as a national candidate in MSNBC's first debate for the crowded Democratic primary field. He stammered out a pathetic response to a question from moderator Brian Williams about how he would react to another 9/11-scale attack on the United States, instinctively citing federal failures in response to Hurricane Katrina, failing to jump all over the obvious opportunity offered him to assert his heretofore unimpressive qualifications to be Commander in Chief.

When questioned about which three allies he thought to be the United States' most important, some commentators have accused Senator Obama of making another political gaffe when he named off the European Union, NATO and Japan. The Senator has come under fire from much of the liberal mainstream because of his obvious omission of Israe l, which would have likely been the first word most, maybe all of the other candidates would have uttered in response to that same question. However, I believe that essentially the Senator answered the question correctly. Though Obama may wish he could go back and insert Israel for NATO, I am glad to hear that he instinctively left Israel out, and it makes me less weary of an Obama White House.

The reality is that Israel is in fact one of the major catalysts for anti-Americanism in both the Middle East and the European Union, places where the prevailing political wisdom is to view the Jewish state with suspicion. US policy concerning the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict has been deeply flawed and irreparably harmful to the United States' interests since the Truman Administration. I believe that this is a point-of-view shared by an overwhelming majority of young voters (under-30) and any candidate that clearly articulates an alternative policy for engaging the Israeli government on terms that hold it accountable for demonstrating tangible progress on the "road map" for peace, would have a decided advantage in a general election.

Tags: Barack Obama, MSNBC, Joe Scarborough, MSNBC, Democrats, Primary Debates, 2008 Election

Rethinking Imus...

So when Al Sharpton began his crusade to have Don Imus fired from MSNBC last week I took a strong position in support of Imus, who is one of my favorite media personalities. I rarely miss his MSNBC broadcast and I am very disappointed that I will not be able to see it any longer. However, I have reconsidered my sympathetic feelings for Mr. Imus after listening to Keith Olbermann on Dan Patrick's radio program talking about Imus as a co-worker, Olbermann also being the host of an MSNBC program, made it very clear that Don Imus was not well liked among the staff at the MSNBC New York studios. Apparently he would terrorize young female staffers, making them cry because he would call them names far worse than "nappy headed hos", which is the comment that sent the civil rights leaders into their uproar.

I have great respect for Keith Olbermann, who along with his former-ESPN colleague and Sportscenter co-host Dan Patrick made every morning worth waking up for when I was just a lad who rarely watched cable news but never missed the dynamic duo. I had never considered that Imus was actually as miserable as the on-air personality he occassionally embodies when sparing back-and-forth with his crew, but according to Olbermann, nobody on the MSNBC staff was a big Don Imus fan and they made their voices heard when the station's management was deciding what course of action would be most appropriate. I am surprised Imus was offered and signed a contract extension just recently in light of the way he was viewed by his co-workers, but I suppose the network considered nothing other than the revenue he brought to their station. In the end, it was probably this same cash-flow consideration that led the MSNBC executives to pull the plug on Imus, rather than their genuine concern for their employees and their opinions. I still don't think that Imus should have been fired, but I no longer feel so bad for him.

Tags: keith olbermann, dan patrick, don imus, MSNBC, cable news

Unholy ministers tell Imus he should be fired for controversial comments...

I don't know about the rest of you people, but I am really starting to get mad about the uproar over comments made by Don Imus last week which were racial in nature. I watch the Don Imus show nearly everyday, he is one of the funniest and most respectable shock jocks on the radio; certainly more appropriate and interesting than Howard Stern and some of his other competitors. Though his comments were clearly inappropriate, I think that way in which the media has embraced this story and made it into such an important issue is a perfect example of how sensationalized our society has become.

I understand that these young basketball players at Rutgers are very upset about what was said, but lets get serious, they would never have known nor cared about what some old man said if they were National Champions today, instead of runners-up. How can anyone expect 18-22 year-old women who have just suffered the most devastating defeat of their esteemed athletic careers to have a rational or uninfluenced opinion of Imus's off-hand comment. Instead, they have been thrust in front of the camera and told to pass judgement on a man who they do not know and likely do not listen to. The Rutgers head coach gave a 20 minute speech before a live television national audience about her difficulties handling the devastating loss in Sunday's National Championship, the recent passing of her husband, and now she has been thrown to the pack of politically correct bloodhounds- how can we possibly think that she is in a position mentally or emotionally to be passing judgment on Don Imus. We don't need these college athletes to have a press conference expressing their dissappointment with Imus's comments, we know what he said was wrong, and the proper thing to have done would have been to let these young ladies go back to their lives as students and allow them to escape the spotlight while they get over their defeat in the national championship.

