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The most recent figures for the 9-11 attacks are 19 hijackers plus 2,974 victims, with 24 missing and presumed dead.

to answer my own question, the wash post widget at the bottom of this page:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082200499.html?hpid=topnews

Lists 3701 US military dead, plus 159 contractors. I think the 9/11 total was 37 hundred something.

Back to the anon poster: what was your point?

'go rudy' writes
"And that seems like a funny way to decide whether you will vote for someone. were you this concerned when clinton did the intern and lied about it"

Maybe it is a 'funny' way to decide. But that attitude seems to imply that trustworthiness isn't an important factor in a President. And that is a position that I don't share.

On the Clinton thing, I think his behavior was pretty sleazy too, no doubt about it. But I do see a difference - Clinton didn't hold a press conference & announce he was dumping his spouse in favor of the intern under the desk.

In any case, I never voted for Bill & I won't vote for Hillary, so trying to spring the hypocracy trap on me for eliminating Giuliani based on untrustworthiness fails. Sorry to disappoint.

"How does Romney rise in national polls?"- Go Rudy

He may not be atop the national polls, but look at state polls. Especially those in which the campaign has began and people are finding out who the candidates are and what they stand for. There was a time when Rudy was winning in Iowa, South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire. Right now, Romney leads in Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire with Fred Thompson leading by a few points in South Carolina. In none of the major early primary states has Rudy maintained his lead. I will say this, myself and other true conservatives won't vote on the electibility image, we will vote on principle. Principle of what? The support of a strong military and will to defend this nation whether popular or not. A strong economy: lower taxes, getting rid of inefficient gov't. programs and expanded trade to help the likes of the American consumer pay lower prices for goods and services. A positive energy policy helping America break away from foreign oil, but making sure we have the oil we need until that day comes. A person who has a history of family values and will support the traditional marriage as the backbone of our society. Someone who will stand on the side of life, rejecting a life for a life (embroyonic stem-cell research) and abortion. Someone who will protect our 2nd amendment freedoms.

This is the reason why, in states where the campaign is on, conservative voters are clinging from Rudy to Romney. Now that the Ames straw poll has taken place and Romney has gained some free international exposure from the press, you see him on the rise and Guiliani on the decline. Also, Romney has now directly addressed Guiliani over the immigration issue, and they have squabbled over that. This is before any outside organizations have ran campaigns. I'm expecting Bob Perry to fund some sort of organization against Guiliani, helping Romney out of this primary. It looks like, though, the Club For Growth may endorse Guiliani and help him. It's going to be a rough battle. Fred Thompson may have waited too long, and is now being directly addressed by Mike Huckabee, a 2nd tier candidate. His time may have passed, and Romney has the money and organization to win this primary, and on ideas vs. whoever the democrat may be, win this general election on principles.

A little off topic, but I was wondering if anyone knew who Hillary Clinton's military adviors are?

"Clinton has shown no zeal for or even particular interest in the issue in the Senate; nor did she while in the White House. Indeed, as her handling of the health-care task force and Whitewater documents illustrate, Clinton's instinct is for secrecy, and her default position is to disclose only the minimum legally required. She consented to reveal her major fundraisers only after repeated editorial hammering -- and only after all the other leading Democratic contenders had agreed."
--------------------------------------

No Press Secretary can make a secretive politician become transparent, in the sense of healthy, ethical, openness. As you say, CC, mere "flack".

'everyman' is zouk. period. the biggest loser who has ever posted here. no heart. no soul. no brain. he even knows everyone here hates him and still spends his whole day here. tragic waste of a life, if he had one.

Fortunately, everyman is a complete nobody. A nothing. A zero. To call him a loser would be an insult to losers.

Everyman, you should check some recent data. The only "Fall" in support of gay rights occurred in 2003 as a backlash to Lawrence v. Texas, and those numbers had righted themselves by the spring of 2004. Here's a few more polls for you:

"PRINCETON, NJ - May 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - American Gallup Poll results, released this morning, indicate that tolerance of homosexuality within the United States has reached a record high. According to the Poll, since 1977 public support of legalization of "homosexual relations between consenting adults" has risen from 43% to a record-breaking 59%.

According to Gallup, the general trend is an increased support for homosexuality...n the Gallup Poll, for example, only 45% of people of over 55 years of age support "homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle"; whereas young people from ages 18-34 years old are 75% in favor. "

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/may/07053003.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/27/poll.gay/index.html

"Clinton can't seem to make up her mind. The surge is working but let's cut and run now? It doesn't make any sense - unless you're a Democrat trying to have it both ways on Iraq."

Another chickenhawk who simply doesn't get it.

War is fundamentally the use of force to secure a political objective. In the case of Iraq, the political objective is a free and democratic society allied with the United states that is not a threat to it's neighbors. The problem- you cannot achieve that by force.

You can conquer territory and force people to live undeer a police state or a dictatorship- force is the defining characteristic of those types of regimes- but you cannot force a democracy and freedom on people, the whole concept is a contradiction. All we can do by force is attempt to thwart the insurgency and give the Iraqis breathing room to form a democracy on their own, but frankly as time goes on the Iraqis are showing little will to accomplish that, in fact things just continue to get worse. Of course dumping 30,000 troops on Baghdad- running it like a police state- will have measurable short term results, but it cannot be sustained and the presence is counter to our goals of building political support for Iraqi institutions.

We must acknowledge that this isn't our war to win, and we must put greater pressure on the Iraqis to step up. This means gradually drawing down our force, removing the footprint of occupation that angers so many iraqis, forcing the government to step up to fill the void. In the meantime, we must work to force the Iraqis to take up the political problems they have ignored for far too long- the oil plan, reconciliation, integration of the Sunnis into the government, balancing of the ministries, etc. If this isn't done, all of our military effort is not only wasted, it is counterproductive for the reasons I mentioned above.

There are only political solutions to the problem, the military can only provide breathing room to allow those political solutions to happen. Therefore, the military strategy is doing what it's supposed to, but the overall strategy is still failing because the Iraqi government is failing.

"A good deal of the evangelicals will never vote for Rudy.

how do you know?"

I work with a lot of them, they have told me so point blank on several occasions (they've even said they'd be more likely to vote for Romney despite his Mormonism than for Guiliani). That's the problem with running for the past 10 years on the abortion issue as an end-all-be-all defining issue for your party, once you abandon it in the name of political expediency, everything else begins to fall apart.

