George Will believes John McCain's downfall is really due to his campaign finance law. I kid you not.

If you thought it was because McCain decided to align himself with one of the most unpopular presidents in history, and fully support one of the worst foreign policy decisions in decades, and trash his reputation as a straight-shooter by flip-flopping more than a caught fish let loose in a boat, then you'd be wrong.

It's amazing how these right-wing pundits can continue to write this stuff with the assumed expectation that it will be taken seriously. Giggles.

The right-wing crowd is already moving the bar on which to judge Bush's legacy.

George W. Bush's presidential legacy will ultimately depend on a decision he has yet to make: Iran....If President Bush doesn't stop the mullahs, or if he leaves the problem to his successor, his presidency will be judged a failure.

So never mind Iraq, it will be Iran that will decide whether or not GW's reign was a failure.

Reasonable people think not. But when the Iran problem, in addition to Iraq, inevitably gets dumped on to the next president, please don't forget these words from Mr. Forbes. It was George's fault.

Regarding the recently released White House intelligence report declaring the effort to fight al-Qaeda has failed and the Iraq war has actually helped Osama bin Laden, just imagine if this were Bill Clinton. The right-wing screaming media outlets would have been merciless, around the clock.

But let me understand: 9/11 occurs, al-Qaeda is responsible, this administration attacks a country not responsible for 9/11 and that has no al-Qaeda, the war is a disaster, eventually al-Qaeda moves into Iraq and starts to heavily recruit, and now the administration points to al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq as the reason we should stay. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda has thrived elsewhere. Incredible.

Again, if all of this happened under Bill Clinton, he would've been skewered 24/7, and deservedly so! However instead, because the person is a challenged moron and a Republican, we witness nowhere near the vitriol or stinging criticism that Clinton endured for much less.

The bottom line is this is a trumped-up war to power-grab oil vs. actually fighting terrorists to protect America. And as Fred Kaplan writes, "Many times, President Bush has said that we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. It is an absurd argument in many ways. But the NIE reveals that the opposite is the case—that because we're fighting them in Iraq, we are more likely to face them here."

Last week, the LA Times wrote:

When they began publicizing the benchmarks a year ago, administration officials saw them as realistic goals that would prod the Iraqi government toward reconciliation....Yet now, with the major goals still out of reach, the administration is playing down their importance. With an interim report on the U.S. effort due out today, administration officials instead are emphasizing other goals....

Bill Maher has said repeatedly that these guys have yet to get something right about this war, so why continue to believe anything they have to say? This is just one more example of them getting it wrong: they go with benchmarks -- oops, wrong, bad idea, so they scramble again, now looking to play down their importance. Same old, same old.

E. J. Dionne Jr. recently wrote that despite Vitter's transgressions, his personal life should remain private.

Dionne appears to be simply extending that which should've likewise applied to Bill Clinton, but unfortunately Vitter himself at the time was very vocal about Clinton's transgression, stating that public officials who commit adultery should resign from office. (Funny how Vitter commits adultery and doesn't resign but rather a week later he returns to office).

Dionne's urging would be fine for those politicians who would likewise respect the privacy of Americans, letting us live our lives as we see fit without their parental judging or preachings about what is moral. Whether it be sexual preferences or abortion or some other social issue, if they agree to butt out, so then will we.

But they don't, as with Vitter who repeatedly crusaded about "family values". Complete hypocrisy but more so he didn't shut up then, why should we now?

The Iraqi government vacation story has been widely reported and yet the Dems seem to be dropping the ball on this one. They should be reminding the American public of this sad fact repeatedly, every chance they get. Not only would this resonate with the public because of most developed nations in the world, the U.S. gets the least number of vacation days, but it would doubly resonate because it's galling and wrong. Our soldiers are over there sacrificing their lives and yet the local government officials feel the need to take a long vacation -- especially in light of Bush's September progress report fast coming due.

Recall that Cheney went to Iraq in May to try to convince them to nix this idea. It's obvious by snubbing the wishes of Cheney, and therefore Bush too, that the Iraqi government has no interest in doing even the bare minimum to achieve the established benchmarks. Bush/Cheney have to know this and yet they say not a word, choosing instead to have our soldiers fight for a cause the Iraqis themselves could care less about. You can take a horse to water....

Enough with our soldiers fighting for what has degenerated into a political shell game.

In May, I wrote about how an increasing number of former Reagan officials have felt the need to come out against Bush/Cheney. An interesting development given that Republicans today, many of whom remain loyal to Bush, long for the good old days of the Gipper.

