Digby recently described our election process as “a sophomoric schlong-measuring contest instead of a debate about the best way to defend the nation against threats.”

Both Freidman's and Dowd’s columns are ultimately about just who can swagger and strut the best among the candidates – who can best portray the “resolve” that we need to show the world.

What all these sort of “sexual innuendo” columns ignore is that for the past seven years we have had as our leader a man who struts, swaggers and emotes “resolve” better than any of the other candidates now running.

So how did that work out?

It was a disaster. But rather than acknowledge that we need new criteria for selecting a leader, we go back to the same sophomoric debates about who will spank who, and who scares who the most.

This is the very same idiotic debate that resulted in George W. Bush as our president, and damn if we aren’t doing it again.

Wasn’t this a Twilight Zone episode?

Another problem with Rudy is that quite often he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Take the quote from CNN where he says he will not allow Iran to have nuclear power.

"Part of the premise of talking to Iran has to be that they have to know very clearly that it is unacceptable to the United States that they have nuclear power,"

That is not, and has not been our policy. Something Rudy is obviously unaware of – what our policy actual is, that is.

I’ll let Condi Rice explain our policy as it is:

“Iran certainly has the right. And I believe they should develop -- the right to develop and I think that they should develop civil-nuclear power. This is why we have said many times to the Iranians it's not an issue of civil-nuclear power; it is an issue of the technology, enrichment and reprocessing that could lead to a nuclear weapon because Iran is not in good standing with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

http://moscow.usembassy.gov/embassy/transcript.php?record_id=185

Another time she said that we “would be prepared under certain circumstances to participate in that.” (the development of Iran's nuclear power program)

So Rice and Giuliani are saying completely different things, and Giuliani is completely off the reservation with his quote, he’s simply confusing nuclear power with nuclear weapons.

That’s not a small detail, and certainly something he should be aware of. So add incompetence to his warmongering for another reason why this man should not be considered for any position of power.

“..because there is so much incredible truth to be exposed about this sick clown.”~RMP

One of the sickest statements (which hasn’t received a lot of attention) is from Rudy’s advisor Mr. Podhoretz:

“My view has been, and I very much doubt that Giuliani would disagree with what I am about to say, what we are doing is to try and clear the ground that has been covered over at least since WWI,” he said. “Draining the swamps is the beginning of the process of clearing the ground, and planting the seeds from which institutions can grow the foundations of a free society.”

In the context of a broader, longer war that he expects will take at least three decades to win, the casualties that the United States has so far endured are “miniscule.” He says that fretting about whether to attack Iran sends only a message of weakness to the combined Shiite and Sunni enemies in the Middle East. And, like Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Podhoretz thinks that the creation of an independent Palestinian state would now only create another terrorist state.

Instead, America should be working to overthrow governments in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt and “every one of the despotic regimes in that region, by force if necessary and by nonmilitary means if possible,” he said. “They are fronts of the war. You can’t do everything at once. And to have toppled two of those regimes in five years or six years is I think a major achievement. And maybe George Bush won’t be able to carry it further, but I think he will. It may have just been given to him to start act one of the five-act play.”

I really find myself unable to say anything after that quote. It’s that sick. Comparing genocide to a "five act" play?

http://tinyurl.com/2su5jh

Please assure me that it will all be worth it.~RMP

I wish I could be more reassuring, but I have days that it’s just hard to keep at all positive – there’s just so much stupidity in our media and our political discourse that being a news junkie has become hazardous to my health.

The best I can do for the moment is this headline that has the words:

“Rudy drops fast”…..

http://tinyurl.com/27qpbu