I swear, it isn’t pick on Jeff week, but sometimes I just can’t help myself
In one of his recent posts, he said the following:

If IDs for voter are required then whatever state is requiring them needs to take all of the steps necessary to make getting an ID insanely painless. That’s not the case where I live and I doubt it’s the case in many states. Going down to the Department of Motor Vehicles is a big giant pain in the ass. It costs money and time. If the process of getting an ID continues to be hard it will stop people from voting. The cost right now is essentially a small poll tax. Requiring IDs for voting also puts us on the path to having a national ID card. Another thing I think is a bad idea.

Okay… To wit, from today’s New York Times, here’s Indiana’s law:

The Indiana law, adopted by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2005 without a single Democratic vote, is regarded as the strictest in the country. It requires a voter to present a photograph as part of an unexpired document issued either by Indiana or the federal government, a requirement that in most cases can be satisfied only by a current driver’s license or a passport. The state’s motor vehicle agency provides a free photo ID card for people who do not drive, but obtaining it requires a “primary document” like an original birth certificate or a passport.

Would-be voters without proper identification may cast a provisional ballot that will be counted only if they appear within 10 days at a county clerk’s office and present acceptable photo identification or, alternatively, swear either that they are indigent or that they have a religious objection to being photographed.

Seems like they’ve taken everything into account in making sure that the poor people who show up to vote, can. I had a discussion about this once with some Canadian friends of mine, and I was told that it’s laughable that we don’t have ID requirements for our elections because they do. In a very common sense way, my very liberal Canadian friend told me outright that it makes sense to make sure that a person who’s casting a ballot is actually a person who’s allowed to do so.

I tend to agree.

While I understand Jeff’s point (that this will make voting harder for some people), I don’t see that as more important than keeping dead people from voting, as an example (Google it; it happens a lot more regularly than you think and has been investigated by various metropolitan news outlets over the past few years). That to me makes making the process slightly more difficult worthwhile.

The idea that a government-issued photo ID is a luxury is laughable. You can’t do anything in this country without a government ID, so it’s not outrageous to say that most people probably already have some form of government issued state or federal ID. If you live in NYC, for example, and you’re so poor that you need benefits, guess what? Your benefit card has your photo on it. So does your military ID.

In Indiana, you have to validate your identity before you get your card, which means you have to have a birth certificate or a passport (or, contrary to the story in the Times, approximately 10 other forms of proof) , and if you can’t afford a card, they give you one as long as you can prove who you are! Oh, and if you don’t qualify for the free one, the card is $13 and $10 if you’re a senior. This isn’t a poll tax, and it isn’t a way of keeping the poor out of the voting booth. It’s a way of maintaining the integrity of our elections.

It would be interesting to see a few interviews with people who are so poor that they can’t afford to get a $13 ID card. I’d be willing to bet they live pretty well and have no problem spending $10 on Burger King or some other wasteful shit. I’ve seen it first hand; in my neighborhood, there’s a Pathmark store, and at the Pathmark, people dressed better than me use their EBT cards to buy food.

Yeah, they don’t all do that, but if they’re that poor, they probably get the card for nothing making this a moot point anyway.

In the debate before the Pennsylvania primary, Senator Hillary Clinton stood in front of an audience in a state she desperately needed to win to stay alive in the election and told the crowd that if Iran were to attack Israel, that would incur a massive retaliation from the United States. On Monday, April 21, she appeared on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown and was asked to clarify. When she did, she didn’t hedge any words or soften what she said. She flatly told Olbermann, on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, that “their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States.”

Can you imagine Barack Obama saying the same thing? I for one couldn’t.

Throughout her tenure as Senator, Hillary Clinton has never shied away from tough national security decisions. She voted for both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which were good votes based on the information we had at the time the decisions were made. As far as Iraq goes, she has never once denied her voting, but she has admitted that her vote, based on current information, was probably a mistake but that she doesn’t regret making it. She’s also said that she’s not against the war, but against the half-assed way it’s being run.

I completely and totally agree, and think that Iraq was something we could’ve been out of years ago if we were as worried about the lives of our soldiers as we were about not looking like we’re beating up on a much weaker country, but that’s another story for another day.

In August of 2007, Hillary Clinton along with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Congressman Peter King, and Senator Charles Schumer vocally and continually complained that the money given to New York for anti-terrorism initiatives was ridiculous. In numerous press releases and speeches, Clinton continually pounded home the fact that cities like Houston and Long Beach were getting more money, while DC and New York City were being cut by 40%. While her arguments didn’t bear fruit, her passion for getting the job done and correcting the stupidity of those in charge should be an indicator of the kind of President she would be.

The last point is a more subtle one. Recently, Hillary Clinton ran an ad that dared to use the face of Osama bin Laden. Judging by the reactions, you would think that the ad equated Obama with bin Laden. Here’s the ad that stirred up the most recent dose of righteous outrage.

Did you see that flash of Osama bin Laden? That sent Obama’s supporters over the edge. Here’s Obama’s spokesperson:

When Senator Clinton voted with President Bush to authorize the war in Iraq, she made a tragically bad decision that diverted our military from the terrorists who attacked us, and allowed Osama bin Laden to escape and regenerate his terrorist network. It’s ironic that she would borrow the President’s tactics in her own campaign and invoke bin Laden to score political points. We already have a President who plays the politics of fear, and we don’t need another.

That’s the response. The ad was demonstrating the situations past and the present President have had to face. Gas prices, economic issues, global unrest, and a threat of terrorism that, despite your interpretation of its level of severity, exists no matter what. Instead, we have the Obama campaign going absolutely crazy because someone dared to bring up Osama bin Laden in a half-second clip in an ad.

Their reaction demonstrates one thing to me: That Osama bin Laden, while most likely still at large, is nothing more than a political punchline for them. Despite the very real threat of his mere existence, the Obama campaign has chosen to yet again call any questioning of Obama and how he would handle tough situations “divisive” and “politics of fear.”

That’s all well and good, Barack, but in the end, terrorism is still an issue that needs to be dealt with. Osama bin Laden and a radicalizing Middle East are not merely political poitns for an ad, but the reality of the world in 2008. Judging by the reaction and the sidestepping of the point, I’d say the Obama camp doesn’t even acknowledge that terrorism is something for us to even be concerned about. You’ll understand if I don’t put much confidence in a president who thinks that way.

Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead this country. She understands what it means to protect both this country and its allies and has had to actually make the tough decisions that Barack Obama was able to comfortably sit in Illinois being able to ignore. Remember that for all his talk about opposition to the war, he never actually had to vote on it in his entire career. He never knew what it was like to have 80% of his electorate telling him that they wanted something, and despite that 80%, he says he wouldn’t have voted for the Iraq war anyway.

He’d dismiss you and your concerns, because he knows what’s best for you.

I know what’s best for me, and I know what’s best for this country, and a strong experienced leader who’s had to make decisions and didn’t just vote “present” is exactly that: what’s best for the country.

One of the reasons that Hillary Clinton is the candidate to elect for the Democrats is her health care plan.

When her husband, Bill Clinton, was elected as President, he tasked her with coming up with a plan for everyone to receive health care that was sponsored by the government. As could be expected, with a Republican congress, this simply wasn’t happening. The plan was squashed, the people who supported it demonized, and the concept was dismissed as unamerican, anti-business, and devastating for the country. Then-First Lady Hillary Clinton would eventually give up on the plan, and it was relegated to the scrap heap.

One of the pillars of her 2007 campaign (or her campaign for 2008; however you look at it) is health care, and making sure everyone gets it, can afford it, and no one is left behind. Here’s the outline of her plan.

1. Offer new coverage choices for the insured and uninsured:

The American Health Choices Plan gives Americans the choice to preserve their existing coverage, while offering new choices to those with insurance, to the 47 million people in the United States without insurance, and the tens of millions more at risk of losing coverage.

* The Same Choice of Health Plan Options that Members of Congress Receive: Americans can keep their existing coverage or access the same menu of quality private insurance options that their Members of Congress receive through a new Health Choices Menu, established without any new bureaucracy as part of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). In addition to the broad array of private options that Americans can choose from, they will be offered the choice of a public plan option similar to Medicare.

* A Guarantee of Quality Coverage: The new array of choices offered in the Menu will provide benefits at least as good as the typical plan offered to Members of Congress, which includes mental health parity and usually dental coverage.

2. Lower Premiums and Increase Security

Americans who are satisfied with the coverage they have today can keep it, while benefiting from lower premiums and higher quality.

* Reducing Costs: By removing hidden taxes, stressing prevention and a focus on efficiency and modernization, the plan will improve quality and lower costs.

* Strengthening Security: The plan ensures that job loss or family illnesses will never lead to a loss of coverage or exorbitant costs.

* End to Unfair Health Insurance Discrimination: By creating a level-playing field of insurance rules across states and markets, the plan ensures that no American is denied coverage, refused renewal, unfairly priced out of the market, or forced to pay excessive insurance company premiums.

3. Promote shared responsibility

Relying on consumers or the government alone to fix the system has unintended consequences, like scaled-back coverage or limited choices. This plan ensures that all who benefit from the system share in the responsibility to fix its shortcomings.

* Insurance and Drug Companies: insurance companies will end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions or expectations of illness and ensure high value for every premium dollar; while drug companies will offer fair prices and accurate information.

* Individuals: will be required to get and keep insurance in a system where insurance is affordable and accessible.

* Providers: will work collaboratively with patients and businesses to deliver high-quality, affordable care.

* Employers: will help financing the system; large employers will be expected to provide health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage: small businesses will receive a tax credit to continue or begin to offer coverage.

* Government: will ensure that health insurance is always affordable and never a crushing burden on any family and will implement reforms to improve quality and lower cost.

4. Ensure affordable health coverage for all.

Senator Clinton’s plan will:

* Provide Tax Relief to Ensure Affordability: Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford high-quality health coverage.

* Limit Premium Payments to a Percentage of Income: The refundable tax credit will be designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, while maintaining consumer price consciousness in choosing health plans.

* Create a New Small Business Tax Credit: To make it easier-not harder-for small businesses to create new jobs with health coverage, a new health care tax credit for small businesses will provide an incentive for job-based coverage.

* Strengthen Medicaid and CHIP: The Plan will fix the holes in the safety net to ensure that the most vulnerable populations receive affordable, quality care.

* Launch a Retiree Health Legacy Initiative: A new tax credit for qualifying private and public retiree health plans will offset a significant portion of catastrophic expenditures, so long as savings are dedicated to workers and competitiveness.

5. A fiscally responsible plan that honors our priorities.

* Most Savings Come Through Lowering Spending Due to Quality and Modernization: Over half the savings come from the public savings generated from Senator Clinton’s broader agenda to modernize the heath systems and reduce wasteful health spending.

* A Net Tax Cut for American Taxpayers: The plan offers tens of millions of Americans a new tax credit to make premiums affordable-which more than offsets the increased revenues from the Plan’s provisions to limit the employer tax exclusion for health care and discontinue portions of the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000. Thus, the plan provides a net tax cut for American taxpayers.

* Making the Employer Tax Exclusion for Health Care Fairer: The plan protects the current exclusion from taxes of employer-provided health premiums, but limits the exclusion for the high-end portion of very generous plans for those making over $250,000.

In a nutshell, I believe she has a better chance of getting it done. She has a plan, which Barack Obama does, but the difference between her and Obama is that she’s actually tried to do this once before, and while she didn’t succeed, I’m sure she learned from it.

The insurance companies and the Republican Party will most likely launch a massive offensive against any nationalized health plan, and in this case, experience trumps vision. Obama has shown a tendency to lose his composure whenever questions get to be something more than he can answer with a canned speech.

While I’m not 100% sure either of the two candidates can actually make any real progress, I have much more faith that something can get resolved when an experienced leader who has learned how to deal with the knocks, bumps, bruises, and personal attacks is at the helm. If she only makes progress and gets the ball rolling, I’d consider it a success.

In the end, when it comes to health care and butting heads with insurance companies who have been profiteering by denying people health care they’ve paid for, I’d put my faith in Hillary any day over Obama, and if health care matters to you, I heartily believe you should do the same.

While Barack Obama’s supporters are gnashing teeth trying to figure out how many conspirators there were at the ABC debate, one thing stands out as the biggest problem they had and the biggest issue they’re losing on; the flag pin. Now, before you turn away and go back to trolling myspace for SWF’s, hear me out.

The flag pin is significant, and tremendously so, but not in the way everyone is making it out to be. We have to follow along here, for a bit, just so the flag pin can be put in its proper context.