The mainstream media could careless however, and with a few respectable exceptions, has crucified Imus by allowing Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to lead the mass-media lynching against a man that said a something off-hand for a laugh. Don Imus is a former Marine and 30-year veteran of radio and television broadcasting. He is not an arrogant and abrasive loudmouth (at least in my opinion), and to insist that he should be fired for these comments is tantamount to declaring that, as Bill Maher stated on Imus Tuesday morning, Imus should be deprived from his livelihood and have his legacy permanently stained because his comments have deeply upset opportunists and ministers who have no concept of forgiveness and understanding. Matt Lauer asked the Reverend quite directly whether or not he thought that, as a minister, forgiveness was in order, but Sharpton was undeterred and continued his crusade to ruin the life of a man that has earned the admiration of many more respectable and informed people than the opportunistic Reverend. Sharpton should be ashamed and he should lose his program for leading the mob against a legend in the radio business who should never have to answer to a man who obviously cares very little for anything other than putting an old man out of work.

Imus has really impressed me with the gracious and apologetic manner in which he has carried himself over the course of the past few days. He had never struck me as a particularly patient or humble individual, but he has emerged from his flogging at the hands of his colleagues and every black minister in America as the only real victim in the entire ordeal. There will continue to be calls for the veteran DJ to resign, or be fired, but I would be shocked if the MSNBC will drop their biggest (and only) cable news superstar from their morning time slot. Imus has undoubtedly won more viewers from this ordeal than he has lost, since I find it highly unlikely that those of us who have grown to love the old man's style will find anything nefarious about what he said and how it was handled, except possibly an even greater disdain and disrespect for the Unholy Ministers, Sharpton and Jackson.

Tags: MSNBC, Don Imus, Imus in the Morning, Racism, Al Sharpton, Cable News, Bill Maher, Donald Trump, Media, US Media, Jesse Jackson, Injustice

What would a "not guilty" verdict in Libby trial mean for the mainstream media?

It is difficult to watch media coverage, mainstream or otherwise, of the ongoing Scooter Libby trial without coming out of the experience with the overwhelming impression that Libby must be guilty of something. For months now, ever since the Time Magazine and New York Times reporters were tossed in jail for refusing to expose their source when ordered by a federal judge, the media has been convulsing before our eyes. No rational observer would contend that Libby, or Vice President Cheney for that matter, have been given the respect deserved of the nation's executive branch officials either during the investigation by US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald or during the lead-up to and during the trial proceedings.....

This case has fascinated me since the day Joesph Wilson wrote is ridiculous op-ed piece in the New York Times accusing George W. Bush of distorting the intelligence report he filed with the Vice President's office upon returning from the fact finding trip to Niger that his wife so kindly volunteered him for while working "clandestinely" in Langley, Virginia, behind a desk at CIA headquarters. Interestingly, Wilson accused the president of falsely asserting in his now famous 18-words during his 2002 State of the Union speech, that Iraq had "purchased" yellow-cake uranium from Niger. He would have been correct, if in fact that was what the president said, but as we have all seen and heard over and over and over again, Bush's exact words were, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In a simple Google search I discovered a timeline published by the BBC which lists the statements made by British intelligence, the US president and his then National Security Adviser Condolezza Rice, IAEA nuclear inspector Mohammed El-Baradi, Ambassador Wilson, then CIA director George Tenet and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair among others regarding the accuracy and basis of this assertion. They are listed as follows...

• 24 September 2002- "There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civilian nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium." (Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The assessment of the British Government)

• 28 January 2003- "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." (US President George W Bush's State of the Union address)

• 7 March 2003- "Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded." (UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei's report to the UN Security Council)

• 3 July 2003- "It is very odd indeed that the Government asserts that it was not relying on the evidence which has since been shown to have been forged but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence... We recommend that the Government explain on what evidence it relied for its judgement in September that Iraq had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. We further recommend that in its response to this Report the Government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about Iraq's attempts to procure uranium from Africa in the light of subsequent events." (House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report)

• 6 July 2003- "It was highly doubtful that any such (Niger-Iraq) transaction had ever taken place."- (Wilson writing in the New York Times in February 2002)
  

• 8 July 2003- "The president's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake [uranium] from Niger. So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the president's broader statement." (White House spokesman Ari Fleischer)

• 8 July 2003- "The evidence that we had that the Iraqi Government had gone back to try to purchase further amounts of uranium from Niger did not come from these so-called "forged" documents, they came from separate intelligence." (British Prime Minister Tony Blair testimony to the House of Commons Liaison Committee)

