Apparently, photo ID requirements won't be able to prevent all voter fraud. Just the retail variety.

Photo IDs are the perfect solution for the Rovians:

• It will be expensive
• It won't prevent the right sort of voter from voting, but will suppress the rabble
• It will look like something's being done
• It won't prevent the wholesale fraud that favors the GOP

From the Rovian viewpoint, what's not to like? They've created a straw problem, they're knocking it down, but the real fraud gets to go on. Perfection.

I see by Gonzified's irate little note that, if the Dems fail to take the Senate, we'll once again be blaming the Greens for having the temerity to actually field candidates. How dare they! The last thing we want to do is confuse the voters with choice.

Actually, I imagine that for every vote that the Democrats lost to a Green or other alternative Left candidate, the Republicans lost one to the Libertarians.

First of all, as mentioned in another thread the "Greens" in the Virginia race is a different party from the Nader Greens.

Secondly, who the hell are you to damn anyone for running against your favorite? Democracy not sitting well with you this morning?

The Dems made a concious choice to run conservative candidates to pick up votes against marginal Republicans. Alright, I'm willing to fight against a risiong gorge and vote for a corporate Dem in a tight race rther than get stuck with a Republican. But that's just me.

The leadership and the rank and file need to realize that when the party makes a move to their right, they're going to loose some support on their left. They'd just better hope that they'll pick up more votes than they loose. If not, it's their fault for misjudging. Not the fault of other parties for deciding they might want to run their own candidates.

"... sixth-year elections are toughest for the president's party, ..."

Could I point out that Clinton gained in his sixth year - while impeachment hearings were going on? The NRCC should remember that one.

Why don't they try something a little more accurate, somewhat along the line of "Gee, you really can't fool all of the people all of the time".

600,000, 150,000, or 30,000; why should W worry about the numbers? After all, it’s not like it’s anybody he knows.

Besides this whole little misadventure is just a comma anyway. And the more commas in those profits the better his base (remember them? – the “have-mores”) like it. After all, it’s just the help.

I see many posts talking about Al Gore and a possible 2008 run. I'd love to see it, but I'm not sure that he'd be willing to re-enter the fray. I think that the elder statesman role is suiting him quite well.

Maybe if he grow his beard back ;-)

"Did the dogs bite them? Did the dogs assault them? How are you going to get people to give information that will lead to the saving of lives?"

Note to next session's House and Senate committee chairs: I guess it's OK with Lott if the gloves come off in investigations come this January. Should make for interesting TV on C-Span this winter.

I'll bet on Wagnerian. That way Junior gets to take a whole lot of people down with him, instead of just a few; mediocrity, like misery, loves company.

Besides, rat or not, I just don't see Jim Baker as Polonius.

OK, I'll go for the easy meat; why is it whenever Sonny takes a stab at bipartisanship, so far it's always been in the back?

Al-Maliki pledged to bring the kidnappers to justice but played down the seriousness of the event. "What happened was not terrorism," he claimed. "Rather it was a struggle and a conflict between the militias of one side with those of the other."

So, Maliki says it wasn't terrorism, just a symptom of an unacknowledged civil war. Man, I am like, so relieved. I guess it's really just a slightly more literal form of the sniping we had between Powell's State Department and Rummy's DOD. The locals have a handle on it so we don't need to worry about it and can just go home now.

Sonny said that we wouldn't be involved in any nation building; he certainly wasn't kidding.

"The plan envisions the additional troops staying only until security conditions improve," the Times says. "

This will be somewhere around the 12th of Never. It is a completely open-ended answer - the equivalent of a frustrated parent trying to quiet an impatient child's "When will we be there?" with "When we get there!" and just about as useful.

Actually, what BabsII and Jenna do regarding the war, or anything else for that matter, is really irrelevant to anything in a material sense. As has been amply pointed out, they are adults (I'll leave the matter of "independent" or not out of it).

But, as symbols (and how many time have we heard some Administration talking head talk about "sending a message"?) they are very relevant. The message that is being sent to me from Sonny is "This war isn't important enough for my kids to risk their little butts". My response is proportionally "Then don't expect me to encourage any of my three military-age sons to risk theirs". I mean, if it's not important enough for the children of those who are the prime beneficiaries, mine get to stay home too.