The false anger of Republicans can only be explained in one way, they are insanely afraid of Wes Clark as a Vice President.  They have got to discredit Clark to make him less palatable as a Vice Presidential Candidate. Why?  The only thing McCain has going for him is that his military service somehow suppossedly better qualifies him to be President on national security issues.  His only strength turns into a weakness if General Clark is nominated as his Vice President.  This would be devasting to his campaign; the only advantage he has, if he even has one here, would be gone.  How could he claim the military high ground when his opponent's right hand man is a General who successful led NATO?  

What tires me out about the Clinton campaign is simply that they started out playing the same game as the Obama campaign, but when they realized they had lost they changed the rules.  I'm sorry, the race was about delegates not popular votes, electability, or any other metric.  It was about delegates, a fact her campaign didn't seem to realize until early March.  Now, for the last three months the Democratic party has humored her for fear of offending anyone.  Well, it's over.  I've had it.  This country has gone to the shitter in a handbasket and the Democrats are wallowing in their own incompetence.   Obama won this campaign in February and all the spin and the bullshit doesn't change that fact.  

I was shocked to just read that Obama lost Indiana by just over 11,000 votes.  On election night I was reading posts on Daily Kos and recall seeing one that said inside sources of the Obama campaign indicated that Obama was about 10,000 votes short of winning Indiana.  Now, three days later, we find out what the Obama campaign knew two or three hours after the polls closed.  Clearly, these guys are winning because they know what they are doing.  The win big in little states and lose small.  They fight everywhere and continue to plod along.  Ms. Clinton didn't lose this race so much as Mr. Obama won.  To put it plainly, he ran a better campaign.  That doesn't mean Ms. Clinton is a bad person or incompetent, nor does it mean Mr. Obama is a godsend.  It is to say that Mr. Obama has orchestrated an outstanding campaign with a good message.  

Why hasn’t Ms. Clinton taken personal responsibility for the failure of her campaign?  She was the prohibitive favorite who hasn’t been able to beat a first term African American Senator with a Muslim-like sounding name, and appears to be on the cusp of losing.  How did this happen and who is to blame?  

Barack Obama is where he is because of his race?  Yeah, no kidding.  If he's white, this race would have been over months ago.  Ferraro probably wasn't as articulate as she should have been, although her comments were't taken out of context as she claims.  She's simply of a generation that hasn't got a clue how to deal with race.  She gets mad because African Americans are voting for Obama and not her candidate.  Well, Ms. Ferraro, that's how it goes.  People vote for candidates for all sorts of reasons and Mr. Obama has done an excellent job of gaining the support of one of the largest sectors of the Democractic populace.  (If I recall, African Americans did not intially support Mr. OBama to the extent they do now.) It's kind of like what Ms. Clinton did with Hispanic voters in Texas.  It's called politics.  So, when you were criticized, it wasn't because people thought you were a racist, it was because we thought your comments were just dumb.

Why is Barak O’Bama still in the race let along winning it?  How does a first term African American Senator with a funny name lead a former First Lady of a popular and good Democratic President?  How and why?  The answer is simple.  He is leading because his campaign has worked smarter and better than has Ms. Clinton's campaign.  It’s that simple.  It isn’t because he is black; it isn’t because she is a woman.  It’s time to face reality.  It’s because he has done a better job.  He has taken nothing for granted.  He’s has taken each state’s primary or caucus seriously.  He has expanded his market while Ms. Clinton has sought simply to gain a larger share of the existing one.  He has voiced a vision for change, which the country desperately wants.  She hasn’t.  That’s not to say that Ms. Clinton is a bad person or that Mr. O’Bama is a good one; it is to say that he’s done a better job.  I got the feeling in February as Mr. O’Bama was racking up win after win in the "little" states that she wasn’t paying enough attention.  She was Appollo Creed to O’Bama’s Rocky.  