And even if they do hold their nose and vote for Rudy, they won't be manning the phone booths, organizing the GOTV networks, and doing everything else that has been so key to the GOP wedge strategy of the past few years.

it figures that a blog like this would be inhabited by perverts like jane and anon. they demand, by god, that everyone accept them and their chosen lifestyle and will attack anyone thinking differently. in canada, where these trolls were allowed free reign, they passed laws that make it illegal to say anything, anywhere that can be thought of as defmatory of homosexuality. so we have ministers and priests being actually arrested for calling homosexuality a sin from the pulpit. sick.

The Iraq study group (Baker-Hamilton) estimated that there were around 1300 foreign fighters. A report prepared for Congress using government figures estimated foreign fighters at around 1500 to 3500 with 25000 Sunni insurgents and 80000 Shiite militia members. Here's the link:

http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/RL31339_03272007.pdf

These figures have been widely reported and I have heard interviews with generals citing them. Chuck Hagel also used the 10% estimate in a interview upon his return from Iraq a few months ago. The situation is a lot more complicated than just us against "the terrorists". I don't expect a political solution to resolve all the indigenous violence but it should go a long way towards that end. It will make the remaining pacification far more manageable, hopefully by Iraqi forces. Of course, the Iraqi forces are often unreliable. The Iraqi police, in particular, have shown themselves more loyal to their tribal militia than the central government. But again, a political settlement that the major factions agree to could result in an end to most of the fighting.

The inaction of the Iraqi government has been well reported - there has been no progress on a de-Baathification law, no progree on an oil revenue law. Meanwhile, the Maliki government is losing supporters in Iraq. The de-Baathification reform and the oil revenue distribution law are the two most important elements of an accord between Shia and Sunni.

I do not support a withdrawal - as I have posted here on many occasions. I do support a re-deployment and something of a drawdown where our forces concentrate on protecting Iraq's territorial integrity, training, and conducting Special Forces strikes against al Qaeda in Iraq. But, unless the main Iraqi groups reach a workable settlement, I cannot see continuing indefinitely to try to referee a civil war.

zouk/bozo -- why don't you talk about Pritty Mitty's $400 funeral-parlor style makeup jobs?

bozo is a good name for you -- really fits.

well i see zouk/everyman/etc has just wasted another whole day for everyne. he is a complete zero, has nothing to offer but parroting of the Weakly Standard and Sean Hannity and llies constantly. and he has no lilfe. no family, nothing. he's on here every day with his corporate agenda and i don't know why any of you bother with him. his life is dedicated to ruining this blog.

god, i neve claimed to speak for everyone, just for the majority of people. please cite some poll numbers and other facts that prove that people think homosexuality is "okay" or "normal". then, ala blarg, i will disregard anything you have to say, then twist it somehow. go to the gallup site as a start. the mosrt recent polling numbers find that around 40% of amercian's are even willing to tolerate homosexualioty as a valid alternative lifestyle...and those numbers are falling...
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/gal1.html

Speak for yourself Everyman.

You do not speak for every man!

JimD - you said:
There has been no discernible progress towards that end

how do you know this given the press' lack of reporting on anything but body counts? there are reports of progress in some media.

The surge is unsustainable - as it was designed to be. Once an area is cleared it is maintained - a new approach.

Everything I have read about intelligence estimates of the composition of the forces fighting in Iraq place the foreign jihadists at no more than 10% - cite the source for this if you want to claim it. It is an important measure. Try not to link to Maureen dowd.

In the grand scheme - is there any progress you are willing to accept or are you already decided on the outcome like Reid who was way ahead of everyone calling for defeat and surrender.

the vast majority of the voting public thinks homosexuals are perverts and sick, so why on earth is the media so obsessed with richardson insulting them or not?

A good deal of the evangelicals will never vote for Rudy.

how do you know?

go rudy

But a three way race between a Democrat, Rudy and a religious right candidate would put a good part of the South and a lot of Western states in play. A good deal of the evangelicals will never vote for Rudy.

I voted for it before:

The surge is working tactically but the strategy behind the surge is to give the Iraqi government time to arrive at a political settlement that Shia, Sunni and Kurd can accept. There has been no discernible progress towards that end. The surge is unsustainable - the Pentagon has made that clear. Furthermore, a great deal of the success of the surge is a result of some militias lying low and other groups of bad actors acting out in non-surge areas.

Everything I have read about intelligence estimates of the composition of the forces fighting in Iraq place the foreign jihadists at no more than 10% of the problem. So the bulk of the problem is groups of Shia militias fighting Sunnis and each other, Sunni militias fighting Shias and mostly Sunni insurgents resisting our occupation of Iraq. The only solution to that situation is a political solution.

everyman - there is not enough time in the day to cover all the ignorant things you just said. suffice it to say you clearly have no understanding of the military or strategic defense whatsoever. I wouldn't waste my time with an angry charlatan like you.

Besides the whole point was that the world is hoping for a Lib weakling they can push around, just like last time. It really had little to do with missile defense, which is widely credited with defeating the USSR in the first place.

i voted for it before -

After the VFW gathering, Hillary quickly pulled lylepink aside..."lyle", she said, whispering coarsely into his hearing aid, "I thought we agreed -you would only bring that up at the Kos convention, not the VFW!"

doug - "...strategically important missile shield..." would this be the same shield that (a) is based on technology that doesn't work yet and has failed every single test (b) is still in the "what's it supposed to guard against" phase (most think it only against iran & north korea), (c) proked the russians into resuming bomber flights and missile research and deployment? have a little thought that some of out here actually read the news... the right wing use of the "missile defense" is a dead issue with everyone with a brain. go back to kindergarten.

too many Rs CANNOT and WILL NOT support a pro-choice nominee

very interesting that it is all the Libs who keep stating this matter of factly, as if they will keep saying it until it becomes true. It works sometimes for Libs so why wouldn't they try it again.

Only problem is that everybody already knows his positions and he is still way in the lead in national polls.

care to try some other approach that entirely avoids any issues? eventually you will have to defend you call for socialism and you will be rejected if not laughed at. McGovern is going to look victorious and centrist.

clinton's policy on Iraq

It is now officially:

don't ask, don't tell

the recent answers are just too confusing,even for her own staff. but then we know she won't tell us what she is thinking.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says that the new military tactics in Iraq are working. But strangely, she goes on to say that the the best way to honor the soldiers fighting in Iraq is "by beginning to bring them home."

