And as usual, a dollar short. Sort of. Although I only lasted for most of my first two years in the Marine Corps Option program in NROTC because of the 1972/73 requirement by the Commandant of the Marine Corps that every Marine Officer had to be a Rifleman, and there was to be no exception for Aviators after 1974 (sigh, I'm really that old), I bailed out and went to the Navy. Not because I did not think that I could hack "Bulldog Cruise" and then TBS, but because I was deathly terrified of breaking something (I am not the most graceful athelete outside of a swimming pool), and being NPQ'd (Not Physically Qualified) for Pensacola. My career plans did not include being an 0331. Given my propensity to swim, I figured that Navy would be a better fit anyhow. Sort of makes sense, since running on water is not well documented outside certain stories.

So to my sort-of brethren, I say Happy (belated) Birthday and a big "Semper Fi". The MOI at my college told me "Once a Marine, Always a Marine", but I don't know if two years as a Marine Option count...I had an Eagle, Globe and Anchor on my collar, but never made it to Quantico.

Anyhow,

To all my other Vet Brothers and Sisters out there, Hey, Happy Veterans Day. We have real cause to celebrate now, don't we? To those of you still serving, come home to your loved ones safe and sound and remember, we all think about you every day.

Peace.

Trying to ram through as much legislation as possible before the end of the 109th Congress, like the Terrorist Surveillance Act and every other piece of John Yoo-inspired fascist legislation? And wasn't that the piece of shit bill that Specter was trying to get passed that gave Preznit Felonious Fone Phreak some kind of immunity for all past transgressions that say, Congress may be interested in knowing about?

Gee, is it too late to talk about resurrecting the Office of Special Counsel? That would set the republican's asses on fire.

Yeah, there's your bi-partisan Preznit at work. Hey, maybe he'll accuse Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi of wanting to coddle terrorists! That'll be just like the old days. Well if he does, watch for the wingnuts to start the year talking about how "obstructionist" the left is.

That will be those who are left whose heads have not exploded from saying "Speaker Pelosi".

Damn, that sounds nice... :)

You know, I'm all for some semblence of bipartisanship in the Congress, hell, I even think it ought to be the order of the day ... you know, let the bastards live with the minority rules that they imposed after 1994 for a while, and then give them a chance to become part of the process again. Slowly.

But I'm not especially sure that my tolerence for bi-partisan cooperation extends to Beloved Leader. He called us all "terrorist lovers", brought the term "unAmerican" pretty close to becoming normal speech for the wingnut segment of the population, accused us of pretty much everything up to and just short of wanting to become suicide bombers in the cause of progressivism. Now he wants the Senate to confirm Robert Gates and John Bolton before the change in the Senate next year.

President George W. Bush will make a push to get confirmation for John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations before power in Congress shifts to the Democrats, the White House said on Thursday.
...
...Bush also is seeking confirmation during that time for former CIA Director Robert Gates, his nominee to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

Pelosi and Reid need to watch out for political "roofies" being snuck into their White House Coffee Klatches over the next few months. No less a personage than Grover Norquist compared bipartisanship to date rape, and that's what's going on here. Make no mistake about it.

Howard Fineman, a man who has been both Bush sycophant and abject apologist for the 1600 Crew since 1999 (or before) finally wrote something the other day that strikes me as true, not to mention a great observation:

"President George W. Bush's Iraq policy is now in the political equivalent of receivership -- a bankrupt project that is about to be placed in the hands of the worldly-wise pragmatists who surrounded the president's own father. Think of them as receivers in bankruptcy, looking for ways to salvage America's military and moral assets after a post-September 11 adventure that voters (and most of the rest of the world) concluded was a waste of blood and treasure. . . .

In the second hundred hours can you please de-fund/dismantle the "Office of Faith Based Initiatives" and use the money for something worthwhile, like say helping enlisted men and women's families get off food stamps? Then perhaps encourage the IRS to begin looking into the tax-exempt status of the politically activitist of the 'mega-churches'?

Thank you,

Jo Fish

Hoyer vs. Murtha. I'll take Murtha, please. Much of what has been accomplished has been because of his courage in coming forward and breaking the Happy News Cycle coverage of Iraq. That took the kind of courage that needs to be rewarded.

Steny Hoyer's main acheivement of record that I can remember off the top of my head is the proposed expansion of the Washington DC ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) aka "The Fear Zone" around the Baltimore-Washington area because well, he's askeered and feels that more restrictions are better than less.

One old aviator's opinion.