1. Barack Obama doesn’t like putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem.

When the photo above reached the public last year, many people thought it was a joke or a bit of Photoshop trickery. How could a Presidential candidate not put his hand over his heart during the anthem? People were shocked and dismissed the photo until it was proven that the photo was indeed true. To the criticism he received, Obama’s campaign responded…

“Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. In no way was he making any sort of statement, and any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous.”

Indeed, sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn’t. Inside Edition was provided a few examples of him indeed placing his hand over his heart and singing, so he can’t fein ignorance on it. Instead, he follows the custom and gives the flag and the anthem their due respect when he feels like it. I don’t know about you, but when I’m at a sporting event and the anthem is played, my hat comes off, I stand, and my hand goes over my heart. Not “sometimes” or “when I feel like it” or “if I’m in the mood.” Every single time, without a shadow of a doubt and without fail.

And I’m not running for President.

2. Barack Obama coddles his racist anti-American reverend.

For years, Barack Obama attended a church where Reverend Jeremiah Wright professed his anti-American bigotry. Obama, at first, claimed he had never heard such things, despite having been at that same church every single Sunday for over twenty years. Then he claimed that he had heard those things, but he could never leave his church. Then, he claimed that the remarks were taken out of context. Then he claimed one could no more easily walk away from their church than they could walk away from their skin color. Finally, he disowned Wright from his campaign, despite a speech many people called historic in which he justified nearly every word of Wright’s sermons (the ones he didn’t, as stated earlier, even hear). Charles Krauthammer disassembled him for it:

Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: “There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?”

But that is not the question. The question is, why didn’t he leave that church? Why didn’t he leave —- why doesn’t he leave even today —- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells), “God damn America”? Obama’s 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.

His defense rests on two propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt.

(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there’s Wright, but at the other “end of the spectrum” there’s Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and Obama’s own white grandmother, “who once confessed her fear of black men … and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.” But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?

(b) White guilt. Obama’s purpose in the speech was to put Wright’s outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, “We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country,” and then does precisely that. And what lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.

This contextual analysis of Wright’s venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It’s the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. That’s why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.

After Barack Obama gave this historic “it isn’t really that important” justification speech, his lackeys in the media went on full spin control. Instead of condemning the overt racism of Wright, we heard that his explanation of white evil in the world were taken out of context (despite all the DVD recordings of Wright’s speech being removed from the church’s website. Why remove all of them if it was merely a context issue?) and then the spin went into overdrive with Bill Maher proving there isn’t a liberal glass of Kool Aid he can’t fit into his mouth (particularly since he never shuts it):

When Barack Obama didn’t hear Reverend Wright say those awful things about America, he still should have rushed the stage, smite Reverend Wright with the cross, and left the church. If there’s anything the right wing can agree on, it’s that. And that gays are going hell, right after they suck them off in the airport bathroom.

But it raises an obvious question, one that I haven’t heard asked, which is strange because it’s so obvious: If you leave a church when the head of the church says bad things about America, what do you do when your church hierarchy is caught up in a systematic and decades-long sex abuse scandal? And did I mention the people being sexually abused were children? Hundreds of them?

How about when the head of that church, or Pope, associated with and promoted members of the clergy who not only facilitated the sexual abuse and rape of hundreds and hundreds of children, but engaged in a decades-long cover-up of those crimes?

Reverend Wright associated with Farrakhan. The Pope works with Cardinal Law. Which is worse? Isn’t it the man who shuffled “priests” like Shanley and Geoghan and many others from parish to parish with the full knowledge of their crimes, and then claimed he had no idea?

No, and here’s why.

Barack Obama gave over twenty thousand dollars to the church that Reverend Wright spewed his hatred from last year; a church that incidentally gave Louis Farrakhan an award, and in the speech said that his views on racism are “helpful and honest.”

Barack Obama called Reverend Wright his spiritual mentor on numerous occasions. He invited him into his home and broke bread with him. The man was more than a reverend, but a friend of the family.

Barack Obama justified, in a tortured and painful way, the words of Wright, as taken out of context, misunderstood, and mudslinging.

Barack Obama said nothing about Wright until he couldn’t avoid the issue and his allies in the media stopped ignoring the issue.

So, what does that have to do with Catholics?

Despite Obama’s complacency with the racism he, his wife, and his two children sat in front of for all these years, he didn’t speak out. When the church scandal broke out, despite the ineptitude of the church in doing the right thing, many Catholics pushed the church to do the right thing. While Obama’s awakening was forced by political pressure from outside and the potential death of his campaign, Catholics were outraged and active once the scandal came out. Did they defend their church? Of course, as one would be expected to do, but the calls for priests to resign came from inside the church and from outraged parishioners who, to this day are still enraged, offended, and embarrassed by the incident. Wright’s parishioners defend him, his church, and despite the overwhelming and repetitive racism displayed by he and his church, his remarks including remarks that said the white man created HIV to destroy the black man. Every interview with parishioners from his church that I’ve seen not only defended his remarks, but went as far as to say they were true and white people just don’t understand.

Obama calls Wright his spiritual advisor, checks with him before making a major decision, and quoted him numerous times in his last book. The average Catholic I know barely makes mass once a week, and most have never had a priest in their home at all (myself included). I won’t even get into how many of them use birth control, don’t care about gays and gay marriage, and don’t care about abortion as much as the church. If, however, the Catholic church started claiming non Catholics were the cause of evil in the world and poisoned people with diseases, I reckon people might take a different stance on the church.

Finally, Obama has called Wright a friend on numerous occasions. As much as I respect my priests for their spiritual guidance, I’ve never called one a friend, never written a book based on their teachings, and never donated $20,000 to them.

So no, Bill. Catholics don’t need to leave the church just so there’s parody between Barack Obama and the racist Anti-American Reverend he loves so much. I found it interesting that Maher picked Catholics, again, for the target of his vitriol, and yet didn’t really examine the issue of Obama’s Reverend at all, especially considering on the liberal scale of severity, nothing is higher than racism (although you could make a case for homophobia).

3. Barack Obama’s association with Bill Ayers.

Who is Bill Ayers?

According to his memoir, Ayers became radicalized at the University of Michigan where he became involved in the New Left and the SDS. Ayers joined the Weatherman group in 1969, but went underground with several associates after the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion in 1970, in which three members (Ted Gold, Terry Robbins, and Diana Oughton, who was Ayers’s girlfriend at the time) were killed while constructing a bomb. While underground, he and fellow member Bernardine Dohrn married and had two children, Zayd and Malik. They were purged from the group in the mid-1970s, and turned themselves in to the authorities in 1981. All charges against him were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct during the long search for the fugitives. They later became legal guardians of Chesa Boudin, the son of former Weathermen David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, after his parents were arrested for their part in the Brinks Robbery of 1981.