Clinton said she wanted to restore America's image abroad. "People have to root for America," she said. "They have to want to be on our side."

In Iraq, she said, the government must take responsibility for itself and its people. "I do not think the Iraqis are ready to do what they have to do for themselves yet," she said. "I think it is unacceptable for our troops to be caught in the crossfire of a sectarian civil war while the Iraqi government is on vacation."

Clinton can't seem to make up her mind. The surge is working but let's cut and run now? It doesn't make any sense - unless you're a Democrat trying to have it both ways on Iraq.

On the occasion of the 39th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Russian General Yuri Baluyevsky told Czech deputy defense minister, Martin Bartak that it would be a "big mistake" to host elements of the US missile defense shield. Not only that, but the General said the Czechs should delay any decision until after the next US presidential election. He said,

"I and my Russian colleagues simply ask that that process continue through to October-November of 2008, and I think you can all guess why."

Asked by a reporter to clarify, he said: "I do not exclude that a new administration in the United States will re-evaluate the current administration's decisions on missile defense."
So there you have it, folks. This is proof positive that Democrats led by politicians like Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat, have sided with Putin by delaying the implementation of the strategically important missile shield as long as possible. At least until a Democrat President comes along to take credit for deploying the system - or not, if they buckle to Putin's wishes.

Two months after giving Iraqis "two more months" to pass oil bill, O'Reilly silent on their failure to do so
On his radio show on June 20, Bill O'Reilly asserted, "I'm gonna tell you that the big picture is, the Iraqis have two more months. They've got two more months. And if they don't step up and help more than they're helping" on oil legislation and security, "in two months, it's over. Come September and October, we're pulling back, and that's the truth." August 20 marks the end of the two-month period, but O'Reilly is yet to mention the Iraqi government's failure to reach an agreement or his claims about the need for improvements by the Iraqi Security Forces."

http://mediamatters.org/

Ha ha, Keep doin what your doin Harry and San Fran Nan and the Republicans will be back in the majority before you know it. Better wake Murtha up and get him demanding the redeployment of troops in Iraq to Okinawa again, that ought to help, and have 300 more hearings on what Karl Rove did and when he did it. Remember you must defeat President George Bush's run for a third term.

Attention: Speaker Pelosi, Rep Murtha, Leader Reid-

This low number obviously indicates the American people want you to push EVEN HARDER for an immediate withdrawal from the Iraqi quagmire!!

Additionally, it is clear from the low approval numbers that Congress has not undertaken enough investigations of the Bush Administration!! We need more subpoenas!

If they actually ran William Jefferson, D-Freezer, and John Murtha, D-ABSCAM, out of office it might go up to 20% approval. But then names like Kennedy, Levin, Durbin, Schumer, Leahy...OH, where does the mind numbing pain stop...and realize that 18% is way too high.

A proposed ballot initiative to change how California awards its presidential electoral votes has initial support from voters, according to a Field Poll released Monday, despite growing concerns among majority Democratic leaders. The poll found that 47 percent of registered voters back the proposal to allocate most of California's 55 electoral votes on a district-by-district basis, while 35 percent want to keep the existing system awarding all electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the entire state.

Can you spell landslide - you will."

Doesn't matter, the proposition, even if it passes, would be ruled unconstitutional. The constitution clearly gives the legislatures of the states, not the people of the states, the power to determine the manner for selecting electors. And again, that's even if the thing passes. Right now, it's an open question and a hypothetical. When people see the implications (just like the Governator's redistricting plan a couple of years ago, which was just as popular if not moreso at first) they'll widely vote it down.

Besides all that, Romney and Thompson can't win, and Guiliani would provoke a third party conservative because too many Rs CANNOT and WILL NOT support a pro-choice nominee (Huckabee has already thrown his name out there), so no matter who the Dems nominate, even if the Rs can swing 40 EC votes by siphoning 20 or so out of California, they will still lose Ohio, Florida, Vrginia, and put a few others into play as well. THe truth is, true conservatives care more about their values than the Republican party, and would see electing a pro-choice Republican president as a greater long-term threat than 4 years of Hillary, who they believe would be beatable by any conservative 4 years later. The math's just not on the R's side no matter what happens.

I asked
"Did Edwards really call Coulter a she-devil, or is that a blatant lie?"

bsimon kindly responded
"He did. There is coverage elsewhere on the site, over at The Trail blog, I think. He referred to her as 'that she-devil' then promptly said "I shouldn't have said that." Then did his best Opie imitation."

d'oh, bad bad bad bad bad.

JimD - I think we discussed the trade-off of the middle for the right in Rudy's case. I am not convinced that the right has sufficient votes (especially considering the hillary factor and the animus and desire to defeat her at all costs) to draw off enough to balance the middle voters he could gain. Imagine - NJ is actually in the mix this time. that is a grand strategic bargain that has not been contemplated for a long time. Meanwhile the Kossacks are sucking the Dems ever more leftward to an untenable general election position. More center voters up for grabs.

Interesting dynamic and one with rich rewards for a new republican party. Strong on defense (not comparable to the Libs at all) and spend less, no really this time.

bsimon, and hillary clinton isn't some sleezy sow, using her former husband's connections to run for the presidency. this cold calculating reptile you support is somehow different than kennedy's sleeping around with his aides while his wife was in an alcohol-drug treatment center? please, don't go calling the kettle black around her, you left wing twits have enough dirty laundry too that we could trade horror stories of jerkdom for weeks.

Rudy could well win the nomination if it remains a three or four candidate race. However, he will never be elected president. The religious right will run an independent candidate. James Dobson and some other religious right leaders have made it clear that they will not support Rudy. If Rudy attempts to win those folks over, he will have to eat so many of his prior positions that it will make Romney look unwavering.

bsimon - your take on this action is most likley the result of some slanted reporting on the subject. ever consider that? I personally would not wander into spousal situations and make judgments, there are two sides to every story and the Liberal press makes sure one side gets the headlines and the other side is buried on page 14. I am not saying I know what happened, just that neither do you. donna was no shrinking violet you know.