Apparently Hastert ("Just Denny") is not going to run for a leadership position in the new republican house organization. I wonder if he's really going to do much other than collect some $$ and figure out a way to retire at the end of this term.

Karma's a bitch when you lose and Delay's is not there to ...ummm.. delay your fall, huh big guy?

Wow....Rumsfeld, worst SECDEF evah is out. A primary architect of the Mess O'Potamian strategery is hist-ory. Well, it's start. Interesting that the Bob Gates, a fringe Iran-Contra player and protege of Daddy Bush and Brent Scowcroft is being brought in to take the SECDEF job.

Once again, Daddy is cleaning up Junior's mess. It's a shame that Incurious George insted of just failing at some bullshit business venture failed at something as deadly as a war that now has to be cleaned up. Tweety asked Andrea Mitchell rhetorically "How do you" (speaking of Bush) "roll this back?" I guess we're seeing the first attempt.

Rumsfeld and Cheney were extremely dismissive for the last six years of the role of CIA in American foreign policy, to the point of emasculating it by setting up DoD intel and policy shops to burnish the intel for the invasion of Iraq. Gates is a really intersting choice in light of that aspect of the war alone.

I have to wonder how long the NeoCon surrounding Rumsfeld at DoD will last. My bet? There are some senior officers who are helping them pack their offices today and tossing their shit out into the Pentagon parking lot for them as I write this (Doug Feith).

I also suspect we are seeing the final week of the vaunted "force transformation" bullshit that Rumsfeld was so fond of. Gates has the unenviable task of trying to keep the sides of the Pentagon from collapsing after six years of Rumsfeld and his imperious foolishness. The time at DoD for "change for the sake of change" is over for a while, I suspect.

I also wonder if Cheney is now moved off to become a more "traditional" Vice-President, while Daddy Bush quietly moves his players in to take over the final two years of Juniors Failed Experiment?

Given what happened in this country last night, this is almost funny in that ironical way that is just too strange.

Former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega won back Nicaragua's presidency, according to updated results released Tuesday.
...
In the waning weeks of the campaign, Bush administration officials issued veiled threats that the United States might impose punitive measures such as a trade embargo if Ortega was elected.

I wonder if they can "not negotiate with terrorists" in Iran just for old times sake to reconstitute the Contras. You just know they want to...

Alex the answer is: "What should be stuck in John McCain, he's done."

I think we just witnessed the end of McCain '08, barring some weird Washington Miracle.

Hehe...losing the election.

Sorry, just had to toss that one out there.

Best:
Sensennbrenner will no longer run the House Judiciary Committee, therefore far less Whacko-Fascist legislation will issue forth.

Worst:
Lieberman is still there, and will probably be renting out his vote for undisclosed amounts of something negotiable.

Best:
Speaker Pelosi. "Just Denny" Hastert.

Worst:
Tom Delay is not incarcerated yet. He can still make some mischief on the hill.

Best:
Judicial nominations will recieve actual "advice and consent".

Worst:
Beloved Leader will still try and appoint someone like Roy Moore or Charles Pickering to the Supreme Court if he has the chance, just to pick a fight.

Best:
Pork might actually end.

Worst:
Pork might not actually end.

Contributions? My brain is tired. :)

Yeah, so as I write this we're looking at possible victories in Montana and Virginia.

The House broke our way, and we fairly kicked ass there. I look forward to seeing the new House Leadership work with Republicans who want to solve the issue of Iraq and the other huge problems facing our country like the deficit and totally out-of-control spending in a way that everyone can agree on with both sanity and comity. It's also time to start seperating politics from Policy in how the government runs. That's not entirely achieveable, but the adminstration has managed to make the conflation of the two an artform, never before witnessed in the history of the republic.

I also want to see Democrats behave like the Progressives on social issues that they are, the minimum wage and taking care of the less fortunate in our country need to be addressed up-front, and solutions need to be implemented as part of the rebuilding of a truly Purple America.

It's time to end the Red State/Blue State Bullshit and work together.

All that being said, Motherfuckers if you want to rumble, bring it, I don't think that there is much of a mandate for stupidity in the halls of Congress after tonight.

I suspect that George Bush will display the stubborn, intractable nature that governs his inner man-child within a week. He's never succeeded at anything on his own, he has no achievments save his grandest ambition of becoming a "War President" to further his own political aspirations. His most successful solo moment in his life has been to wrap himself in the Flag and stand on the bodies of 3000 Americans and others after 9/11, and use both to question the fidelity, bravery and integrity of all who would oppose him for all the years that followed.