• 11 July 2003- "The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety... Some specifics about amount and place were taken out. With the changes in that sentence, the speech was cleared. The agency did not say they wanted that sentence out. If the CIA - the director of central intelligence - had said "Take this out of the speech," it would have been gone. We have a high standard for the president's speeches." (National security adviser Condoleezza Rice on US President George W Bush's State of the Union address)

• 11 July 2003- "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president. The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. I am responsible for the approval process in my agency." (CIA Director George Tenet)

• 12 July 2003- "The CIA expressed reservations to us about this element of the September dossier... However, the US comment was unsupported by explanation and UK officials were confident that the dossier's statement was based on reliable intelligence which we had not shared with the US... A judgement was therefore made to retain it." (UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a letter to Donald Anderson MP, Chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee)
  

To quote one of my favorite Sesame Street skits, "Which one of these is not like the others, which one of these just doesn't belong?" For those of you out there who excelled at this section of the SATs, I assume it was pretty easy to single out the assertion of former-Ambassador Wilson that it was "highly doubtful that any such transaction ever took place." Once again I return to my trusty Google companion to find out what impact Wilson's statements may have had on the inclusion of that controversial assertion made by the president, and sure enough, an article posted on factcheck.org, under the title, Bush's "16 Words" on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong, But He Wasn't Lying, it became clear that Wilson had in fact given credibility to intelligence gathered from other sources that in 1999 an Iraqi delegation had traveled to Niger and it was the impression of the Nigerian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki that they were obviously intent on purchasing Uranium from his country. Additionally, the Ambassadors oft cited assertion that his trip had been the primary basis of the president's comments is also easily rejected in the web-site's article, which cites both the 2003 Senate Intelligence Report and the UK's Butler Report (equivalent), both of which claim that the president's statement had been entirely consistent with intelligence gathered and confirmed regarding Iraqi contacts with Niger, as well as with Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The reason I have taken the effort to thoroughly discredit the Ambassador again is because if you watch the media reports on Scooter Libby's trial it would be entirely reasonable to conclude that the president had in fact lied and his administration had, upon being outed by Wilson, embarked on a mission to destroy not only Wilson's reputation and credibility, but that of his "covert" wife too.

When I was working in Washington as an intern, I went to watch a lecture and Q & A session with Sam Donaldson, former-host of Dateline. For the most part, his talk was engaging and his demeanor pleasant- but then he started talking about the Judith Miller situation. Miller was facing serious jail time if she refused to come forward with the name of her source in the White House, and Donaldson was noticeably disgruntled. His rant was soaking with self-righteousness, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, because I assumed he had once hidden behind such journalistic privilege and had spoken with Miller about the situation and trusted in her journalistic integrity. Then it became aware to everyone in subsequent weeks and months that Donaldson, and pretty much every other big name journalist and editor, could not have cared less about Miller, who in fact went to jail, and were ready to sell her up the river based on (hilariously) her reporting of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War.

A simple search of Google News will yield proof that the media is biased beyond humility, and equally as opportunistic as the embarrassingly unprofessional legislators on both sides of the aisle. I have previously cited my feeling that history will look upon this generation of civil servants to be particularly unenlightened and driven by opportunistic impulsiveness, but how will we look back on the media?

Don Imus seriously considered the possibility that the members of the mainstream media may have lied under oath, and his buddies at NBC, Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert, are in the center of the storm. I have a feeling that the Imus Show is right on the money, even though they have already risen Russert to the producer's studio this morning to have Imus sound little bit more like he is kidding, as the translation of his sarcasm is sometimes that it was not in fact sarcasm.

What if this whole experience, which has been given little, if any, serious thought and reflection since it began following Ambassador Wilson's editorial in the New York Times, comes full circle? What if in the end Libby gets off? My guess is that it would be a hard pill for Chris Matthews to swallow. I expect that "they" would immediately jump to a defensive posture, with Matthews screaming about injustice. I would not put it past the Gonzalez justice department to file perjury charges against the Meet the Press host, for they have already proven by taking the case this far that they are serious about the problem (or at least making sure that somebody takes the fall for it).