And that seems like a funny way to decide whether you will vote for someone. were you this concerned when clinton did the intern and lied about it and asked all his staff to lie along with him, then used his wife for sympathy points? that includes lying in public and shaming your wife in a very public way, is there a distinction here besides D and R?

I wouldn't want to marry the guy either, but that is not the question here.

The great thing about his political conversation by these gop fascsits, is history. All I have to do is point to the past 30 years. That's it. You gop'ers have dug your own political graves not liberals.

What have you people done right in 30 years? What has Bush done right the last 7 years?

You people are a joke. Incompetant or sell-out fascsit traitors? You be the judge. Either way there is no way the gop can will be relevant after 08. Why should you be? What have you people done right? Yeah your good at destroying about ssabotaging your own government, but beyond that

"something tells me you are pre-disposed to not like Rudy"

Perhaps it has something to do with the ease with which he can cast off a spouse in an ugly, public way. Sure, not every marriage works out, but for the guy to announce it at a press conference without telling his wife first? The man has no class and is untrustworthy.

bsimon, something tells me you are pre-disposed to not like Rudy, so him tailoring his message to suit you is something more akin to what a Dem does. vote for Hillary, Edwards or Obama - they will say whatever you want to hear.

I will be very pleased if what rudy says is also not found funny by our enemies. I am sure they are laughing their jihadists heads off at Edwards and Obama.

"However, imagine the havoc that could occur if liberal billionaires such as George Soros, Peter Lewis, Ron Burkle and Stephen Bing funded a liberal war chest to attack advertisers and silence outlets that provide opportunities for conservative voices."

What? You people make the rules, right? You mad if the left wants to play BY YOUR RULES. Tsst Tsst Tsst. Practice what you preach. If O'REilly's moral high ground allows him to silence voices, what's to stop people who find him quistionable from being silenced?

Paid advertisments from drug oil and defense are not news, they are propoganda.

Frickin republicans these days. The lies the spin and the discrediting never stops does it. Your children and grandchildrten are smarter than you.

Fox doesn't have much longer. You can't put paid advertisments for war drugs and oil on tv as news and expect to continue in this political enviornment.

Fox is not news. Watch them one time, O'REilly hannity and van sustren. Watch them once and tell me their news. All they do is attack judges and media all day long. O and celeberites. You right wongers are a joke. Your party is about to be irrelevant for a generation. I can't wait to see your smug faces. Get out of 1954. The year is 2007 for pete's sake

Golgi asks
"Did Edwards really call Coulter a she-devil, or is that a blatant lie?"

He did. There is coverage elsewhere on the site, over at The Trail blog, I think. He referred to her as 'that she-devil' then promptly said "I shouldn't have said that." Then did his best Opie imitation.

"The liberal netroots are not interested in contributing to public discourse. They want to wipe out the competition and silence those voices that do not support their agenda. They are the modern day equivalent of Richard Euringer, the library director in Essen, Germany, who endeared himself to the regime in the mid-1930s by selecting more than 18,000 works to be burned for not conforming to the Nazi ideology."

iS THIS A JOKE? Is this about fox. Again, morons. Fascists are RIGHT-WINGERS not socialists.

go rudy writes
"bsimon, you are obviously not from NY."

And proud of it!

"that is considered funny in the city. why the Dem interest in his family. Issues too much for you?"

I don't think the interest in his family is relevant at all. That a kid in college is interested in a democratic candidate rather than their own father who cheated on their mother really isn't a surprise. I think his marriages are more relevant than who his children support, politically. That Giulianni has lasted this long says a lot more about the GOP's alleged 'family values' than anything else.

Even if you want to take the 'funny' angle, I'll restate: what's funny in new york isn't necessarily funny to people in the rest of the country. If he wants to campaign to New Yorkers so much, he should have run against Sen Clinton for her job. If he wants to represent the whole country, he ought to start acting like it.

And ice princess Hillary would be the one to bait him into blowing his stack.

More like rudy will finally land a hard question and hillary will look vacant when she refuses to answer. People are already catching on that she is just a programmed robot with such a tight agenda (her election) that all else is totally unimportant. Like telling the voters what you are thinking - not required according to her. Ooops, let the truth slip. don't let that happen again,. and try to be funny, will ya? Try harder. and don't look like your trying. and don't scowl all the time. and get a podium that is wider than your hips, if you can find one.

As Senator Clinton addressed the large crowd of vets at the VFW convention, she outlined her plans to help veterans and mentioned that her father would probably be saying "I never thought I would see my daughter addressing the VFW, and I am sure many of you didn't either."

Then one lone vet with his VFW trucker cap on, stood up on his chair clapping wildly, and loudly called upon the Senator to "tell them, Hillary...tell them you didn't vote for the war...Tell them!"

Hillary said "For God's sake, sit down, lyle."

Edwards is circling the tank. he picked a fight with coulter a while back by sending his attack dog wife on TV. then he used it to send out fundraising letters which worked. now he needs to do it again. I am sure his fundraising is hitting the bottom of the barrel.

Did Edwards really call Coulter a she-devil, or is that a blatant lie?

bsimon, you are obviously not from NY. that is considered funny in the city. why the Dem interest in his family. Issues too much for you?

Reagans kids were a handful too. anyone who has perfectly behaved children doesn't have to vote for him. Otherwise we can hope what happened to Reagan will happen to rudy - landslide over the ultra-left.
If hillary can ever purchase a sense of humor, you may find something she says to be funny. Until then, a personality is a good thing to have and will be the deciding factor in the end. can you overcome 45% negative rating. even Dems don't want her, how do you think the cons feel?

bsimon: Not that Rudy has a chance of getting the GOP nomination, but you certainly can picture him pulling a Rick Lazio during a debate with Clinton. He has his talents, but he is definitely a bully and a hothead. And ice princess Hillary would be the one to bait him into blowing his stack.

But again, he won't be the nominee. So will it be Mitty? Will he pour in $100 million of his own money just to buy the nomination? It won't be the worn-out McCain either, but it's gotta be someone.

go rudy makes a good point
"here's the trouble, romney can't beat anybody. It isn't just Dems who are worried about electibility."

On the one hand, you're right - both parties should keep in mind they have to convince swing voters to back their candidate. But on the other, you're backing Rudy Giuliani? The man's a hothead unsuitable for the Presidency.