In 2001, Ayers published Fugitive Days: A Memoir. Ayers’s interview with the New York Times about his book was published, by historical coincidence, on September 11, 2001, and opens with his statement, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Ayers later explained that by “no regrets” he meant that he didn’t regret his efforts to oppose the Vietnam War, and that “we didn’t do enough” meant that efforts to stop the war were obviously inadequate as it dragged on for a decade; the two statements were not intended to elide into a wish they had set more bombs. The interview also includes his reaction (in his book) to Emile De Antonio’s 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen: “He was ‘embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.” New Politics reviewer Jesse Lemisch has contrasted Ayers’s recollections with those of other Weathermen and has alleged serious factual errors. Ayers, in the foreward to his book, states it was written as his personal memories and impressions over time, not a scholarly research project. His history occasionally surfaces, as when he was asked not to attend a progressive educators’ conference in the fall of 2006 on the basis that the organizers did not want to risk an association with his past.

So what does this have to do with Barack Obama? Well, this man that Obama “barely knows” along with another member of the WU Bernadine Dohrn worked on a foundation with him, hosted a fundraiser for him that raised thousands of dollars, and have had numerous meetings with him over the years. The Obama campaign has chosen to whitewash the former radical as “a respected educator.”

People change over time, and while there’s no evidence that Ayers ever planted a bomb himself, he’s unapologetic for his membership in the WU, and as mentioned above he thinks they should’ve planted more. If you want to read more about these domestic terrorists that Barack Obama so freely associates himself with and who are unrepentant for their crimes, feel free to read more at Wikipedia.

John McCain rightfully went after him on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and despite the Obama campaign’s tepid response and moral equivalence (they compared a bombing conspirator to US Senator Tom Coburn, and of course called McCain’s pointing out of the ties with Ayers a “smear”), the fact remains that he remains friendly with an admitted member of a domestic terrorism organization. His defense that it happened when he was eight years old doesn’t hold water. I wouldn’t hang out with Lee Harvey Oswald (were he still alive) or throw back a beer with Ted Kennedy and both of them did their killing long before I was born.

4. Obama belittles midwesterners as bitter.

(buckle found here)Quite possibly the biggest misstep of his campaign, and the first one that seems to be causing some damage, is his assertion that midwestern people are bitter over the economy, and because of it are clinging to God and guns. Here’s Obama saying as much in his own words.

In essence he claims that in the absence of jobs, those dopey Pennsylvanians have “clung” to God, Guns, Xenophobia, etc. Just a bunch of dumb mid-westerners clutching rifles in their suburban homes and praying the big evil black man doesn’t win the presidency. The tone used (specifically the word clinging) is an excellent example of his disdain. Notice he didn’t use the word “seek” or “turn to,” he used the word “cling” which implies that religion, guns, etc., were old-fashioned things that were running away from them along with their jobs. Obama has, in essence, looked down his nose at those silly religious racist gun nuts he sees all of flyover country as.”

So what the hell does this have to do with flag pins, you ask?

Take the four examples above. In every case, Barack Obama has associated himself with people who hate this country, hate white people, hate the government, and even at times has shown his own elitist tendencies. While everyone was having a smooth-talk-induced orgasm over his speech on “race relations,” many people completely ignored the justifications he gave for Reverend Wright, and missed the subtle racism of the speech itself.

So anyway, back to the flag pins. Many have called the issue of “flag pins” a plant, and a plot to question Barack Obama’s patriotism. In essence, he has refused to wear one at any time ever because he believes it’s shallow and emblematic of the kind of shallow patriotism he believes lead us into the war in Iraq.

The fact remains, though, that the flag pin is a symbol, and it’s a symbol of the very flag that flies above every school, library, and government building. It’s unifying symbol behind which people who respect it feel great pride in this great country we live in. Barack Obama has expressed his disdain for the symbolism of this country through his associations and through his actions and when given a chance again and again, he chose to make the flag and the symbols of this country the issue he took a stand against.

Imagine that.

Taken by itself, the Obama campaign would have a point. The flag pin issue is a non-starter, and probably one designed more to trip him up than to prove a point, but when taken in context of his continual slaps, disrespect, and disdain, you have to wonder if the flag pin is the holy water to his vampirism. The baking soda to his acid. All he would have to do to diffuse the situation is stop being so stubborn and put a pin on. It’s a custom. A symbol. And it’s one that means a lot to a great many people in this country.

His refusal to wear one, while at the same time speaking down to flyover country and continuing to associate with those that outwardly and unapologetically hate this country says a lot more about him than any flowery speech he’ll give in the coming weeks, and despite his constant assertions in his speeches about American exceptionalism and his love for this country because it is the only country in the world where his story could be a reality, he really doesn’t like those pesky lower-class folks who salute the flag, have a gun in their home, and pray to God. No, they cling to that because they don’t know any better. Barack, on the other hand, knows better. He’s smarter than you are.

Just ask him. He’ll tell you.

Momentum. It’s all about momentum. A few cracks in the dam and the next thing you know, it starts to break.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, yesterday became the first world leader to decide not to attend the Olympics in Beijing.

As pressure built for concerted western protests to China over the crackdown in Tibet, EU leaders prepared to discuss the crisis for the first time today, amid a rift over whether to boycott the Olympics.

The disclosure that Germany is to stay away from the games’ opening ceremonies in August could encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to join in a gesture of defiance and complicate Gordon Brown’s determination to attend the Olympics.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, became the first EU head of government to announce a boycott on Thursday and he was promptly joined by President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who had previously promised to travel to Beijing.

“The presence of politicians at the inauguration of the Olympics seems inappropriate,” Tusk said. “I do not intend to take part.”

Nice to see other countries with balls. Our voice seems to coming from dopes like Nancy Pelosi (see two posts earlier).

If Hillary Clinton doesn’t get the nomination of the Democrat party come convention time, people will look back at speeches like this and wonder why the hell she wasn’t taking it to the bobblehead from Illinois much sooner…

It wouldn’t hurt mentioning that 70% of the country wanted that war or that he wasn’t in Congress at the time or that he hasn’t made any defining move since he took office in 2005 to end the war.

