For the USA to get out of the occupation of Iraq, it would take a substantial majority of Democrats. The kind that can override any veto from the president and make the people's will known. Republicans may agree with the idea of abandoning the effort in Iraq in private, but in public they will defend Bush until they simply cannot anymore, either for their own political survival, or out of re-awakened conscience. Or both. So either the GOP is going to have a "come to Jesus" moment, or we are going to have to keep turning the heat up until Bush is in fact, backed into a corner with no way out. What I envision is a scenario where he and Dick Cheney are facing the real and distinct possibility of impeachment from BOTH parties. Then, and only then might he make some conciliatory gesture. Like cutting a deal with Congress to keep him from being ousted, and ending the war. Barring that, George W. Bush is on track to sink his party's chances of being elected for anything higher than dog catcher for what may be a generation to come.

Frankly, I'm down with that.

I was thinking that Libby ought to get what Brian Dennehy's sheriff in "Silverado" called "a first class hanging".

OK I was kidding. A little.

They still do hangings in UT.

Truly, just kidding.

Patrick Fitzgerald should be the next US Attorney General, and I hope the next democratically elected President (which I suspect will be a Democrat) will so nominate him for that post. The truth is, we could use him at the post now, but the bad guys that he couldn't hang won't have that.

Please pardon the Old West metaphors. They're hard to avoid when we have a John Wayne wannabe in the Oval Office.

So she was classified until she was de-classified and then she was re-classified until she was de-classified for the purpose of de-classifying the classified classification of re-classified previously de-classified....sigh.

I give up. My head hurts.

What a complete and utter CLUSTER-FUCK!!

With this much utter incompetence and sheer stupidity, I'd resign too.

I thought for one terrifying moment that this actor would be just what the Republicans need, a tough-talking conservative who, strangely, is just...like...the other...tough-talking conservatives...

What was I thinking? Fred Thompson's just another empty suit. Just a bigger one at 6'6". USA Today is all over this guy. Greenwald tells about Howard Fineman becoming nearly orgasmic with delight. Man, these guys really are desperate. If you're a Republican, your guy (no women running this time)has got to have a really high Q-rating or he's done. Unlike progressives, who oddly enough seem drawn to candidates with ideas. That seems to be the big divide here. Ideas vs. personalities (or the lack of them in the GOP's case). Anyway, I needn't have worried. In time past, I would have been alarmed because he comes across just like Bush and people were stupid enough to buy it. Now,in this new age of accountability and oversight, not so much. Only the willfully ignorant are buying this hokum, much the same way they were drooling over Monica Goodling last week. Another day in the altered universe of the right wing. And so it goes.

Now I do not mean to suggest that I am rooting for Tony in any way. I tuned out some years back when it became hard to tolerate the brutality of the story. My partner, gentle soul that she is, began having nightmares. I'm sure David Chase was playing for irony and humor by positing that the criminal lifestlyle of an inarticulate thug named Tony Soprano was causing him anxiety and therefore he needed therapy! I suspect he knew we were in on the joke. As if therapy and medication could ameliorate the reality of being a cold-blooded murderer, and the fact that your closest friends are, well, cold-blooded murderers. I totally get the attempt to make these characters nuanced and possibly even sympathetic, but as the second to the last episode shows, the quicksand box these people play in has a pretty powerful undertow and you know, even if Carmela can't admit it, this won't end well. These are not nice people. They're not even morally compromised, which would suggest some possiblity for redemption. No. Tony and Co. had given over to the Dark Side long ago, and as they say, when you make a deal with the devil, the devil always collects. Now that may sound too simplistic for these times when no one seems to be ever held accountable for anything. But if an overly pampered, rich and vapid party girl can get her comeuppance, and if an amoral President can feel the noose closing around his neck, then Tony Soprano can face the music too. I suspect he will. The universe has its own kind of justice.