When asked about his daughter's apparent support for Obama, Rudy's response was "Leave my family out of it and I'll leave your family out of it."

What?? This is a man running for the Presidency, and his answer is some kind of goombah-like threat against a journalist's family? That kind of attitude might work in the urban jungle, but its not what the rest of us expect from our political leaders.

The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday.

Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault

Providing a glimpse of a series of shortfalls laid out in the longer, still-classified report, the executive summary says:

• U.S. spy agencies, which were overseen by Tenet, lacked a comprehensive strategic plan to counter Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11. The inspector general concluded that Tenet "by virtue of his position, bears ultimate responsibility for the fact that no such strategic plan was ever created."

• The CIA's analysis of al-Qaida before Sept. 2001 was lacking. No comprehensive report focusing on bin Laden was written after 1993, and no comprehensive report laying out the threats of 2001 was assembled. "A number of important issues were covered insufficiently or not at all," the report found.

• The CIA and the National Security Agency tussled over their responsibilities in dealing with al-Qaida well into 2001. Only Tenet's personal involvement could have led to a timely resolution, the report concluded.

• The CIA station charged with monitoring bin Laden -- code-named Alec Station -- was overworked, lacked operational experience, expertise and training. The report recommended forming accountability boards for the CIA Counterterror Center chiefs from 1998 to 2001, including Black.

• Although 50 to 60 people read at least one CIA cable about two of the hijackers, the information wasn't shared with the proper offices and agencies. "That so many individuals failed to act in this case reflects a systemic breakdown.... Basically, there was no coherent, functioning watch-listing program," the report said. The report again called for further review of Black and his predecessor.

"I am busy with my intern today. come back in my third term and report to hillary." the president was overheard saying to Tenet.

Reason, how does romney rise in the national polls to win. I don't think he has ever been over 10% and has always been in third place. I personally don't care what happens in NH so how many are there out there like me - seems like lots. here's the trouble, romney can't beat anybody. It isn't just Dems who are worried about electibility.

"A new Gallup Poll finds Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974...The latest poll finds a record 72% of Americans saying the economy is "getting worse."

apparently partisans for the democrats and republicans have all missed the boat. it isn't iraq. you are both blamed by voters for the terrible economy, for job uncertainty, for corruption in business, for lousy and overly expensive healthcare, for the mess you have created. clean it up or go home.

"Would the Islamists bent on our total destruction prefer that the citizens of the United States elect as president, a person who will use any means to track them, hunt them down where they sleep and hide, wring the truth out of them, show them and their allies absolutely no mercy, and lock down our borders, or...would they prefer a president such as Hillary Clinton, who will keep our borders open, never allow profiling, never listen to their communications with terrorists inside our nation, think it is wrong to detain them outside of the United States or let our allies question them, bend to the will of other liberal or socialist nations, and always treat them as criminals instead of cold blooded killers?"

Ummm, aren't cold-blooded killers criminals? And yes, I think they would want a president who follows no moral standards and will do anything to track them down. These guys are content to be martyrs in the name of destroying the4 "great satan." If we abandon our moral compass in the name of beating them, they win whether we kill them or not.

It's what Republicans don't seem to get- they learned all the worng lessons from Vietnam because they bought their own hype about the stab in the back from the left. We weren't turning the military corner at the end of the war, we dominated the military campaign the whole time. We utterly defeated the VC, but it didn't make a darn bit of difference in the end because we lost the political war. The S Vietnamese government was a joke that was never capable of running a state, much less defending itself. We propped it up as long as we could, but we couldn't do it forever. There's a good reason the S Vietnamese government collapsed so swiftly after it was invaded, and it wasn't just because we didn't intervene.

Iraq is the same way, they need to stand up and make the important decisions to be a state in their own right, otherwise they are doomed to fail. Our military can only support them for so long, and in the meantime we render ourselves more vulnerable by leaving the bulk of our army deployed in that region as an occupation force; inciting resentment, strengthening our enemies, leaving us unable to answer additional threats with a conventional deterrent force, and wearing down our army with an impossible to maintain ops tempo. Reducing the presence and placing stronger demands on the Iraqi "government" is the only strategy that has any hope of prevailing. Above all else- remember when anyone talkss about us "winning" this war, it is completely out of our hands. We cannot win, we can only hold back the insurgency and hope tha the Iraqis figure it out, we have left our fate completely in their hands. Isn't it ironic after all of the talk about never surrendering our sovereignty that the Republicans have effectively given the maliki government a veto over US miltary actions? And given his base of support, isn't that the most dangerous proposition of all?

"Rudy won't be the GOP nominee. Book it."

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...

Who has the Grandest Pair of all?

.

"Home Depot does not advertise on other opinion talk shows such as MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann or Hardball with Chris Matthews"

why would they want to advertise on a show with no viewers?

Looks like Fred Thompson's campaign is falling apart, and I'm loving it. I hope he never gets his campaign off the ground. With him not entering the race, though, it does give McCain's candidacy a shot to return in September here with the Patreaus report and senate battle coming quickly. But for now, it looks like it's Guiliani vs. Romney. It seems that Guiliani got a pass for a good while, and since F. Thompson hasn't joined the race, McCain's candidacy has faltered and Romney's big wins in Iowa and Ill. straw polls, his big money advantage and organizational strength he's been able to address Guiliani and draw him into a battle over immigration now. This is a clear sign that Romney knows Guiliani leads nationally in polls, but he knows he has the advantage in early states and he's now coming at Guiliani trying to make it a 1 on 1 race. Romney is succeeding in doing this, unlike Obama who is trying to do the same thing with Obama. Clinton though, has the best organization of all the candidates and will likely have the most money, or at least equal with Obama. Right now though, it really looks like Clinton has the Democratic nomination all locked up. It looks like Romney is on his way to gaining the Republican nomination. It will be a brutal fight, though. Edwards could win Iowa and derail Clinton, while a surprise Republican could win New Hampshire. It will be interesting to find out how all this plays out!

Rudy won't be the GOP nominee. Book it.

"Rather than provide factual critiques of policy differences with Lieberman's positions, MoveOn followers instead engaged in shameful name-calling.

The liberal netroots are not interested in contributing to public discourse. They want to wipe out the competition and silence those voices that do not support their agenda."