The closest thing to a "3:00 a.m." moment Ms. Clinton has had to date was her Senate vote authorizing Mr. Bush to invade Iraq.   And what did she do in her moment of truth?  She, along with all the Republican Senators and half the Democratic ones, exercised her "expertise" and voted to trust Mr. Bush.  Instead of "answering the phone" and doing whatever it took to capture, kill or maim the culprit of 9/11, she acquiesced in attacking a country two countries over from where bin Laden lived. Frankly, her alleged experience in her only "3:00 a.m." moment was to trust Mr. Bush and abdicate her Constitutional duties as a Senator.  So, I hope someone asks her what real experience she has and when has she used it well.  

I was listening to piece on "60 Minutes" last night about the mortgage crisis and I got to thinking about four things.  First, the "stimulus package" is in response to the economy slowing down, which was caused by the mortgage crisis.  How does the "stimulus package" change the fact that people aren't paying their mortgage?  Okay, some of us will get a grand or so, which I would guess for most of us isn't even a month's payment, but it doesn't change the fact that people aren't paying their mortgages.  The bottom line is I don't see how the "stimulus" alleviates the mortgage crises?

The Administration’s strategy to justify staying in Iraq is that "only p*****s want to leave Iraq."  I know, Petraeus and Crocker’s testimony will be an "important" event, but the fact is that there are a lot of "serious" people who are going to spend a vast amount of energy arguing about an issue that is over.  After which, Democrats will cave for fear of being labeled and the Administration will get another continuance, probably six months, with no conditions.  None.  Everything will remain the same for another six months because some are afraid to confront stupidity for fear of being labeled a pussy.  It’s the emperor-with-no-clothes daring the crowd to call him naked and winning.  

Cheney said in 1994 and in 2000 that invading Iraq would result in a quagmire, sectarian violence and the splitting up of the country.  Now, Cheney and his enablers justify the invasion because "9/11 changed everything".  This is yet another example of this Administration's poor logic resulting in bad decisions.  How did 9/11 change the fact that invading Iraq would result in a quagmire?  It’s as if Cheney is arguing that 9/11 means America’s foreign policy doesn't have to adhere to logic and reality; suddenly what was once true is no longer.  I'd be really impressed if a journalist asked the following:  "Mr. Cheney said in 1994 and 2000 that invading Iraq would result in quagmire but now he claims 9/11 changed everything.  My question is how does 9/11 change the conclusion reached in 1994 and 2000 that invasion would result in a quagmire?"

Forget September 2007 or the spring 2008, the Democratic Party hasn’t got the stones to confront this Administration on Iraq and they never will.  So, given this reality, the question now is what Iraq will look like in a year. (Hey, if Jonah Goldberg can give an opinion, so can I.  I may not be as well educated but I’m correct more often.)  There will be more dead Americans – 4,500 to 5,000.  Maliki will be gone.  Elections will not go as smoothly as in the past and will be more violent.  Parliament will continue to fragment.  We will still have 100,000 troops on the ground, although the Administration will be bragging that they are reducing troops so as to negate the Iraq issue at election time – boy did the Democrats screw the pooch on that one.  The sectarian violence will increase.  The civil war will ultimately become a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran with us supplying the Sunni’s via Saudi Arabia.  (Ironically, we will ultimately side with the Sunnis in the civil war, the very people we ousted from power, and ignore the Kurds, our true friends.)  

The reason Congress' ratings are so low is simple:  They still take the  Executive branch seriously despite the fact that the Executive branch shows nothing but disdain for the Legislative branch.  I'm sick of hearing politicians expecting Mr. Bush to do something he does not want to do.  The only way Bush is going to do anything that he doesn't want to do is to refuse to give him the money to do it.  Don't expect him to ever act in good faith, ever.  My God, after six years if they haven't figured that one out then they are idiots.  So, how about a concerted effort of Democrats to cut funding or refuse to approve funds - how about cloture on budget bills?  If we don't, then expect your constituents and our  country to continue being mismanaged.

