Well, the comments seem to have evolved enough for me to post my thoughts on the Hillary Clinton "story" that "broke" today.

Words cannot express how depressing and irritating it was to see a news article about books written about decades-old gossip above the fold of the front page of the Washington Post.

The headline itself (inadvertently) says it all:

Books Paint Critical Portraits of Clinton

2 Biographies Detail Marital Strife and Driving Ambition

Number one: the headline is about books that are critical of Clinton. This is strikingly important, breaking news.

Number two: the most noteworthy aspects of the books are that they portray Clinton, a professional politician, as having marital strife and driving ambition. Now that is a serious revelation. I had always thought U.S. Senators and leading candidates for president got to be where they are by being, you know, sort of lazy and laid back about their futures. I also understand that professional politicians -- heck, humans in general -- very rarely ever have marital problems. I'm quite sure none of this has anything to do with the fact that she is a woman.

Chris Matthews (whom I still watch like a smoker continues to choke on Lucky Strikes) devoted his entire hourlong show to this "story." Clinton's communications director had to get on the show to very patiently, and admirably, explain that this was all so much complete and utter [fill in the blank].

My hometown paper -- supposedly the best, most reputable source of Washington news -- has sunk to yet another new low. And if I have to hear one more time about how the authors and publishers of these books are so inherently credible that we should dismiss all criticisms of what they have clearly deigned to enrich themselves wildly upon, I just might black out and pray not to wake up until January 2009.

I had a conversation like this over lunch just yesterday. I was lamenting the fact that, with utter predictability, the Democrats are constantly aware of every possible criticism that could be (and likely would be) made against them for anything they wanted to do on principle, and instantly believe that they could do nothing to counter those criticisms, no matter how baseless and stupid they were.

For the most part, the Democrats immediately and reflexively believe every real (and imagined) political threat, and absolutely refuse to confront or head-off those threats. A handful of exceptions stand out admirably from this sea of spinelessness -- Russ Feingold, of course, is one of them.

I also remarked how the GOP tends to be the precise opposite -- pugnaciously standing up for what they believe in at all times, even in the face of the most damning facts and sometimes public opinion. More often than not, they are able to muscle through factual and political obstacles with pure resolve, reality be damned, which is a large part of why our country is in the lamentable state it is now. Nevertheless, the Republicans provide a very useful lesson in leadership, as misguided as their leadership has been -- with the strength of your convictions, and hard fact and logic on your side, you can in fact buck the conventional wisdom and do what is right.

Why this continues to be such a hard concept for most Democrats to understand is a daily, compounding outrage.

Listening to Obama or Harman, you would think that "funding the troops" means looking after the logistical and supply operations of forces in the field. What? Congress's power of the purse applies to whether or not WARS get funded. It is the sole responsibility of the executive branch, i.e. the President and DOD, to ensure that military operations and personnel are properly looked after, wherever they happen to be deployed.

This reply comes so late, I'm not sure if Irishman will ever see it, but what the hell.

You brought to light a very important contradiction that I hadn't thought of until you mentioned it. Over and over, we are told that the President (more gleefully referred to as Commander in Chief) has the sole constitutional prerogative to determine when a war will end. Otherwise, for Congress to defund or put definite time limitations upon the conflict would amount to the legislative branch impermissibly "micromanaging" the war, the neoconservatives cry.

Yet, amazingly, whom is immediately blamed by these same people for the imaginary scenario of soldiers suddenly running out of food, munitions, and equipment when future funding is withdrawn? Congress, not the President. We are therefore led to believe that the President has this immense power to direct literally all aspects of military conflict -- including when it begins and ends -- yet has absolutely no ability to wrap up our engagement and bring our forces home in the event that Congress sets a date for withdrawal of funding.

The other possible angle is even more insidious. Implicit in the neoconservative "reasoning" -- if they admit that the President has the power to bring troops home before they "run out of bullets" -- is the premise that, when confronted with the choice of (a) ceasing his misbegotten occupation before appropriated moneys truly do dry up, or (b) petulently continuing the campaign despite the impending removal of funding, Mr. Bush would choose the latter.

Rather than petulently continue the campaign until he loses the complete support of Congress, Bush could do something potentially even worse: a reckless pull-out.

True enough, but I was speaking abstractly from purely the standpoint of the implicit premises underpinning neoconservative protests that Congress' cutting off funding for the war would necessarily result in the troops being left in the field without bullets or food or equipment.