Standard procedure for the Kos haters.

couldn't have more evidence of this on this blog if you made it up.

"NonP", then please explain to all of us how it was that mr. delp was the guest of rick santorum.....and the republican's hatched some plot to silence him? cease your delussional justifications, the necessary twisting of facts will only put a kink in your neck. bush wasn't directly involved in the arrest of the rank's either, it was done at the insistance of the secret service by capital hill police. no difference whatsoever between the two cases, just as there is no difference whatsoever between bush and clinton.

Giuliani 47%, Clinton 40%

AND

Clinton 33% Giuliani 29%

Obama 25% McCain 20%

Edwards 12% Romney 9%

Result - Hillary loses to rudy by over 5 points, the biggest defeat in over 30 years.

Libs blame the media for telling the truth about clinton. Imagine a Democrat having to tell the truth. Unheard of.

http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1252

Loudoun (Sterling?) Voter, I actually agree with you. McCain should have skipped this time around. His positions are anathema to most conservative thought (and worse for libertarians). Most importantly:

- his immigration reform plan is at odds with most Americans, and virtually all Republicans

- he was a chief sponsor of government regulation of political speech, a very anti-conservative ('progressive'?) position

While you can agree or disagree with his position on the war, at least the guy didn't/doesn't flip flop based on which way the wind is blowing. And his military service and POW experience, IMHO, earned him the right to speak out on it. You have to respect a guy who walks the talk.

"They are the modern day equivalent of Richard Euringer, the library director in Essen, Germany, who endeared himself to the regime in the mid-1930s by selecting more than 18,000 works to be burned for not conforming to the Nazi ideology."

Sorry, ace, but under Godwin's Law, you have just lost the debate. Bye and thanks for playing.

The liberal netroots are not interested in contributing to public discourse. They want to wipe out the competition and silence those voices that do not support their agenda.

True so true. but answer no hard questions.

Q1: hillary, do you plan to conduct the second most corrupt administration in history or will you beat out your husband for first place?

The latest plan of MoveOn, Campaign for America's Future and DailyKos is to attack the advertisers of Fox News. Armed with reports from the hapless Media Matters for America, netroots activists will claim documentation supports their assertion about the "unfairness" of Fox News as they attack the cable channel's advertisers. Media Matters is a web-based organization that claims to identify and correct conservative misinformation in the media. The liberal group instead engages in esoteric hairsplitting and character assassination.

The liberal netroots are not interested in contributing to public discourse. They want to wipe out the competition and silence those voices that do not support their agenda. They are the modern day equivalent of Richard Euringer, the library director in Essen, Germany, who endeared himself to the regime in the mid-1930s by selecting more than 18,000 works to be burned for not conforming to the Nazi ideology.

The liberal blogosphere has been doing the happy dance as of late claiming their first victory against Fox News. "Home Depot dumps O'Reilly," the Americablog.com website breathlessly claims. The site explains, "Home Depot seems to have had a change of heart. They're now unequivocally telling their customers that they will not advertise on Bill O'Reilly's show." O'Reilly is the host of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. Liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films homepage called the Home Depot report "a great first step... for us to exploit." A posting on the DailyKos website proudly proclaims that the other major home improvement retailer, Lowe's, has also pulled advertising from The O'Reilly Factor. Yet another liberal blogger claimed "Home Depot responds to strong pressure" as O'Reilly is "not a good fit for an environmentally conscious retailer." This is because, the blog argues, "O'Reilly has consistently mocked... global warming."

A simple review of the facts shows their celebration has been misplaced. "Home Depot does not advertise on opinion talk shows such as The O'Reilly Factor," Ron DeFeo, the company's communications director told HUMAN EVENTS. Home Depot has never advertised on O'Reilly reported DeFeo. He added, "We do advertise elsewhere on Fox News, such as Fox & Friends." Home Depot does not advertise on other opinion talk shows such as MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann or Hardball with Chris Matthews, according to DeFeo. Nor does Home Depot buy commercials on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer or Larry King Live on CNN although it does advertise on "general news shows such as CNN's American Morning, CNN Newsroom and CNN Saturday Morning," DeFeo explained.

The liberal netroots claiming credit for no Home Depot or Lowe's ads on The O'Reilly Factor is like the crowing rooster accepting congratulations for the sun rising each morning. Nonetheless, this false success story will not likely dampen the enthusiasm by netroots activists whose cartoonish efforts have proven to be effective in pushing Democrat politicians further left. The Democrat presidential candidates' boycotting of the Democratic Leadership Council underscores this.

The Home Depot-Lowe's "success" story, as with any good legend, will invigorate the netroots as they pursue their activist agenda. These agents of intolerance have had remarkable success influencing Democrats. The question is how successful will they be in the free market? So far, all of their actions have occurred without the usual suspects opening their checkbooks. However, imagine the havoc that could occur if liberal billionaires such as George Soros, Peter Lewis, Ron Burkle and Stephen Bing funded a liberal war chest to attack advertisers and silence outlets that provide opportunities for conservative voices.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22031

The first major success of liberal netroots activism occurred during last year's Democrat Senate primary in Connecticut. They prepared the battlefield in incumbent Joe Lieberman's loss to über-liberal challenger Ned Lamont. The most influential of the netroots groups was MoveOn.Org. Rather than provide factual critiques of policy differences with Lieberman's positions, MoveOn followers instead engaged in shameful name-calling. MoveOn supporters posted anti-Semitic comments online

proud: McCain should have maintained elder statesman status rather than embark on this ill-fated run for the presidency. It's just kind of sad.

Amidst all the talk about carbon dioxide emissions and global warming comes news that Norway's national mascot may be contributing to the destruction of the environment, through burping and other bodily functions. (Snip) But now some researchers linked to Norway's technical university (NTNU) in Trondheim contend that moose are responsible for tons of gas emissions a year through their frequent burping and, well, farting. ''Shoot a moose and save yourself a climate quota,'' joked moose researcher

'I've concluded that this is a government which cannot, is unable to, achieve a political settlement,'' Levin said

Was he talking about the Harry Reid Senate?

loudon- As one of the most trusted and respected voices in politics, especially when it comes to matters of foriegn policy or the military, John McCain's learned opinion and principled stance on the war will never be irrelevent. He said it himself- he'd rather lose his fight to win the presidency than lose the war.