That’s how you campaign, Mrs. Clinton.

I’ve spent a lot of time on here lately pointing out just how empty Barack Obama’s campaign really is. From the vapid promises to the supporters who know nothing about him to his non-existent record, there’s not much about Barack Obama worth talking about. Oh sure he’s the darling of the media and all they can talk about is how he’s black and he speaks well (as if a man running for President should show up at the debate yelling “I’m gone be Prez-o-dent”) but despite the folks that are ramming Obama down everyone’s throat, I never bought into the “hope” and “change” stuff.

I’ve also never bought into the “inspirational” thing, because if you need an outside person to inspire you, you probably should be looking elsewhere than a political candidate. That being said, some people have credentials, and some people have promises.

Hillary Clinton has credentials.

The automatic assumption, based on skin color no doubt, is that Barack Obama is a uniter. Hillary Clinton, however, has proved after working in the Senate for 8 years that she’s a doer, not a talker, and that’s evidenced by her 60% approval rating in a state where people were sharply divided about even electing her in the first place. She’s so popular in New York, in fact, that the GOP didn’t even run an actual candidate against her in the last Senatorial election.

That’s inspirational.

Though unsuccessful, she immediately acted as soon as she became First Lady to become more than just a figurehead for the President and spokesperson for some governmental program, and began working on a plan that would guarantee health insurance for all americans. Her reputation as an active First Lady often drew scorn and the term “bitch” has been used to describe her more times than I care to count, but in the end, she has forever changed the perception of the duties of the First Lady.

That’s inspirational.

In the 1960’s, when the civil rights movement was ramping up, she was there in the trenches. In 1965, she challenged segregation by bringing a black classmate to her all-white church, causing a minor uproar at the church. In 1995, she gave a speech in China that criticized China for its continued oppression of women. In many ways, Hillary Clinton has spent most of her adult life fighting for the rights of women both in the United States and abroad, and despite being diplomatic at times, spares no one from criticism for their policies when they’re anti-woman. She’s been on the front lines since day one.

That’s inspirational.

In 2006, she voted against the bill and constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration, proving that free speech is exactly that; free speech. Despite the unpopular nature of her opinion, she stuck to it and voted against it. Free speech is free speech; end of story.

That’s inspirational.

When her husband cheated on her with an intern in the Oval Office, instead of running out, playing the oppressed woman, and breaking up her marriage and family, she stood by her husband, much to the chagrin of many who thought it demonstrated weakness on her part. Most of those same people, of course, patted David Vitter’s wife on the back for forgiving her husband for a similar indiscretion. In the end, Hillary and Bill Clinton are still married and, as far as we know, happily so.

That’s inspirational.

While I’ve disagreed with Hillary Clinton over the years on many an issue (Affirmative action being one, her endorsement of punishing hate crimes differently another), her rise to become one of the most influential Senators in Washington is nothing short of incredible. Rising from an idealistic young college protestor to the First Lady of Arkansas to a prototypical new-age First Lady in Washington to a Senator in one of the biggest states in the country to a candidate for President of the United States is a story that’s not matched by anyone in this election or in any elections past.

If you seek your inspiration in someone’s ability to speak, then by all means, go with the silver-tongued Senator from Illinois. If, however, you want a story that’s just a hair more substantive than “she can speak really well!” then do what you have to do today. Vote for Hillary Clinton to represent the Democratic Party in November.

Rudy Giuliani was a shoe-in to win the Republican nomination. He was polling way ahead of the other candidates, leaving people like John McCain and Mitt Romney in the dust. Everyone was fully expecting “America’s Mayor” to come out of the race as the candidate and most likely fight a tough fought election against Obama, Clinton, or Edwards.On the Democrat side, we have John Edwards. While he never polled as strongly as Rudy did, Edwards was fit to be the spoiler. In many polls, against Republicans like Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, he lead. In his speeches and in his campaign e-mails, he repeatedly reminded supporters that he was the only candidate that, according to the polls, could win this election.

It seems like ages ago that these two were talking about their grandiose plans to change the race and the White House. All it took was one primary to completely throw a monkey wrench into the greatest plans of Edwards and Giuliani and as we sit here, a mere four days away from “Super Tuesday,” both have dropped out of the race after placing poorly in all the prior primaries.It’s worth asking… What the hell happened?

Rudy Met Reality

When it comes down to it, Rudy Giuliani was never a terribly attractive candidate. In his home state of New York, through the month of January, Giuliani never once led the polls. The closest he came was a Quinnipiac poll the week of January 14th that showed John McCain and him and in a tie. In December, he was leading by as much as 22 points in New York, but as soon as McCain showed as a strong candidate and Huckabee won Iowa, it was all down hill.

Giuliani placed poorly in Iowa where Mike Huckabee won his only primary (he’s polling right now 5.7% ahead in Georgia, by the way), utterly ignored New Hampshire where John McCain got a huge kickstart and never really recovered. His strategy of putting all his eggs into the Florida basket never really materialized for him and despite relying on both the enormous number of transplants from New York to Florida and dragging out his 9/11 experience as often as he possibly could, Floridians didn’t buy into Rudy and he lost.Was it his strategy that failed him? To a degree yes, but I think a contributing factor was Rudy himself. Most out of state people jumped on the Rudy bandwagon because they remember him from his performance in such plays as 9/11: The Movie and so on. The mythical super-leader who held the city together in a time of utter chaos plays well to people outside the city to some extent. That being said, to New Yorkers, it was just one small part of a Mayorship scarred by political power grabs, corruption, and bad decisions. We knew better and we saw firsthand what others didn’t and we weren’t buying it.

Many Republicans in New York had decided to unite behind Giuliani simply because he was the populist candidate and a guy who could ride his legend into the White House. It didn’t work out that way, though, and before New York even came into play, John McCain and Mitt Romney established themselves as the front runners in a campaign likely to be a back and forth battle all the way through Super Tuesday. My guess is that John McCain will beat Romney handily, which will probably mean the beginning of the end for the conservative movement as we know it today.

