"Does anybody know where to find data regarding how accurately Rasmussen (or any of the other pollsters) has prognosticated during this election cycle?"

I don't know how they are doing this cycle but in the past, they've been fairly accurate when confining themselves to Republican issues. They seem, to me at least, to be rather conservative in their political leanings but, again only in my opinion, they were pretty much spot on in 2006.

Re: Straights of Hormuz stuff

Traditionally, there is a 12-mile territorial area which each country expects to be treated as soverign to their land territory. This distance was set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which dates from the early 80's. Under this law, nations may control the seas up to 12-miles from their shoreline except under circumstances such as if the waterway is so narrow that if nations on both sides claimed a 12-mile territorial limit, their limits would overlap. Iran is signatory to this treaty, as is the United States. (Libya claimed a 200 mile limit in the 80's, which prompted the loss of several Libyan Migs to Tomcats from our carrier groups that didn't recognize the Libyan claims.)

The problem here is that we have no way of knowing whether this confrontation took place over 12 miles from the coast of Iran. The Straight is only about 30 miles wide so if Iran claims 12 miles, and Oman (or the UAE) claims 12 miles, that would leave only a 6 mile wide "channel" for ships to stay in international waters and avoid the territorial waters of either Iran or Oman.

I have absolutely no doubt that our ships, which are highly trained and equipped for litorial navigation, knew precisely where they were at all times while traversing the straight. I don't have similar confidence that the Iranians did but I believe they also knew where they were.

Thus, it's my opinion, given that there were more than a single ship involved, it would appear to me that the incident took place in international waters or in the waters of Oman.

As such, it's a fairly common occurance. Last year, for instance, a Chinese submarine surfaced extremely close to one of our carriers without being detected. Surfacing a submarine in that manner is akin to thumbing one's nose and giving the opposition the neener, neener, neener just to let them know that their continued existance is due only to the good will of the submariner.

I don't doubt that the Iranians played havok with the American's formation. That's how the "game" is played.

If you ever get a chance to meet a submariner, ask him what a Crazy Ivan is.

As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with LWM on this one. What disturbs me, is that the incident was even made public or that we even complained about it....while not filing a formal protest. Are we wimps?

"The really sad thing is that many Americans will see these five small vessels as a serious threat to our enormous, in comparison, ships. So in that respect, it unfortunately, to some degree works."

We should be reminded that the USS Cole was badly damaged and may have been sunk had she been in open waters rather than a relatively calm setting when she was damaged by terrorists using what basically amounts to a rubber dinghy packed with explosives. It ain't always the size of the dog in the fight.

From a diplomatic standpoint, I can see why Bush might want to play with this type of thing immediately prior to a trip to the middle east. He can then exclaim how the mighty US Navy held off from destroying those tiny boats from Iran, even though the Iranians presented a danger to our vessles. OH!, how awfully nice and magnanimous the United States is when dealing with ragtag militants.

Of course, one could take the opposite approach and claim that the boats interfered with our legal right of passage just prior to a Presidential visit just to poke a stick toward Bush's eye (rather than in it) in an attempt to embarrass him (and us).

They don't need to do anything to allow Bush to embarass us. He does fine on his own.

Games.

Oh! I almost forgot.

How easy would it have been for the Republican Guard Yacht Club to do the same thing with a Super Tanker coming out of Iran? Were they sending a message?

"I mean, yes we have legitimate strategic interests in the area, but how would Americans react to, say, Chinese ships hovering outside our major ports at the same time their leadership threatens a pre-emptive war?"

I suspect we would hold a Press Conference at DHS Headquarters and Sec. Chertof (R-Mars) would order all cruise ships to strip search all embarking passengers to make sure they aren't carrying said items.

Then, DHS would ban passengers on those cruise ships from carrying fingernail clippers or bottled water. George would tell us to go shopping and Limbaugh would use private carriage to haul his stash of Oxycontin and Viagra to and fro.