His views have a helluva lot more credibility than that of voted for it before I voted against it Clinton's. She can't be bothered to do her homework as a Senator, yet now has the gall to claim to know the best course of action. Pshaw!

PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup Poll finds Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.

That 18% job approval rating matches the low recorded in March 1992, when a check-bouncing scandal was one of several scandals besetting Congress, leading many states to pass term limits measures for U.S. representatives (which the Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional). Congress had a similarly low 19% approval rating during the energy crisis in the summer of 1979.

In January 2007, 35% of Americans approved of Congress, a significant increase from the 21% who approved of Congress in December 2006. That December rating tied the lowest in the 12 years the Republicans controlled Congress from 1995 to 2006.

But that "honeymoon" period for the new Democratically controlled Congress was brief, as its job ratings dropped below 30% in March 2007 and have now fallen below where they were just before the Democrats took over.

There are only minor (but not statistically meaningful) differences in the approval ratings Democrats (21%), Republicans (18%), and independents (17%) give to Congress. Typically, partisans view Congress much more positively when their party is in control of the institution, so the fact that Democrats' ratings are not materially better than Republicans' is notable.

The nine-point drop in Congress' job approval rating from last month to this month has come exclusively from Democrats and independents, with Democrats' ratings dropping 11 points (from 32% to 21%) and independents' ratings dropping 13 points (from 30% to 17%). Republicans' 18% approval rating is unchanged from last month.

Americans elected the Democrats as the majority party in Congress in November 2006's midterm election in large part due to frustration with the Iraq war and an ineffective and scandal-plagued Republican-led Congress. But any hopes that the elections would lead to change have not been realized as Democrats' repeated attempts to force a change in Iraq war policy have been largely unsuccessful due to presidential vetoes, disagreements within their own party, and the inability to attract Republican support for their policy proposals. Also, many of the Democratic leadership's domestic agenda items have not become law even though some have passed one or both houses of Congress.

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28456

Unfortunately, proud, your fellow GOPers are roundly rejecting the candidacy of McCain. He's an irrelevancy.

Senator Hillary Clinton tells the VFW that new military tactics in Iraq are working but the best way to honor soldiers is "by beginning to bring them home.'' huh?

The only military strategy that Clintons like is the one that gets them votes, never mind actual success in a war. Therefore, legislating defeat in Iraq is the only way this liberal liar named Clinton can claim victory.

John McCain had a different message for his fellow veterans. Steadfast in his support for the military, McCain said withdrawing from Iraq would be a historic mistake far worse than previous U.S. missteps in Iraq.

The Dems sure did a lot of losing in 2006.

Bush approval ratings - 35%
Democratic congress approval ratings - 18%
hillary clinton negative - 45%

Hmmm I see a trend here. Dems have found something they are good at - negativity and losing.

MR. ROVE: [Hillary Clinton] enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup Poll.

MR. GREGORY: The president has much higher negatives than she, however.

Yes, I guess that really puts a damper on Bush's reelection plans.

Posted by: poofdah speaks | August 21, 2007 03:09 PM

Face it rufus, Gregory got pwnt

Apparently Delp was removed by the Capitol Police during the Clinton Impeachment trial. Seems like any judge would have done the same during a trial in a normal courtroom.

The Capitol Hill Police are the law enforcement arm of the Legislative Branch. So, the White House has no control over them. At that time the Senate was controlled by the Republicans.

So, it would seem that the Republican Senate leadership was the responsible party for depriving Mr. Delp of his Freedom of Speech.

"Yes, I guess that really puts a damper on Bush's reelection plans."

It will certainly put a damper on the reelection plans of every GOP slob who has had the misfortune of being photographed or videotaped in close contact with Bush, or tape recorded saying anything nice about Bush or any of his policies.

The man is toxic, do you not see that?

"Yes, I guess that really puts a damper on Bush's reelection plans."

:). Or the republcians that are running for president and or congress. What has the GOp done right in 30 years? Unfit to lead or incompetant? Either way the gop is irrelevant come 08

Nyah, Nyah, Your Guy Not Running Is Less Popular Than Our Gal Who Is Running

A vividly illustrative moment from Meet the Press this weekend, one that I can't help but wonder wouldn't have happened if Tim Russert had been in the interviewer chair, instead of David Gregory:

MR. ROVE: [Hillary Clinton] enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup Poll.

MR. GREGORY: The president has much higher negatives than she, however.

Yes, I guess that really puts a damper on Bush's reelection plans.

Wow. Hard to believe John Edwards isn't gaining more traction:

ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: When an Iowa resident asked former senator John Edwards Thursday whether the United States should follow the Cuban healthcare model, the 2004 vice presidential contender deflected the question by saying he didn't know enough to answer the question.

"I'm going to be honest with you -- I don't know a lot about Cuba's healthcare system," Edwards, D-N.C., said at an event in Oskaloosa, Iowa. "Is it a government-run system?"

Ya think, Senator?

But just three days earlier, the candidate was asked a question about the Michael Moore documentary "Sicko" -- which focuses extensively on the Cuban healthcare system.

As Willie Nelson's classic "On the Road Again" blared, Edwards leaned out of a window of his campaign bus dubbed "Fighting for One America", to hear an off-camera voice howl, "I wanted to ask ya, is it required that everyone go see "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Sicko"?

Edwards, in between autographs outside Dan's Pizzeria in Onawa, Iowa, replies, "I watched Sicko," later adding, "It's a great movie."

Hillary, and Her Thoughts on What, Exactly, 'Is Working'

Team Clinton is left to say that when Hillary told the VFW "it's working," she meant the surge in Anbar is working, not the surge in other parts of Iraq.

I don't know if the audience caught the distinction (obviously the Associated Press didn't catch the difference) and I don't know if the anti-war crowd will be pleased with her acknowledging any success in any part of Iraq.

"Liberals read more books than conservatives

WASHINGTON (AP) - Liberals read more books than conservatives. The head of the book publishing industry's trade group says she knows why--and there's little flattering about conservative readers in her explanation.
"The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,'" Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress' most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.

She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion."

The book publishing industry is predominantly liberal, though conservative books by authors like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and pundit Ann Coulter have been best sellers in recent years. Overall, book sales have been flat as publishers seek to woo readers lured away by the Internet, movies and television.

