Who says things will necessarily get worse if we leave Iraq? Could this be more of a political statement than anything else? Barry Posen lays out many of the what-ifs in staying vs. leaving and as usual much of what GW is telling us is by no means a sure thing.

Referring to Michael Bloomberg, I've stated in the past, "the GOP could do far worse than have this guy run for prez in '08." I continue to feel that way, esp. after his pseudo endorsement of Gore.

For those of you (gulp) who rely on the New York Post for real news. Shame on you.

So Mitt Romney believes spending any time or money trying to track down the man responsible for 9/11 is just a waste and "not worth" it.

Imagine if Hillary or Obama uttered such words. The right-wing scream machine would still be throwing down harsh condemnations. But when one of their own says it -- nothing, zilch, silence.

Also, no buzz from any Dems, perhaps suggesting they don't fan flames like Republicans. But even worse for Romney, perhaps simply no one cares what he has to say about anything.

But things are getting better, right?

World terror attacks up nearly 30%, report says

I guess Bush would say it could've been worse, attacks could've increased by more than 50%....

As you all know, George Tenet has a new book coming out where apparently he does the kiss-kiss with GW (don't want to cross those Bushies!) but mainly is out to protect his own ass. Now that Iraq is obviously a bust and the pre-war intel was baked like a deep-dish pizza, anyone associated with the machinations leading up to the war want to do their best to distance themselves from the fiasco. In this case, Mr. Presidential Medal of Freedom winner (hah!) wants to make clear his "slam dunk" statement was taken completely out of context (how dare those dastardly devils!) and gosh darn it, he's appalled!

Oh brother. How many years later do we have to hear this guy cry foul, perhaps prompted by as mentioned the Iraq fiasco fast unfolding, but also likely due to his need to offer up something, anything to justify the $4 million advance on the book.

Does anyone really care what any of these folks have to say at this point? It seems as if all of them lie and the fact is they were all involved in the hoodwinking and cookery of the intel from the start and I don't recall any of them crying foul then (of course not counting the likes of Richard Clarke).

But Tenet states, "There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat." Recall John DiIulio complained of a lack of any serious policy discussion within the White House. The question becomes: is anything ever seriously discussed within the most powerful house in the world? Oh, right, political strategy and tactics. Almost forgot.

In response to attack-dog Cheney's recent harsh criticism of Harry Reid, Joe Klein laid out the VP's words and then translated:

Yesterday, Senator Reid said the troop surge was against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. That is plainly false. The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad. Senator Reid said there should be a regional conference on Iraq. Apparently, he doesn't know that there is going to be one next week. Senator Reid said he doesn't have real substantive meetings with the President. Yet immediately following last week's meeting at the White House, he said, "It was a good exchange; everyone voiced their considered opinion about the war in Iraq."

Translation: Picky, picky. The Iraq Study Group was not opposed to a temporary surge, in order to ease the way for American withdrawal by, uh-oh, darn it, March 2008...which, [expletive deleted] idiots, is exactly what the [expletive] Democrats are proposing. The Iraq Study Group was also in favor of direction negotiations with Iraq and Syria, which we have, uh, ignored. Which is why there are real fears that next week's Cairo conference will be a bust. If only those damn Arabs would listen to reason.
<..>
Maybe it's a political calculation. Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics. Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage. Leaders should make decisions based on the security interests of our country, not on the interests of their political party.

Translation: We have never played politics with Iraq. We didn't schedule the initial authorization vote for just before the 2002 elections. We didn't cook the intel. We had nothing to do with the Mission Accomplished banner. The Navy told Bush to put on the flight suit. We didn't ignore the insurgency and spend vast resources on the Iraq Survey Group to look for non-existent WMD. Karl Rove never told Republicans they could use the war for their benefit. We never questioned the patriotism of people who opposed the war. I'm not questioning Harry Reid's patriotism now. And if you can't get that through your thick heads, you stupid, stupid Americans...you stupid Americans impatient with our master plan for VICTORY in the middle east...you...you... well then, as I once explained to Pat Leahy [expletive deleted].