The most recent being Reagan's former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts, calling for the immediate impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. Wow.

Let's see, they blocked Sen. Jim Webb's amendment that would have set restrictions on U.S. troop rotations to give troops more time at home, they have been negligent in supporting veterans (whether it be cutting their benefits or the Walter Reed nightmare, to the point where the VA head must resign), they did not properly equip our soldiers from the start, costing hundreds of lives, and now we have this, they're against a lousy 3.5% pay raise for the troops.

Uh, this is called "supporting our troops"??

How bad are prospects for the GOP in 2008? Their leading presidential candidate is known as None Of The Above.

With the change in primary schedule, parties must have things in order earlier than in prior election years and yet it appears as if the GOP is not only relatively poor, it simply can't seem to find a candidate that will please enough people. I've written before about the "pretzel dilemma" created by the extreme right-wing drift of this party and this poll appears to be further illustrating the point. Republicans won't tolerate anyone that is too far removed from GW, and yet the country has little appetite for another four years of this crap (much less another 18 months). Their strident, out-of-touch views will cost them dearly.

From Politico:

The Republican establishment is rallying to the defense of President Bush and his controversial war strategy, with some GOP members of Congress cherry-picking intelligence about a resurgent Al Qaeda to buy at least two more months for Bush's Iraq strategy.

Republican leaders on Tuesday pounced on a newly released National Intelligence Estimate to argue that the increasingly powerful and ominous Al Qaeda presence justifies current troop levels in Iraq at least until September.

What the f*ck will change in two months, other than more dead and injured U.S. soldiers?

In response to Harriet Miers not showing up at all for her hearing, the Dems wrote:

We are aware of absolutely no court decision that supports the notion that a former White House official has the option of refusing to even appear in response to a Congressional subpoena. To the contrary, the courts have made clear that no present or former government official – even the President – is above the law and may completely disregard a legal directive such as the Committee’s subpoena.

Government official? Isn't it obvious by now that Miers and others are at the behest of a king, a ruling emperor? This is unprecedented because we as a country have never before been ruled over by a king -- until now.

Based on USA Today's excellent report about the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq, the reason for the delay in supplying these life-saving necessities: excessive, foolhardy optimism about when the war would end. The top military brass always just assumed the occupation would end any day now and as a result, they kept putting off ordering these vehicles. It's estimated that if MRAPs (armored vehicles) had properly made their way to Iraq, it could've saved the lives of about 700 U.S. soldiers.

With Bush asserting executive privilege concerning Pat Tillman's death, does anyone have a final tally as to how many times this administration has copped executive privilege? Will Bush assert it next if a reporter asks him what day it is?

Did anyone else notice that late last week it was reported that the head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, had said "the inability of the [Iraq] government to govern seems irreversible," and that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around"...?

Given these words from the top guy at the CIA, can someone remind me again what hope Bush is clinging to at this point? How many of our soldiers must die chasing an illusory objective that Hayden appears to regard as forever unattainable? Madness.

It's no shocker that the White House is looking to block the reconvening of the Iraq Study Group. The problem? The ISG is independent, whereas as we've seen with the Iraq progress report released last week, the administration can freely edit and characterize progress any way they see fit. The bottom line: the ISG is more credible and likely more accurate -- thus, it must be banished.

Iraq's Prime Minister al-Maliki said on Saturday, "We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want." Needless to say, by yesterday the administration was all over these comments, trying to downplay them, saying the PM was misunderstood or misconstrued.

I guess the leader of Iraq knows not a wit about what he speaks and Mother USA knows better. At what point will their leaders be able to speak for themselves without us jumping in to correct them or state what they really meant to say? How does this need to edify their comments rate on the administration's benchmark progress-o-meter?

Well, which will it be, Bush/Cheney's complete and utter chaos resulting if we leave, or as al-Maliki forecasts? It's likely something in between, but this administration has been wrong so many times that a smart bettor would simply go against them at this point.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page has been so ludicrously dishonest for so long one has to wonder if Rupert Murdoch takes over the paper would this page actually have a chance of improving, given it can't get any worse.

Recent example: the think-trust displays a picture that they hope passes for what they consider to be a Laffer curve. Anyone at all familiar with rudimentary statistics will know that 1) you should discount or even toss outliers, and 2) a technique for doing so is regression analysis. By running a regression, a best-fit line is calculated, most often a straight line (linear). The Economist's View makes an attempt at this analysis (vs. the Journal's absurd Laffer curve, which depends on one outlier data point -- again, as if a six-year old drew it) and lo/behold they come up with a line that slopes steadily upward to the right, exhibiting more revenue results from higher tax rates.