Edwards Connected With No One

John Edwards had a very simple message. I’m rich, you’re not, and that means there are two Americas, so vote for me and I’ll help you to not be poor anymore. I’ll pay for your healthcare, your food, your clothes, your education, and I’ll lift the South out of its undereducated and impoverished duldrums. Ye shall all be uplifted and thine uplifter shall be me.Problem? The country didn’t buy into the idea that a rich trial lawyer was really connected to the poor people of this country. Imagine that! Edwards didn’t really have a message other than “The government can fix all your ills,” and that doesn’t play well in the states. The reason Obama and Clinton have been the front runners for so long is that they temper their message of “Government controlled” with a bit of real-world practicality. You can’t play complete socialism 100% to the middle of America and expect it to work. In John’s case, he never got that far.

The other thing about Edwards that he caught no flack for was his reliance on New Orleans as a backdrop for his campaign. While, as Joe Biden put it, Rudy’s quotes can usually be whittled down to a noun, a verb, and 9/11, John Edwards prefers to show you Epic Fail Katrina and how he’s going to fix New Orleans. He opened his campaign there, and appropriately closed his campaign there. He also had a contest during his campaign where people would join him to work in New Orleans. Okay John, we get it. You heart New Orleans. Hate to say it, Johnny, but they probably were not going to vote for you no matter how much you tell them in that condescending voice that you’re one of them and you care about them.

No one buys the act, John. Thank you for closing the curtains on it.

Conclusion

Now that the initial shock of Giuliani’s spectacular failure has worn off, and we’re rid of Mr. “Two Americas,” things will undoubtedly get more interesting as the candidates now shift gears and focus on other targets. Either way, we’ve learned one thing… Polls don’t matter if you can’t back them up at the voting machines.

Edwards failing was no surprise to anyone. Giuliani’s failure screwed up the workings of the Republican primaries severely.

Tuesday is going to be really interesting.

Republican Fred Thompson, the actor-politician who attracted more attention as a potential presidential candidate than as a real one, quit the race for the White House on Tuesday after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states.

“I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort,” Thompson said. “Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.”

Benefited? From what? A half-assed campaign that lost big in every state?

No one cares, Fred, which is why you’re out.

Today is the 35th anniversary of the most saddening decision in Supreme Court history.

Roe v. Wade has done nothing good for this country. It created a cottage industry of “family planners” who are nothing more than abortion factories with cute names and has resulted in the murder of millions of babies in the name of “choice,” family planning, and convenience.

We’ve seen every contortion of the matter from the pro-abortion crowd claiming women should have a right to abort a child because they can’t afford to have one (apparently the choice to abort isn’t concurrent with the choice to not make a baby in their world) to women proudly proclaiming that because of the travesty that is Roe V. Wade, women can now “do what they want with their bodies,” again completely disregarding the fact that a fetus is not “their body” and doing what you want is what got them in that mess to begin with.

You’re going to hear lots of crap today, but there’s one undeniable fact. If you’re reading this now, your parents didn’t abort you. For all the people running around today pounding their chests in the name of feminist reproductive choice, none of them are abortion survivors. Unlike most medical procedures, abortion has a 100% success rate, and you’re 100% dead if one is performed on you in utero.

Just remember that as everyone proudly proclaims how they’re “pro choice” and how this is a great day for women everywhere. Pro choice is a euphemism for pro abortion. You either want abortion to exist or you don’t. It’s fine to be pro abortion if that’s your thing, but please stop laying the bullshit line about choice on me, okay?

Who knows. In another 35 years, maybe we’ll have seen the light and we’ll stop using abortion as birth control, but I reckon that as long as we can’t even face what it is, what it does, and stop using cutesy euphemisms like “choice” and “family planning” for it, it isn’t going anywhere.

So, yet again, another advance in Stem Cells has been made that doesn’t involve destroying an embryo. Why haven’t you heard about it? Well, chances are your news sources have a template for stem cell stories that’s only half the actual story.

The template usually consists of a few things.

1. They let you believe that the evil Christian lunatics in this country have made stem cell research illegal.

2. They let you believe that the only advancements being made in the field are with embryonic stem cells.

3. They let you believe that embryonic stem cells will cure everything from caivities to paralysis.

4. They let you believe that nothing can be done if the federal government doesn’t fund embryonic stem cell research.

As I’ve chronicled on numerous occasions right here on this very blog, there are lots of advancements being made and yet very few are getting the time of day with the alphabet networks, including this one that Reuters kinda posted…

A company that devised a way to make embryonic stem cells using a technique it said does not harm human embryos reported on Thursday it has grown five batches of cells using this method and urged President George W. Bush to endorse it.

Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology has been working with a method sometimes used to test embryos for severe genetic diseases. Called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, it involves taking a single cell from an embryo when it contains only eight or so cells.

The method usually does not harm the embryo, which is frozen for possible future implantation into the mother’s womb. The ACT team also froze the embryos and used the single cell that was removed as a source of human embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Robert Lanza, ACT’s scientific director, said it provides a way to create mass quantities of embryonic stem cells without harming a human embryo. Current stem cell technologies require the embryo’s destruction.

“This is a working technology that exists here and now. It could be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available to federal researchers immediately,” Lanza said by e-mail. “We could send these cells out to researchers tomorrow.”

You would think this would be a glorious breakthrough, right? Embryonic stem cells without destroying the actual embryo! PARTY AT MY PLACE!

Nothing.

Zip.

Barely a murmur.

Why?

Because it’s an election year, and this kind of technology doesn’t play well for the media who have banked on people being uninformed about stem cell research and relying on them to drill the afforementioned template into their heads long enough for it to become “truth.”

Heh… If this doesn’t summarize the vapidity of those two gasbags, nothing does…

I’m sick of hearing the word “change.” Last night, during the Democratic debate in New Hampshire, we heard it 90 times. Change, change, change. Blah, blah, blah. It’s an utterly empty word. Meaningless. The worst of political rhetoric. The worst of political bullshit. Pure spin. Cynical marketing. Juvenile pandering. ‘I’m change.’ “No, I’m change.’ ‘Are not.’ ‘Am, too.’ Nya, nya, nya.

Oh, just shut up and do something. Or at least say something. And don’t say “hope,” either. Say something about the economy (note that on Facebook — which is overwhelmingly and disproportionately in Obama’s camp — the users wanted to hear a lot more about that). And health care. And education. And technology. And Iraq. And energy. And the environment. Or just tell us what change means.

God bless Charlie Gibson last night — the best moderator on any debate so far, I’d say — who pointed to the emptiness of change when Barack Obama and John Edwards bragged about doing in those evil lobbyists and stopping them from corrupting democracy by buying legislators meals. Charlie pointed out that the only change in the rule is that they can’t buy lawmakers meals while sitting down.