But Klein neglected to list many more examples, such as the precise manipulation of the terror alerts just prior to November elections, or the constant blurring of 9/11 with Iraq, or frequently inferring the Dems = a less safe USA, or the Dems don't support the war and therefore our troops, just to name a few.

Cheney took a page right out of the Karl Rove playbook: try to tar the other side with your own sins.

From David Ignatius a few days ago:

Something's got to give. That's the sense around Washington this week as the news from Baghdad worsens and the president defiantly continues an Iraq policy that many military leaders question. Unfortunately, what's giving way right now is the national interest. Bush is hunkered down with his troop surge strategy, and the military is expected to pay the price. A grim example of that human cost was Monday's deaths of nine U.S. soldiers from car bombs that hit one of the vulnerable forward operating bases that are a key part of the surge strategy.

Retired Marine Gen. John Sheehan summed up the military's skepticism in explaining why he turned down White House feelers to become "war czar" for Iraq and Afghanistan: "The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going."

If you want to hear despair in Washington these days, talk to Republicans. The Democrats are exulting in their newfound political power and are eager to profit from Bush's difficulties. But Republicans voice the bitterness and frustration of people chained to the hull of a sinking ship.

I spoke with a half-dozen prominent GOP operatives this past week, most of them high-level officials in the Reagan and Bush I and Bush II administrations, and I heard the same devastating critique: This White House is isolated and ineffective; the country has stopped listening to President Bush, just as it once tuned out the hapless Jimmy Carter; the president's misplaced sense of personal loyalty is hurting his party and the nation.

"This is the most incompetent White House I've seen since I came to Washington," said one GOP senator. "The White House legislative liaison team is incompetent, pitiful, embarrassing. My colleagues can't even tell you who the White House Senate liaison is. There is rank incompetence throughout the government. It's the weakest Cabinet I've seen." And remember, this is a Republican talking.

And once again we hear that word "incompetence".... Rather than returning honor and dignity to the White House (hah!), Bush has instead introduced buffoonery and disgrace.

But as I've said, he has much time left in office and a woefully awful president who listens to no one, realizes his legacy is shit, and yet still must confront many serious problems facing this country -- well, he's very capable of doing some go-for-broke things that could really be huge whoppers, even by his standards. Brace yourself and strap in.

Must-read of the day: George McGovern's LA Times op-ed, where he fires back at Cheney.

Bravo. It's great to see an increasing number of Americans stand up to this crass, chickenhawk of a bully. Everyday Cheney sweats that his legacy will rightfully reflect him as the most ruinous, detrimental, and out-to-lunch #2 in history. His recent scatter-shot bouts of attack rhetoric just drive home this point. Unfortunately for him, very few listen anymore as he's simply a pathetic figure who casts venom to an ever-shrinking base. Quite sad.

The chart below shows that just 35% of the 18-to-25-year-old age group leans Republican, a whopping 20% decline from the peak (55%) in 1991 and at a 20-year low.


Source: Pew Research Center

More than a few political studies show that party identification occurs at a fairly early age and stays true to form through adult life. For those in the GOP who truly care about the fate of the party, odds favor them trying their hardest to wrestle control away from the lunatic right and steer things back to a more moderate sensibility. If not, Republicans will become a dying breed.

I strongly urge everyone to read this psychiatrist's diagnosis of George Bush's mental health. It not only gets to the core of what's wrong with GW, but also helps to explain and put in perspective the last six years, how we've suffered through so much thanks to this psychologically damaged decider.

What's truly frightening is given the depth of the Dr. Strangelove disorders, it's amazing that Bush hasn't managed to plunge us into even worse situations. With that in mind he still has several more months in office and by all accounts his remaining time -- no matter how lame -- could prove to be scarier and more detrimental than his previous six years. Attempts to salvage an already-wrecked legacy could go severely awry. May the Dems be successful in minimizing the potential damage.

Global Warming Myths and Lies

Are things getting better in Iraq?

It’s a big success — if by “success” you mean U.S. troops are now dying at the fastest rate since the invasion four years ago!

