The so-called surge (read: escalation) is not a strategy. The desire to tamp down the daily carnage in Baghdad is not a strategy. They are, at best, operations in search of a strategy.

This war was lost before it was started, because it was based on lies about non-existent WMD and imaginary connections to al-Qaeda and 9/11. The U.S. invasion touched off a struggle for power between two key factions in post-Saddam Iraq; and the Bush-Cheney neocons had no plan for dealing with the inevitable Sunni-Shiite reckoning. Instead, the occupation consists only of ad-hoc operations which invariably involve lots of driving around and kicking down of doors, toward no discernable goal (though at great cost).

I can understand why those "on the ground" support their "mission". I mean, my god, how could they get out of bed and risk their lives every day if they did NOT believe it was for a good cause? But that is why the Constitution places decisions of war and peace not with individual soldiers or "battlefield" commanders, but with an elected Congress that is responsible to the public. (Red state christians and corporate lobbyists, mainly; but still.)

This entire fiasco was cooked up by a bunch of chickenhawks, a surprising number of whom look startlingly like Karl Rove and talk in soft feminine voices like Alberto Gonzales. America's and indeed the world's anger should be directed at them, not at those like Sen. Reid who are heroically trying to stop the insanity known as this generation's Vietnam.

Joan, would you please let us know of your TV appearances in advance (and pardon me, if you're already doing this and I've somehow not noticed). Scarborough Country is on at an inconvenient time for me; but I will make the effort to catch it if I know you're a guest.

And please tell MSNBC to give Joe the earlier time slot(s) now occupied by the obnoxious Tucker "I'm Too Young to Remember Vietnam and Too Preppy to Care" Carlson. Thanks.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it a Republican president who has ignored al-Qaeda and forgotten Osama, thus letting them continue to threaten and attack the West?

I think we'd fare better with the other guys.

Elephantman ("Ed") condescended to debate the issue of public financing in response to Salon's "The Real Fox News Democrats" earlier this month. (For anyone who's interested, they are the earliest letters in Ed's personal thread as a Salon registrant.)

What is most fascinating is the insight I gained into the far right's incessant charge of "liberal media," which comes down not to one's views, but to who one's ancestors are and how one is imagined to vote. For example, Ed insists that the odious Cokie Roberts is a voice for the Left (who must be balanced by a voice from the Right in any public forum), because (wait for it) her parents were prominent Southern Dems (in an era when no self-respecting white Southerners would have ever joined the party of Lincoln).

At first glance, Ed's argument is ludicrous. Yet it explains why the far right persists in seeing the corporate media war cheerleaders (just nailed by Bill Moyers nailed) as "liberal". To wit: real Republicans are a class, not an ideology; thus people like Ed project political loyalties as a function of ancestry and inheritance. Once a Dem, always a Dem; and even "Dems" like Joe "Bush-Cheney 2000" Lieberman must be balanced by conservative voices, especially when public funding is involved. (Ed seemed unaware that right-wing corporate TV & radio also feeds at the public trough of We the People's scarce airwaves.)

I asked Ed if a test of one-sixteenth Dem ancestry will be used to lock up Libs at Gitmo if and when the Gop's fondest dream ever comes true; and he didn't get the joke. I think I might be on to something.

Ed, 04/05/07: "And as for Cokie Roberts . . . I never said she was a raving, mouth-foaming liberal . . . I said she was a Democrat and nobody has doubted it. Are there any Republicans at all at NPR? Other than the occasional guest, the answer is, 'None at all.' "

Thus my point. Ed IMAGINES Cokie Roberts to be a Dem (because her parents were Dems at a time when ALL white Southerners were Dems because Lincoln was not); so no matter how conservative her actual views, Ed sees her as a voice for the Left who must be balanced by a voice for the Right on the public airwaves. And Ed thereby reveals a lot of what's behind the bizarre right-wing charge of "liberal media" that has been so thoroughly discredited by Bill Moyers, Eric Alterman, Eric Boehlert, and now Salon Glenn Greenwald.

Thus Chris Matthews is a "Dem" voice, regardless of his odious fawning over Junior and his savaging of the Clintons, Gore, and Kerry -- because he got his start in politics working for Tip O'Neill; and Matthews therefore is eternal proof of the "liberal media" and must be offset by someone like Tucker Carlson; etc. And the really interesting thing is the class aspect, and the idea that one inherits one's status as a Dem or a Gop from one's ancestors, as Ed's projections reveal a true Gop's class war-based view of politics.

Worth repeating (with thanks to Paul Dirks):

The facts are not ideologically balanced. To insist on balance is to promote lies.

My point: It's even worse to insist on a faux "balance" that consists not of different views but rather someone whose ancestors were republicans arguing with someone else whose ancestors were southern democrats over whether Americans should support Bush Jr. or REALLY support Bush Jr.