Utterly empty. My God it’s as if I cowrote this post with him. Jarvis goes on to say there’s plenty that actually does need to be changed, and it’s time to stop talking about the concept of change and instead start talking about what actual changes can be made to make life better for Americans.

Imagine that.

Jeff Jarvis is smarter than our Presidential candidates (of course, I already knew that, but still).

Here’s what I want to hear from the candidates:

1. Forgetting the problem of people being uninsured; what are you going to do to see to it that people who are insured get the health care they need?

2. What do you plan to do in Iraq, and how?

3. Aside from scaring the pants off of people and crippling the economy, what real world and popularly viable things are you going to implement to make sure that our environment is protected?

4. What are you going to do to make sure that Social Security is there for me when it comes time for me to retire?

5. What are you going to do to make sure that countries like China stop sending poisoned crap into our country and killing our people?

If anyone wants to talk about change and hope, here’s the way I think we can address both…

I would hope that the candidates would change from talking about meaningless generic concepts and substanceless garbage and hope that all of the candidates will start talking real policy.

The first candidate who does will get my vote.

Barack Obama’s big theme is “hope,” and he delivers it in pure populist form (ie: platitudes galore and substance-absent). Hillary Clinton, apparently, has had enough of the love affair with Barackapalooza and its message of hope and points out that it isn’t about “talking about hope,” it’s about delivering…

If Barack sounded presidential when he droned on in his campaign about nothing, Hillary sounded downright brilliant in that clip. I’m sure Drudge didn’t post it because he agreed, but it’s still a cut above the vapid emptiness of people like John Edwards and Barack Obama.

Holy crap, now this is an interesting piece of news. Fresh off Podtech building that brand new studio that Robert Scoble gave us a tour of a few months ago (even if briefly), we now see that Robert is moving full-time to Fast Company.

Scoble isn’t saying if he’ll continue to use the same format as his current show, ScobleShow, where he interviews entrepreneurs daily. Another big question is whether his sponsor, Seagate, will follow him to Fast Company. It’s rumored Seagate is paying a massive fee to sponsor the show.

This is another blow for PodTech, which has already lost its founding CEO and is nearly out of money. The company has run through $7.5 million in funding. They are rumored to be closing on another million or so in bridge financing. But they’re very, very close to the deadpool.

Let’s see… First they shitcan my friend Loren Feldman.

Then Irina Slutsky takes a walk.

Now Scoble is on his way out the door headed for obviously greener pastures.

Podtech is dead.

I guess, on the brightside, they still have that absolute fuck-knuckle Jay Smooth and God knows he’s a network savior…

Another day, another example of Rudy putting his foot squarely between his choppers… Factcheck.org has, yet again, caught Rudy playing fast and loose with the truth…

Here’s a summary from Factcheck…

My particular favorite?

Right here…

Misquoting Hillary: Giuliani wrongly attributed a quote to Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton, and he got the quote wrong as well:

Giuliani: And the leading Democratic candidate once said that the unfettered free market is the most destructive force in modern America.

Sen. Clinton, the “leading” candidate in public opinion polls, never said that. The quote is by Alan Ehrenhalt, author and executive editor of Governing magazine. Furthermore, Ehrenhalt didn’t call the free market “destructive” but used the somewhat softer term “radically disruptive.” As Clinton quoted him in her book, “It Takes a Village”:

Ehrenhalt: The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in American life in the last generation, busting up neighborhoods….

To be sure, Sen. Clinton agreed with that sentiment. But she also said in the same book, on the next page, that “the economy is also creating millions of new jobs, with small businesses starting at a record pace.” And later she said the free market is “the driving force behind our prosperity.” She was asked about the Ehrenhalt quote in a C-SPAN interview in 1996, and gave this response:

Clinton: I believe that. That’s why I put it in the book…. I just believe that there’s got to be a healthy tension among all of our institutions in society, and that the market is the driving force behind our prosperity, our freedom in so many respects to make our lives our own but that it cannot be permitted just to run roughshod over people’s lives as well.

Giuliani misleads when he says Clinton called the free market “destructive,” when what she has really said is that it is both disruptive to neighborhoods and people’s lives, and a driving force behind prosperity.

Misleads? Methinks Factcheck is a bit kind there. Rudy LIED. As he’s done again and again, and as he will continue to do throughout the campaign because, for the most part, he gets away with it. Go ahead. Read the rest of the article. He consistently got facts wrong throughout the whole debate.

It should be noted that Fred Thompson also made some pretty strong claims, and every single one of them checked out perfectly. Rudy should pay attention; he might learn a thing or two.

Maybe he’d even learn that he can’t just make claims without there being facts to back them up.

How refreshing.

When Barrack Obama raised more than Hillary Clinton in the last quarter, suddenly, it was like the world was alive again. The media had a noticeable grin on their faces as they reported that their favorite candidate was going to kick ass and win the nomination. Hillary Clinton’s campaign was doomed to fail in the face of the juggernaut that was the black vote and the charismatic (albeit completely vapid) Barack Obama.

Fast forward a few short months. Here’s the word from the Clinton campaign’s recent announcement:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner in the polls, reclaimed her lead in the money race, announcing today that she had surpassed her nearest rival by $7 million in the third quarter.

The New York Democrat overcame the typically slow third quarter by raising $27 million. Although her total dipped from her second-quarter showing, Clinton topped her nearest rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who raised about $20 million.

Of her total, $22 million was earmarked for the primary contests, which begin in three months. She also attracted 100,000 new donors, more than the 93,000 donors that Obama drew.

In other words, she’s slaying him, and badly. To put her numbers in perspective, distant third candidate and class-divider John Edwards raised a paltry $30 million this entire year.

But that isn’t the only bad news for Obama and Edwards. As it turns out, the Clinton campaign is also gigantically ahead in the polls. In a recent Washington Post / ABC News poll…

Hillary Rodham Clinton has jumped to an astounding 33-point lead over Barack Obama, topping her main rival among every major slice of the electorate and widening a dominating advantage she has held all summer.

Clinton got support from a full majority for the first time in any national survey about the Democratic presidential field. She is backed by 53 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Barack Obama is unelectable. He has no plan and there’s nothing behind his speeches aside from some catchy buzzwords and tired cliches. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has ideas and a plan. She’s also never waffled on the war on Iraq; only the way it’s being managed by our illustrious President. She has a plan for health care, and released that plan in detail.