October 2006-March 2007 were the deadliest six months of the war so far, while March also “marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four straight months of 80 or more fatalities.” April is on its way to being the single deadliest month of the entire invasion and occupation.

Also, more people are shot, beheaded and blown up every single day in Iraq than were shot at Virginia Tech yesterday in the “deadliest shooting rampage in American history.”

The Supreme Court ruling on abortion crystallized one truth: the Court is definitely intertwined in the partisan struggle that has fractured the country since Bush entered office. Political ideology and influence has found its way into nearly every governmental institution: the EPA, the CIA, the FBI, the military, the FDA, FEMA, and the Justice Department, to name a few. But now we clearly see the end result of politics as it plays out in the Supreme Court.

Typically, Americans do not relate their election choices with anything having to do with the high court, but this recent ruling with a razor-thin 5-4 margin should go a long way towards waking them up to this reality. And that includes the I'd-love-to-change-the-world-overnight Nader crowd.

At age 87, John Paul Stevens is likely next to go. Given the GOP minority status in Congress, he'll not retire any time soon, but his age dictates the time is coming. Obviously, a huge decision comes with the next president and voters should be extremely aware of the stakes.

Is this the start of carving up Iraq into sectarian divisions?

Uh, I thought GW was supposed to return honor and dignity?

As the preeminent poster child for Bush administration incompetence, attorney general Alberto “Fredo” Gonzales has actually performed an important public service. In his long-awaited Senate testimony yesterday, the president’s crony repeatedly demonstrated – via lapses of memory, and sporadic bursts of damaging candor – all the myriad ways that this lame-duck regime has laid waste to yet another once-proud federal institution, in this case the U.S. Department of Justice.

On his radio show yesterday, conservative hack Bill "One Armed Bandit" Bennett said the only mistake with McCain making a joke out of bombing another country (Iran) was that McCain cited the wrong band (The Regents recorded Barbara Ann before The Beach Boys). As for McCain's attempt at humor, Bennett then said, "there's nothing wrong with it, it's trivial" and moved on.

Oh, the hypocrisy. Imagine if Kerry, Clinton, Obama, or any Democrat pulled this stunt, they would've been crucified for days on the right-wing shout-fest circuit. But with Republican McCain, already carrying questionable temperament baggage, apparently it's just "trivial" and not worth spending any time on, next topic.

I actually expect nothing less from these clowns -- and the same holds true for their shrunken hardcore base, the only people listening to them these days (crickets).

If there remained any doubt that McCain should just drop out of the race at this point, this sad episode cinches it. Imagine the person in the White House with his/her finger on that proverbial nuke button, during these very scary times, believing it's A-OK to make light of bombing another country. McCain's temperament has been questioned in the past, with some wondering if he had the personality make-up for the most powerful job in the world. This incident doesn't help him in that regard, at all.

From yesterday's LA Times editorial, why Gonzales must go:

Today's hearing could be illuminating about what Gonzales knew and when he forgot it. But it can't "make or break" the attorney general because his credibility is already broken, and his fate is a question of politics, not law.

....Gonzales will couple unambiguous denials of any personal wrongdoing with hedged defenses of what was done in his name. For example, he says in his prepared opening statement that "based upon the record as I know it, it is unfair and unfounded for anyone to conclude that any U.S. attorney was removed for an improper reason." That's just the sort of careful language one would expect from an attorney general who subcontracted his decision-making to a meddlesome White House at one end of the process and a hatchet-man chief of staff at the other.

Congress should continue to untangle the sequence of events that led to these firings, and Gonzales' testimony might prove helpful. But nothing will rehabilitate his reputation as the under-qualified attorney general who was AWOL when a harebrained White House scheme to sack all 93 U.S. attorneys morphed into a narrower hit on targets that included two prosecutors whose decisions had embarrassed the Republican Party.

Hmm, Gonzales' "credibility is already broken" -- likewise applies to his boss GW. As Joan Vennochi asked yesterday, "Can the public ever get a straight answer from anyone in the Bush administration? The answer appears to be no." It's what they do.

Excellent point by an excellent blogger.