I don't know anyone that considers Edwin Edwards a "great democrat", especially other democrats. He was just another corrupt Louisiana politician. Being a democrat was completely incidental in his case.

As for needing to compromise with one's nominees: Compromise is a good thing, although there's been precious little of it the last decade or so. It may not make anyone completely happy but it can keep the fewest number completely miserable.

I would also point out it wasn't the democrats who crucified Harriet Meiers and denied her the famous "up or down vote".

I hope the new congress expeditiously gives you guys your precious "up or down vote" that you all have been whining about for the last few years to every neocon turkey-butt that the boss tries to ram down the nation's throat. And I expect you to take the results like the elephantman you are.

My wife asked what kind of bomb an AC-130 would be dropping to kill these guys, used to hearing about our "precision" weapons used in Iraq. When I told her that it doesn't so much drop bombs as use an array of cannons and gatling guns to shred landscape and vaporize soft targets, she asked how you could use that safely in a city without causing untoward collateral damage. She didn't like my answer at all on that one.

Having read about it, I couldn't believe it was as bad as was described. It was. My impression is that it was more a lynching than a state execution and will advance Hussein's martyrdom as he really did show more dignity than his executioners. Another bad move but, like so many other missteps in the last four years, completely predictable.

That being said, I'm glad he's gone. I've always been afraid that we would pull out and then he would return somehow to power as the man who could bring peace and keep the lights on. That would make our national and soldiers' sacrifices not only unnecessary but obscenely pointless. Now we can indeed "Declare Victory and go home". Removing the bad man was, in the final draft, the reason we went over there, right?

I'd also comment how foolish Joe sounds but it would be redundant...and pointless.

So maybe later we can actually address issues rather than whether or not I should fear beheading by a muslim congressman or one whose middle name is the same as a bad man. On the other hand, if this is their strategy, we can start to call all the repubs by their middle names as well which, because of ties to old family money some times seem, well, prissy. So here's to presidents Herbert Bush and Wilson Reagan and our current vice president Bruce Cheney! (Although Milhouse will always, until the end of time, be a Dick)

"I ... don't believe most Americans want us just to get out now,"

Of course to him and his team, most Americans don't count.

Especially the bit about how we went from "winning" to suddenly "losing" implying that we only lose if we say so. She, and Bill Kristol who I saw on the daily show last night, fail to appreciate that we weren't winning for awhile and "lost" because all us surrender monkeys got ahold of the keys to asylum. With a bad plan which was poorly executed, we lost the Iraq war the moment the first shock and awe bomb was dropped and the first American boot crossed the border. Our troops did great in winning the battle of Baghdad and the eliminating the threat of Iraqi military action in that part of the world and there should be pride in how well that job was done. But they didn't have the resources or the support to actually win the war; never did, still don't, never will (actually too late now even if we wanted to take a mulligan on how many troops we want in country). I certainly won't let my teenage son volunteer to be one of the last patriots to die for this mistake.

about this being a money laundering manuver. We need a better anthrax vaccine, no question. My bet is that Vaxgen, the multimillion dollar company which apparently has never succeeded in producing anything, probably has one or more republican "pioneers" on its board of directors. Just another case at the money trough where contracts were let according to ideology rather than demonstrated ability to get something done.

Hell, I'll double it. Somebody should have at least asked if an "impressionistic answer" is the same as a lie.

Yes, the Supreme Court is a concern but remember that next year we can give them their damned "up or down votes" they kept screaming for and, if it is not a reasonable candidate, it will be "down".

Surely you wouldn't want to deny the man his "victory lap".

I'm sure it's all being paid for by the RNC anyway. I mean, they wouldn't really want to stick the American Taxpayer with the tab for this senseless trip. Would they?

But there may be some fine print that the person to be pardoned cannot currently be an administration official, you know, so you couldn't use the pardon to cover up a crime. If so, we may expect a lot of folks to bolt while the prez is still in office so he can legally pardon these fine private citizens. I'm still waiting for Cheney to resign and for McCain to be appointed VP as part of the 2008 positioning and to clear the way for Dick's Halliburton/KBR related pardon.