So, am I happy that we have finally won one? Absolutely. Do I believe that Democrats should display the utter and vile hubris of the heirs of the 1994 "Republican Revolution"? No, and I'll walk away from them if they do. In a New York minute.

Do I think that they should function as an opposition party as envisioned by the Founding Fathers? Absolutely. Should they ask questions of the Administration and demand answers? Absolutely. Should they deny the opposition the opportunity to speak, make recommendations, bring legislation to the floor to be voted on it's merits? No. I think part of their "mandate" if there is one tonight is to begin to restore our government on behalf of all the people of this country.

I was also struck by something that John Murtha said in an interview tonight, that the Democrats were going to go back to a Five Day workweek in the House. I suspect that if the average American who works upwards of 50-60 hours a week, sometimes with both spouses in that situation fully understood that the Republican Congress has only been working two days a week most of the year, there would have been even more turnover in the Congress tonight on both sides of the aisle. I applaud the new House leadership if they can begin by keeping that promise on January 4th, 2007. I think that will stand them in good stead with all American, no matter what their party.

All in all, it's been a great night.

Now, off to see whazzup in Big Sky Country.

Peace.

Thank you.

☮

Love, The Management

I found Ted Haggard's Crystal Meth and used it before I wrote this crapulence.

Shorter Eugene Robinson: "I made Michael split it with me."

This has to be one of the most moronic things that I've seen on The Corner in quite a while (and there are a lot of stupid things in that part of WingNutLand).

Anti-Rumsfeld Editorial in a (Non) Army Paper [Mario Loyola]
The Army Times editorial slamming Rumsfeld is more interesting than meets the eye. This is a private newspaper owned by the same company that owns USA Today. It caters to the military, but has no affiliation of any kind with the military or the Department of Defense. None of the folks on the editorial board are currently military and an editorial assistant at the outfit couldn't think of any editor who ever had been in the military. They have no more visibility into the military than any other newspaper, which is to say not much.

So for Mr. Loyola to say:

...They have no more visibility into the military than any other newspaper, which is to say not much.
...
...Rumsfeld is hugely popular among the military, as is obvious in any of his Town Halls and speeches to them.

All this leads me to one conclusion, this guy is a typical kool-aid drinking republican, i.e. full of shit.

But hell, that might just be one old airdale's opinion.

Read this. Wolcott.

Please don't beat your head against a wall after you read this quote. It will only hurt more.

David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Maybe not anymore. Is that noise I hear the sound of Wingnut Heads Exploding?

and go read this. Betty Bowers takes on The Right Reverend Haggard...

I suspect that this will be a rather uncomfortable weekend at the Ted Haggard tax-free mansion. You see, Reverend Haggard is a vociferous spokesperson against gay marriage and, until yesterday, his wife probably had no idea she was actually in one.
...
Haggard famously claimed that "the only difference between me and George Bush is that Bush drives a Ford and I drive a Chevy." And from what I can tell, this may be the only honest thing the man has said. Let's compare, shall we?

Against gay marriage?

Check.

Fondness for sniffing illegal white powder?

Check.

Association with gay male prostitutes?

Jeff Gannon meet Mike Jones.

(H/T All Spin Zone)

Our boy, Micheal Ledeen, "NeoImp", as MeteorBlades terms him is now claiming that he was never in favor of invading Iraq (yeah, you can stop laughing now...).

I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. . . . What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we're being well-led and that our people are fighting well and that we're winning, I don't think casualties are going to be the issue.
Michael Ledeen
AEI Breakfast
March 27, 2003

Question #1: Gentlemen, should we go to war against Iraq?

Ledeen: We have been at war with Iraq for years, since we performed victory interruptus at the end of the Gulf War phase. Iraq has attempted to assassinate a former American president, broken the agreement to permit international inspectors, aided anti-American terrorists both internationally and within the United States, and called for anti-American jihad with monotonous regularity. The only question is whether or not we're prepared to finally wage the war in such a way as to win it.

Question #2: Okay, well if we are all so certain about the dire need to invade Iraq, then when do we do so?

Ledeen: Yesterday.

What an absolute load of crap coming from a man (and I use that term loosely) who was a father of this bullshit movement to invade Iraq.

It's said that victory has many fathers, defeat has none. I guess we just found the bastard in the woodpile, or one of them anyhow...

1. A day late...
   
2. Who are they fucking kidding?
   
3. Ha Ha
   
4. Always a first...
   
5. Dear Speaker (2B) Pelosi...
   
6. Majority Leader
   
7. Hastert
   
8. Rummy Gone
   
9. ___-Contra II?
   
10. A fork