This is pure politics. This is the Pentagon sounding as if there's a solution -- "doubling down," intensifying our efforts to stop the fighting in Iraq -- when they know there isn't. They know they'll never be called on to push more chips into the pot, because this country doesn't have the manpower or the machinery, much less the will, to send more blood and money to be wasted in Iraq. But what this gives Bush and the neocons is a face-saving device. When we pull out of Iraq, as we will, they can say, "There was a solution on the table -- one that came straight from the Pentagon, from the guys who do the fighting -- but these chickenshits wouldn't go for it!"

.

All this talk of "doubling down," of increasing our military presence in Iraq, is just a political ploy, in my opinion. Its proponents know they won't be allowed to go forward, thus don't risk having another huge dose of egg on their faces when more force does NOT produce victory. What WILL happen, though, is that when the new Democratic congress chokes off funding for the war, they'll be able to say, "We had a plan for victory but they wouldn't let us put it into action! See? We were right all along!"

Hey, before you invaded this place, I was just another guy in a turban. Now, thanks to you, I've got a whole army of pissed-off kids to blow things up and kill people with. I'm having the time of my life. Thanks, George. I owe you one.

Your Buddy,

Muqtada (you can call me Mookie)

Perhaps in the actual fighting of this war, few have sacrificed. There's been no rationing, no victory gardens, etc. But take my word, we will all sacrifice down the road. There is no way to spend billions every week on the nation's credit card and not have a day of reckoning in the economy. It happened after Vietnam and it will happen after Iraq (not to mention Bush's taxcuts, earmarks and other expensive madness).

...Bush and his people still retain this amazing ability to convert others to their point of view in a Godfatherish display of what can only be armtwisting of one variety of another. E.g, a battle-hardened general with retirement at hand, his career and reputation secure, a nice professorship somewhere to keep him busy while he spends his fat pension, has said we don't need more troops in Iraq;he has been quite adamant that additional troops are not the answer. Then, he's called for a meeting with Bush perhaps, more likely Cheney and/or Rove. An hour later, he walks out and announces that more troops are EXACTLY what we need in Iraq, and the sooner the better.

How does this happen? There have been numerous other examples of ladies and gentlemen of strong convictions and notable stature -- not the sort of folks who crumble when someone tells them, "We know where you live" -- who've provided us with the same sorry spectacle ever since Bush took over. I'd sure love to know what goes on in those meetings.

I have read so many favorable reviews of this movie and I have to wonder if anyone -- including the late and much-lamented Mr. Altman -- really ever listened to the radio show, which does not unfold in some "makeshift" or "lackadaisical" way. It is a highly-polished radio show featuring musicians who are at or near the top of their form in their chosen musical idiom/style. Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly et al. should be ashamed to stand up there and imagine that their amateurish warbling comes anywhere close to the hard-won professionalism heard weekly on PHC (the radio show). I dearly love Garrison Keillor and can only imagine that, blinded by the chance to be in a movie, he let the egos and whimsies of others turn out this ridiculous mess of a movie.

All the solemnity and pomp in Washington surrounding Gerald Ford's earthly remains feels like it has less to do with Ford himself and more to do with George W. Bush's hope that it's possible to be a bad president and still be remembered fondly.

But 'twas ever thus. We elevate our politicians, through wishful thinking, into caring servants of the people and perhaps some of them are. But the ones who are after power, the paranoid and frightened control freaks who don't feel safe in a peaceful world, they are and always have hovered atop of the pyramids of power in the world, jostling for a chance to act on their poisonous impulses. What the American experiment has, and why it has been so successful, is checks and balances and transparency. When we lose those - or rather when we give them away through complacency and laziness - the freaks take over. Always have, always will. Let us pray to whatever gods we believe in that this new congress will be the beginning of a return to sanity but more than that, let's keep an eye on things and demand checks, balances and transparency!

Democrats with enough money to put their agenda into action. The credit card financing that allowed us to start this lovely little civil war in Iraq is going to have to be paid off. If the bank (foreign lenders) decide they don't want to up our credit limit, we'll be left with a lot of sweet-sounding rhetoric from the new congress and not much else.