But to a larger point, Kevin Drum correctly comments, "A junior high school geometry student would be embarrassed to produce work like this. But not the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Or the American Enterprise Institute, which created it in the first place. They apparently think their readers are too dumb to see what they're doing. Why their readership puts up with this obvious contempt for their intelligence is a question for another day."

It's not just the gents at the WSJ editorial page but also Fox News, Rush, Hannity, and the rest of the right-wing non-factual distortion machine. They all use their readers to achieve certain agendas, as opposed to actually enlightening them via truth, facts, and intellectual honesty. But since when did the consumers of this tripe ever not mind it, assuming of course they know about it? (big assumption)

On the Iraq progress report, the NY Times writes:

The administration’s decision to qualify many of the political benchmarks will enable it to present a more optimistic assessment than if it had provided the pass-fail judgment sought by Congress when it approved funding for the war this spring.

The administration officials who provided details of the draft report to The New York Times, insisting on anonymity, did so partly to rebut claims by members of Congress in recent days that almost no progress had been made in Iraq since President Bush altered course by ordering the deployment of about 30,000 additional troops earlier this year.

It's been widely reported that this report was to show that Iraq has failed to meet every benchmark, meaning the report was to show an 0-18 count of failure. However, as this administration has done with CIA and EPA reports, just to name a few, they decided to do some heavy editing before finally releasing the document. Instead of assigning pass/fail grades, the report judges the rate of progress.

When you take a pass/fail course in school, you either pass or fail. That's called a benchmark. Your final grade is not a description of your rate of progress in the class, such as "while student X made great strides during the course, alas he/she unfortunately failed." Bottom line: you failed.

Of course, the Times has this line, "The administration's assessment comes the day after U.S. intelligence experts offered an overwhelmingly negative view of military and political conditions in Iraq, saying that Iraqi forces will remain incapable of taking charge of security for years to come and that deepening sectarian political divides remain the largest impediment to progress."

Which are you going to believe, the intelligence experts or this administration's editors?

The religious right may have to continue to search for that Republican presidential candidate who satisfies all of their many demands, anti-abortion credentials being at the top of the list, because it looks like another one, Fred Thompson, fails.

Not only did he do lobbying work for an abortion-rights organization, his former law partner at the time says, "the only person who worked on it was Fred," implying Thompson's current bout with amnesia is all the more laughable. In addition, in 1994 when Thompson was faced with the question of whether or not laws should permit abortion on demand, he said "I do not believe that he federal government ought to be involved in that process."

Look, this matter is just like the one I highlight at the top of my blog, when Bush decided to endorse pro-choice Arlen Specter over pro-life Pat Toomey. These guys could really give a rat's ass about abortion. They simply use it to garner the needed votes from an important faction of their base. But again, the operative word being "use".

Thompson is shoveling much crap about how all lawyers must represent clients who stand for things or have done things the lawyer does not always agree with. Perhaps this applies to less-established lawyers who need to make a buck wherever they can but it likely applies much less to an established, well-connected lawyer -- like Thompson. He or his firm could've very easily have turned away this client at the time, but he/they didn't.

Also, according to the religious right folks, this issue of abortion is above compromise, it's completely black and white. It's murder and therefore it's absolutely wrong, period. Therefore, Thompson is saying that as a lawyer he was willing to take on and represent an organization that was involved in advocating murder. Tough to wiggle your way out of that one -- unless the religious right is indeed willing to look the other way and compromise on this issue....

McCain's run at the White House is all but finished and it's amazing he hasn't yet officially quit. Jay Carney offers up a reason for why McCain failed so badly: Iraq.

It's very simple: hitch your campaign wagon to a massively unpopular and emotional issue and you will suffer the consequences. End of story and end of campaign. McCain made a hugely stupid bet and predictably lost.

Yet, his demise was not solely due to embracing Bush's stance on Iraq. Another big factor was his willingness to trash that which made him very popular, his willingness to go against the grain, speak frankly, and be the so-called maverick. All of that was expeditiously locked away in the cellar in favor of stooping down to lick the feet of the religious right and one of the most inept and corrupt administrations in memory. The hypocrisy and the flip-flopping was unbearably stomach churning.

Yeah, I think that also had something to do with his abrupt tank job.