Frankly, a comment or two ago you noted that the '06 election occurred against all statistical possibilities, and here you appear to be saying that constitutional govt. is necessarily poderous and slow. Not sure how you will string these two concepts together with any consistency.

First a slight adjustment of the premises. First, not possibilities, but probabilities. Second, it is not constitutional government that is slow, it is government under the US Constitution that is slow. Many, if not most, parliamentary governments are based on a constitution (Great Britain is an exception), but it is still possible to change the government fairly easily because the head of state and the head of government are not the same person. Under the US Constitution, the president is both head of state, and effectively head of government. The president is elected for four years and cannot be removed except by impeachment (or, under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, when incapacitated). While the president cannot create law, he can issue executive orders that have the force of law. And he has the right to veto legislation which then requires a two-thirds majority of both houses to override so that a simple majority of both houses does not guarantee legislative control.

Beyond that, it's easy. The majority may have changed overnight in November of 06 (actually in January of 07), but it is now October of 07 and how much has this majority been able to accomplish in that time? Not quite sweet Fanny Adams, but precious little. This is because the constitutional procedures for making law are not entirely determined by who holds the majority. First, it can require 60 votes in the Senate to get a bill out of committee and onto the floor for a vote. If the bill passes with a simple majority, the president can still veto it. So between the obstructionist Republicans forcing every bill to a cloture vote in the Senate and the president vetoing anything that gets through, there is no advantage to holding the majority in the legislature except for having control of chairmanships of congressional committees and thereby having the power to initiate investigations and having subpoena power. Basically, the Democrats made as much of a gain as the could have in that election but it didn't get them much except the power to initiate investigations and issue subpoenas.

fwiw, I am guessing that Boder's piece hangs on a seeming contradition. Broder is seeing this crappy environment for the GOP, and in the face of it, he notes Mr. Cole wearing a smiley-face. So Broder says, "Hullo--I think I have me a column here." It's the contradiction that makes the story. So he lays out Cole's view, notes the precedent of 1992 where the dems won the WH but lost seats and says--"well, it's somewhat weird but it's happened before."

The Dems probably would have lost the White House too if it hadn't been for Ross Perot. But in any case it's nice of Broder to admit that it's weird. If he had pointed out that it was weird that the NRCC was planning to go on the offensive when it is broke and in debt, that would have been nice too. I suppose that you are going to tell me that Broder is just making fun of Cole for his pollyanna-ish outlook in the face of such glum (for the GOP) statistics.

In my view, this does not make Broder the antichrist, nor is your epithet that Cole ghost-wrote the piece fair.

I doubt that Broder is the antichrist; he is just a GOP media shill. They are a dime a dozen in Washington. As for Cole ghosting it, the article consists of a recitation of the polling data and Cole's reaction to it. If there's any of Broder's opinion in the piece (other than Cole's outlook being weird but not impossible) I wish you'd point it out to me.

thomas c: shooter242 is a kool-aid drinkin' troll. Nothing more.

The only question here is: Why did it take you 6 months to figure this out?

To anyone who wants to give shooter the benefit of the doubt, the only response is "What doubt?"

Let's see how much coverage this report by Reuters gets in the US media.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071008/ts_nm/britain_iraq_afghanistan_dc;_ylt=Agvm6EV3RwzE83KyTd1gWvas0NUE

... of not leveling a charge:

I was going to say a few words about shooter, but if you call someone a chickenshit asshole you have to go into rehab. So I have nothing to say about shooter.

A very long way from calling shooter a chickenshit asshole, which I would never do, isn't it?

shooter is off to the golf course where he apparently has a regular job as the 8th hole and won't be back until after dark. I guess there's nothing left but serious discussion.

In your last "Various Items" post, you touched on the topic of war with Iran, making the claim that Ahmadinejad's call that "Israel should be wiped off the map" was actually a "manipulative [mis-translation] [sic] by neoconservatives". But this is -- or was -- clearly a fringe position, easily debunked by reviewing the Bronner article you cited in support of your claim, copy on Ahmadinejad's own web site, the similarity of the alternate translation -- "The regime currently occupying Jerusalem must be wiped from the pages of time" -- and making a simple appeal to common sense.

Compare and contrast:

• The United States should be wiped off the map.
• The regime currently occupying Washington must be wiped from the pages of time.

Do you begin to see the difference yet?

I didn't think so.