Responding to the pathetic response to Bush's speech in the media and on the Hill

George W. Bush has clearly evolved in his approach to winning the war in Iraq, and it seems that an escalation in the war against Middle Eastern radicalism is at hand. Listening to the media and Congress react to the speech delivered by the president from the White House last night has confirmed my long suspicions that the Administration is ready to take the Iranian issue to the next level. As I see it on MSNBC siting here now, with Joe Scarborough, Joe Klein, Pat Buchanan and Chris Matthews already turning the scare machine up to full volume. At least Buchanan is level-headed, admitting that such a radical policy change is bound to prove effective either quickly, or not at all. For Klein to call the address the biggest blunder he has ever seen in his 35-years of covering politics is absolutely ridiculous, and clearly he is not a very deep thinker on matters of military strategy. I know you are probably going to call me a chicken hawk, or you think I am unqualified to comment, but Joe Klein's ignorance has without question given every armchair general across the country a position worth 5 minutes on Scarborough Country. For the host's part, he did a great job of reminding the viewers that the US military invaded Iran by default when it raided their countries consulate in Northern Iraq, without once recognizing the Administration and military's shared opinion that the enemies of the coalition are being financed and logistically supported by the Iranian government. Bush has never pretended that he views the Iranian government as anything other than pure evil, a terrorist state, and I have never heard a credible refutation of that assertion. I think it is unlikely that, as the pundits seem to be implying, the administration is only putting pressure on the Iranians to divert attention from the failure that is Iraq, but rather I believe that Bush has always held viewed the Iranians as the greatest challenge to America's interests in the Middle East. To this point, the president has employed the very same diplomatic and multi-lateral methods so vehemently asserted as a better alternative to war with Saddam, and the Iranian response has been to simply reject the will of the "world community" and our "European allies". It only seems appropriate that the president respond to the to defiance by taking measures to protect against the threats posed by a defiant terrorist state, which has been supporting terrorist attacks that have killed scores of US troops.

I must give Klein a bit of credit, he closed well, reiterating almost verbatim one aspect of the proposal I put forth earlier this week, that the US pull out of Baghdad and into the mountains and desert regions, so as to allow the Iraqi military (now some 220,000 strong and fully trained) cut the head off of any civil war that foments in the vacuum that is created following troop redeployment. But I have heard very little reasoned analysis tonight, instead hearing little more than pompous opportunism by pundits who are more concerned with what the polls say than what the military and Bush Administration have presented as the facts on the ground. I have been thinking quite a bit about the current state of political discourse, particularly in Washington in modern times, and I have been hoping to write a post dedicated to the topic, but from the first minute the thought occurred to me I new that it would be entitled The Age of Opportunism. There is no word more suited to characterizing the reckless, self-inflated and shock driven personalities that currently inhabit what is popularly known as the "mainstream media". Though it took nearly six years to hack away at Bush, whom they so obviously view with a disdain and sense of intellectual superiority, they have finally succeeded at melting the brains of enough American's to aid in the emergence of a more progressive political order that shares their snobbish perspective on the current president and his policies. It is almost impossible to even watch prime time cable news anymore, with a few exceptional exceptions, because it increasingly feels like either a evangelical infomercial or a goom-by-a peace rally.

It appears as if the American embassy has come under attack tonight in Athens, and I can't help but wonder- is this Hezbollah striking back at the US for today's raid on their consulate? My suspicion is yes, but I doubt it will be fully understood soon enough for it to even have any bearing on the debate, but I also suspect this is far from the end. If today's raid on what is technically Iranian territory and the air strikes against terrorist elements in Somalia don't signal a very serious, and focused escalation of the war against global extremism and terrorists, I am at a loss for what exactly would. It has been difficult to sit-by and watch the president squirm in the run-up to and the aftermath of the November election, but the fact that he only accepted Rumsfeld's resignation the day after election day and waited until the new Congress was seated before announcing his new policy, is indication that he is a man driven by principles that are largely unheard of in the deeply partisan legislature.

I realize that I may sound irrational in my ranting, but I am absolutely amazed by the utter rejection of everything Bush proposed as empty, misguided rhetoric. Last time I checked, the executive branch made and implemented foreign policy, so the disregard for deference, in my opinion, is nothing more than another indication that politicians are more driven by opportunism than by finding solutions to our problems. I distinctively heard the president challenge the Democrats to propose an alternative, detailed policy for winning in Iraq. Where in all of the pontificating today did we hear such a proposal? That is absolutely right, we didn't, but were rather fed crap talking points about "seeking a new course" or a "new way forward".

In my mind, several questions are now unavoidable and should have been seriously addressed in the committee hearings that were so effectively hijacked by presidential hopefuls this afternoon. Most obviously, are we headed into another invasion of a large, hostile Middle Eastern country? Are we prepared to do whatever it takes to eliminate the Iranian nuclear program? What type of involvement have the Iranians had in supporting and cultivating the chaos in Iraq? What do we do if the Iranians strike first? Where do I sign up for a machine gun and a plane ticket to Tehran?