Obama, on the other hand, is big on what we need to “feed” the people of this country, and we aren’t talking about food here. If it weren’t for the fact that Obama was black, you can bet your ass he’d be polling lower than Dick Gephardt did in 2004.

I’m a very happy camper, and I look forward to watching all the pundits eat crow.

Technorati Tags: hillary clinton, barack obama

Technorati Tags: obama, video, debate, idiot

The New York State Restaurant Association is not pleased with the New York City Board of Health. A fight has been raging for weeks since the city announced plans to have all restaurants whose nutritional info has been calculated to place it on their menus.

Subway complied voluntarily, presumably because they have nothing to hide. Dunkin’ Donuts, in a feeble attempt to prove how altering their menu to include calories could never possibly work submitted what could only be called the ultimate half-assed effort to the BOH. Here’s what they sent in, saying if calories were added their menu would be unreadable:

Wow. That is pretty unreadable, huh? Except, of course, that it’s because they made it that way intentionally to try and prove a point. The Board of Health wasn’t buying this half-assed crap and instead decided to demonstrate what could be done if you actually wanted to make the change:

Amazing. They made the font bigger, killed all the empty space, and changed the color for the calorie info so it doesn’t interfere with the numbers in the price.

Now why couldn’t Dunkin’ Donuts do that? My guess is that they could’ve, but are resisting simply because it would prove just how awful and calorie-ridden their delicious donuts really are. I’m a huge fan of their donuts (although their coffee is so awful it should be banned for human consumption) but seeing their nutritional info in front of me might actually be a wakeup call when deciding.

Who knows.

Either way, I can truthfully say that companies with nothing to hide (ie: Subway) are going to do well here, and companies trying desperately to hide (ie: Dunkin’ Donuts) are going to appear to be hiding something.

via Consumerist

From the New York Daily News:

On Oct. 11, 2002, the Senate gave President Bush authority to use force against Iraq. Nearly five years later, it is time for Congress to say enough is enough.

The American people have waited long enough for progress in Iraq. They have waited long enough for the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. Today, more than 150,000 members of our armed forces are caught in a civil war. According to the Pentagon, overall levels of violence in Iraq have not decreased since the surge began. The last three months have been the deadliest period for American troops since the start of the war. It is time for the waiting to end and for our troops to start to come home.

That is why we propose to end the authorization for the war in Iraq. The civil war we have on our hands in Iraq is not our fight and it is not the fight Congress authorized. Iraq is at war with itself and American troops are caught in the middle.

We sure are, and it’s a fight we simply can’t win. Using the justification that us leaving would be disastrous to stay indefinitely is specious and silly. We’re in the middle of a bunch of savages killing each other in front of people too lazy to protect themselves because, well, we’ll do it for them!

And don’t get all pissy with me for calling the psychos who blow themselves up at a market killing 100 people savages. If you don’t think they’re savages you’re just as fucked up as they are.

At a recent Senate hearing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked if the 2002 authorization still applies to Iraq. His response was surprisingly candid: “I don’t know.” Four years into the conflict in Iraq, longer than American involvement in World War II, after years of White House misjudgment and miscalculation, as our troops fight and die in the midst of an Iraqi civil war, the answer could not be clearer.

Whether you agree with the war (I do) or not, you cannot argue that this war has been managed correctly. We’re stuck, with no exit plan, in a country where the people can’t seem to handle freedom and instead take to blowing each other up because they think Allah should be spelled differently. You’ll pardon my callousness, but these are not people I care to send any more Americans to Arlington Cemetery over.

The 2008 defense authorization bill is now before the U.S. Senate. This legislation presents a vital opportunity for Congress to step up and force the President to change course in Iraq. Amending the bill to deauthorize the war would do exactly that. We intend to lead that effort.

If the Bush administration believes that the current war, as it is being executed, is critical to America’s future, then it should make the case and let the people decide. Explain to the public why our young men and women should be sent into the middle of a fight between religious factions. Explain why we should continue to devote $10 billion each month to this fight.

Again, whether or not you agree with the war, this is a pretty common-sense point. If the war is critical, sell it to the american people. 4 years later, give us some hard verifiable facts that show we aren’t just throwing money into a blackhole we can never escape from. Hell, if the President hits the mics the way he did for the shamnesty bill a few weeks ago, we’ll get a much better picture of what’s going on and what the game plan is. Instead, we get the “don’t worry, it’s working” bullshit we’ve been hearing.

It’s no surprise that immigration stole the headlines for a few weeks, and now the fairness doctrine is threatening to do the same. In the midst of a war, we seem to find the President and the supporters of the war in Congress picking other fights instead of winning the one we’re in.

It’s unacceptable and it’s an affront to the men and women serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prior to the vote on the original authorization of force in 2002, we worked to limit that authority to one year. Unfortunately, the amendment failed — a fact rendered all the more distressing in hindsight.

You both didn’t work hard enough, Senators. End of story.

By deauthorizing the original use-of-force resolution this year, we would put a stop to the President’s failed strategy and require him to articulate a new policy that takes into account the desires of the American people, the reality in Iraq and the recommendations of military experts.

The American people deserve to know how the President intends to judge the results of our ongoing efforts in Iraq and what strategy he proposes to bring the occupation to an end.

That sentence in boldface is, quite simply, what the American people are hungering for right now. What constitutes a victory in Iraq? At what point can we safely pull out, or are we at the point now where any questioning of when we’re pulling out becomes an argument over how anyone saying we aren’t going to win in a civil war / pissing contest between Shi’a and Sunnis is somehow defeatist?

Let’s see the game plan. What’s the measuring stick? What tangible measurements are we going to make of the Iraqi government and security forces that will allow us to say they’re ready for us to leave? I find it hard to believe that this plan has even been discussed in Washington.

We don’t need all the details, but how about starting by showing us there is a plan to begin with. I’d be happy with just that little.

Our men and women in uniform toppled the dictator. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has established a parliament and elected a president and a prime minister. Yet our troops remain in Iraq and our President remains unmoved by any arguments to change course.

Not bad for a guy who’s never been about “change the course.”

As Bush admitted in his State of the Union address in January, “This is not the fight we entered in Iraq.” We could not agree more. This is not the fight Congress authorized, Mr. President. If you want to continue to wage this fight, come to Congress and make your case. Otherwise, bring our troops home.

Well said.

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