Today I met a 25 year old guy who has been diagnosed with cancer and doesn’t have any health insurance.  He recently underwent emergency surgery to remove polyps and cancer from the infected organs at a cost that exceeds $150,000.00, which he can't pay for.  And what is he doing now?  He’s waiting for the State to come through with a Medicaid card so he can begin chemotherapy.  The kid is young, he has a job that doesn’t pay much, he lives with his mom, he’s religious, and is trying to find his way in the world.  Unfortunately, the health insurance "system" in this country isn’t working for this young man whose one mistake is he didn’t appreciate the need for health insurance, assuming, of course, he could have afforded it, which I doubt.  It’s absolutely stunning to me that this is acceptable in our country.  Meanwhile, back in Iraq where the money is flowing and things are going swimmingly well....

Are the soldiers in Iraq fighting for our freedom?  I don't relish the thought but everytime I hear of a death of another American soldier accompanied by the "he/she died to protect our freedom", I wonder: How are they protecting my freedom?  They may be trying to protect an Iraqi's freedom but nothing they are doing in Iraq is protecting me.

I don't mean to denigrate our serviceman and woman, far from it.  Their sacrifices are amazing and pale in comparison to the rest of us.  What I don't understand, however, is how do their efforts protect my freedom, which, ironocially, the President seeks to restrict?  I'd love to hear someone explain it to me, because I'm at a lost.  

At what point do Republicans and, yes, even some Democrats say enough?  You enable a drunk, he stays a drunk.  The evidence of incompetence -  perhaps evil – of this Administration this week alone is shocking.  A war czar four years into the war?  Gonzalez and Card scurrying through hospital halls late at night to convince an ailing Attorney General to sign off on an illegal surveillance program? United States Attorney Generals fired because of the White House’s dissatisfaction that they failed to prosecute "voter fraud" cases in battleground states?  And it’s only Wednesday.  

I propose that the Democratic National Convention of 2008 ban Fox News from reporting inside the Convention.  Bar their "reporters" from being inside the convention, prohibit them from reporting or using footage of the conventation.  Make them an issue.  Why allow the mouthpiece of the right wing to have access to a message that they will ridicule, misrepresent, etc. In short, cut off Fox news from the source.  What's to lose?  The viewers of Fox?  My guess is there is more to gain than lose.  And the response to the crticism? "Fox isn't a news network, Fox is a right wing mouthpiece that has gotten us into this silly war in Iraq."      

Increasing troop strength in Iraq by 20,000 or 30,000 is insufficient and is not going to make much of a difference.  What ever happened with the Powell Doctrine?  I look back to General Shinseki’s testimony before the war when he testified that "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be required to "maintain a safe and secure environment" in Iraq.  This was his testimony at the time when Iraq was relatively stable.  Now, almost four years later, Iraq is clearly more destabilized then it was before the war and we now think increasing troop strength to 170,000 -180,000 will stabilize the region.   It makes no sense.  Even at 180,000 troops we are still at troop levels less than what war planners and General Shinseki had estimated would be required before the war, which was made at the time when Iraq was comparatively stable.  

As sure as the sun goes up , so long as America continues to occupy/liberate/help Iraq, 230 American troops will be killed every 100 days.  Macabre?  Defeatist?  Perhaps, but it is unavoidably true.  And this sorry fact is the result of the Adminstration’s inability to confront reality.  (Ultimately, reality does matter.)  What’s worse, when confronted with reality, the Adminstration doesn’t know what to do.  Here we are, more than three years into this mess in Iraq and they are "investigating" what to do evidence Mr. Gates recent trip to Iraq.  What was he looking for?   Who knows, but we will have to wait until after the first of the year to find out.  After the first of  the year?  Where is the urgency?  I can’t imagine Roosevelt assuring America that he’d respond to the Germans attack at the Battle of the Bulge after the first of the year.