Jenna and 'lil Barbara Bush. Now we just need 199,998 more troops.

Questions:

1/ The problem right now is Iraq; How long is it going to take to increase the size of the armed forces (notwithstnding the difficulties in recruiting) and how is that going to contribute in the meantime to dealing with the Iraq problem?

2/ How are we going to pay for that with all the tax cuts?

The Chiefs of Staff were right not wanting an increase in troops in Iraq because W. does not have any strategy to deal with the situation. This latest declaration from Junior is the proof!

Do we have a constitutional problem on our hands? We have a completely delusional POTUS who is increasingly demonstrating his inability to govern effectively but he cannot be declared incompetent as his disability is not physical

If George wants to expand the military he should start by signing up his daughters for a couple tours.

JEEZ-OH-PETE!! What a WANKER!!!

We are a rich nation of 300 million people. If we seriously wanted to expand the military by 500,000, for example, we could do it without breathing hard. It might or might not require a draft. In the Phillipine Insurrection 100 years ago, we put about 125,000 troops in the Phillipines without a draft; at that time we had about 75 million people.

But a major expansion of the military is politically impossible for us in 2006. Why? Because the American people know that we are not faced with any threat that requires a big army.

I am a criminal defense attorney who spends the bulk (well, all) of my cases representing the indigent that the public defender cannot due to a conflict. I bring this up, because a new phrase has been added to the normal plea agreement. It is this. "Do you understand that your plea to these charges could affect your status as an alien, and any application you may have to the armed forces?" This was weird. I was used to warnings that a conviction, especially on drug charges could affect their job or government loans. I even expected the warning that a crime could result in deportation. But only recently have we been warned that a conviction could affect their acceptance into the army.

Today I just snorted. The army would accept serial rapists if they could get them, just to be cannon fodder in Iraq. Fact is, I have a client offered probation who wants to join the army. He is barely 18 and listening to him and his earnestness I was more tempted to get him one to two years in jail then a death sentence in Baghdad.

I represent the indigent. A lot of them want to join the armed forces to escape their lives or the legal system that sweeps them up like the earth movers in Soylent Green. Sadly I see that happen and want to offer anything other than jail or a stint dying in a foreign land for a lying callous government.

George W. Bush will likely send another few thousand troops to Iraq. He will supplement them by ordering those scheduled to be withdrawn to stay and die there longer. His orders will include my charges and I am torn between representing them or undermining them just to save them.

I was a child of Vietnam and I swear I never remember a situation so hard as this or so futile.

I don't know what to do, but never in my life have I felt so compelled to do something to stop this and so helpless to know how.

you know..it occurs to me that right about now there are probably people in the upper echelons of the D.C. political establishment who are starting to get distinctly nervous.

I know I'd be nervous, if I were them.

Short of a direct conversation with the current occupant, they cannot know if he's playing some political game, or is genuinely delusional.

Because that is the question folks. Bush is clearly not especially interested in trying to salvage what he can from the disaster he caused. No, he's throwing stuff up against the wall to see what sticks.

I have always given GW credit for some basic political cunning, because he has shown, in the past, that he possesses at least that much: the cunning of an animal who knows his way around the halls of power.

Now, I'm beginning to wonder. Because there may not be much time left for games.

I suppose what worries me the most in all this, is what happens if we suffer another major attack here in the United States while Bush is still in office. I wonder about that a lot. Those in the middle-east who hate us know the clock is ticking. The perfect move, for them, would be to light up a dirty bomb, or an actual nuke, in a US city before the 2008 election. Then they'd be assured of victory: a war that lasts forever, in which the United States loses every last protection of our constitution, and is turned into a putative police-state. The US would end up no better off than Saddam's Iraq..just that we'd be richer.

I surely hope that's not what would happen...but I bet it would. We're teetering on the edge right now. The mid-terms may have stopped the teetering for a moment, but if there's another major loss-of-life in the US from a terrorist attack out of the middle-east, the American Experiment, such as it's been, will be ended.

A lot to think about just now. Next year is sure gonna be interesting. Is Bush headed around the bend, or just trying to shore up the wingnuts in his Party? Will he just keep doing what he's doing in Iraq? And nothing else? Does he have the room to do that? Big questions all, yes?

(I sure as hell hope James Baker and Justice O'Connor have real trouble sleeping at night..and even more trouble looking in the mirror in the morning. God knows, they should.)

Can a person (Bush) be bold without being brave? Right when we thought we finally had him tied down, on the ropes of reality, he slugs back with this over-the-top haymaker. (Mixed metaphor, but this is e-mail!)

He says this now. With a straight face and a portentious tone. He wants us to debate the force increase rather than Iraq and Bush and Disaster.

Do not let him get away with this!

P.S. Poster Chas, You are Batman. May I audition for the role of Robin?