Rove, President Bush's departing political adviser, is known as a prodigious reader. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Schroeder was "confusing volume with quality" with her remarks.

"Obfuscation usually requires a lot more words than if you simply focus on fundamental principles, so I'm not at all surprised by the loquaciousness of liberals," he said.

"As head of a book publishing association, she probably shouldn't malign any readers," said Mary Matalin, a GOP strategist who oversees a line of books by conservative authors, Threshold, at Simon & Schuster. Matalin said conservatives and others aren't necessarily reading less, but are getting more information online and from magazines.

The AP-Ipsos poll found 22 percent of liberals and moderates said they had not read a book within the past year, compared with 34 percent of conservatives.

Among those who had read at least one book, liberals typically read nine books in the year, with half reading more than that and half less. Conservatives typically read eight, moderates five.

By slightly wider margins, Democrats tended to read more books than Republicans and independents. There were no differences by political party in the percentage of those who said they had not read at least one book.

The poll involved telephone interviews with 1,003 adults and was conducted August 6 to 8. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

"

i'm interested in why rimney's brats stay home safe and sound, while he touts our invasion of iraq and crows about patriotism and defending the troops. the jerk is a two faced liar. to guliani's family values evidently refers to how much he can make trading in wife #1 on wife #2, etc. it's rather like ginrich's requesting a divorce from his old wife, a cancer patient in a hospital, or kennedy's series of affairs with aids, or hillary clinton's reported lebian relationships. polician's aren't even the same species as the rest of us, much less know anything about 'family values'.

I'm interested in the debate between Romney and Giuliani on Families' Values. By the way, although intriguing, I thought Rudy's reference to "Wives for Romney" was a cheap shot.

depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

what's interesting about blarg is his inability to confront facts. of course delp was "arrested", he was photographed, finger printed, and questioned...it was, of course, done without recourse to an attorney, so he couldn't have been really arrested becasue that would have been unconstitutional and ewveryone knows that democrats are much more concerned about the constitution than conservatives. blarg, spend a few minutes on the web. do a tiny bit of reading. examples of illegal arrests by every president since nixon abound. there is no difference whatsoever between the clintons and bush, nixon, johnson, the elder bush. about the only noteworthy difference was reagan, who actually appears to have been concerned about the constitution. but you wouldn't lnow anything about that. por blind silly fool. what a maroon.

Democrats Fear Positive Iraq Report Democrats are warily anticipating a September report on the Iraq war, realizing that opponents will use any upbeat assessment to portray them as defeatists just as glimmers of hope appear

Any bad news for you is good news for them. Here's wishing the Dems tget thier way - a huge defeat in 2008 - at the polls. then they can get back into full time victimhood.

The infamous $400 haircut -- actually, some of his hairstyling sessions ran as much as $1,200 all told -- wasn't a freak embarrassment for a candidate so self-righteously devoted to the poor. It was part of a pattern so pervasive that it has become the defining aspect of Edwards' candidacy.

When he lambasted hedge funds for incorporating offshore to avoid or delay paying U.S. taxes, what could be more natural than that he made nearly $500,000 for part-time work at the Fortress Investment Group, with hedge funds incorporated in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes?

When he hit other candidates for taking donations from Rupert Murdoch's media holdings, wasn't it inevitable that it would turn out he had taken $800,000 from Murdoch's HarperCollins for a coffee-table book?

Or when he attacked subprime lenders for foreclosing on victims of Hurricane Katrina, he would have $16 million -- half of his net worth -- invested in Fortress while it was foreclosing on a couple dozen homes in New Orleans?

Most of us uphold ideals that we can't meet, but liberal populism shouldn't be such an impossible standard. The late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, a liberal populist to his core, never had such embarrassments. The former North Carolina senator is experiencing a kind of toxic shock from his synthetic political persona.

In 2004, John Edwards was Mr. Congeniality, for no other reason than that seemed the market niche for him in the race. Today, he is the angry populist, for no other reason than that seems the market niche for him in the race. He thrived in the Iowa caucuses four years ago as the fresh new thing; this year he looks like a version of Dick Gephardt, the union-pandering populist with the negative campaign.

Edwards' anger has about all the heft and seriousness of a 5-year-old's tantrum. All candidates fear making a gaffe in one of the debates. Edwards has to worry that Hillary Clinton will blow on him and he'll float away -- like Mary Poppins with her magic umbrella, carried off by the unbearable lightness of his own political being.

If a paranoid theory were needed to explain Edwards' candidacy, there are two, equally plausible options. Is he a plant from the Democratic National Committee designed to make Clinton and Barack Obama look impressive by contrast with his sheer insubstantiality? Or is he a plant of the Republican National Committee designed to pull the top-tier candidates as far to the left as possible?

On the big issues of the day, Edwards specializes in can't-keep-his-story-straight contrivance. Democratic consultant Bob Shrum described in his book "No Excuses" how his political advisers talked Edwards into voting for the authorization of the Iraq War in the fall of 2002. Edwards vehemently denies it, but also says that he didn't express "the huge conflict" he had in his own mind about the vote, which makes it sound like politics played as big a role in his decision as his conscience.

On gay marriage, he said that he opposes it because of his religious background, but then explained that it had been wrong for him to say that. He now offers no real reason for his opposition. Surely, the hindrance is simply that it is the most politically contentious item on the gay-rights agenda.

Edwards says on the campaign trail that he can beat the special interests the way he beat them in the courtroom as a trial lawyer. Back then, how John Edwards lived and his past record didn't matter, so long as he told the jury what it wanted to hear. Edwards still seems to think he's in the courtroom, which is why he is so deaf to the jarring incongruities of his lamentable campaign.

While I'm leaving the road, I will continue working to help her win and be the President our country needs so badly," Hanley said.

A proposed ballot initiative to change how California awards its presidential electoral votes has initial support from voters, according to a Field Poll released Monday, despite growing concerns among majority Democratic leaders. The poll found that 47 percent of registered voters back the proposal to allocate most of California's 55 electoral votes on a district-by-district basis, while 35 percent want to keep the existing system awarding all electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the entire state.

Can you spell landslide - you will.

the Dems did us the favor of showing us their way of governing with a small test case, approved by the voters for a short two year period.

the Dems failed gloriously and are now at the lowest level of approval of all time - 18%.

Extrapolate

rudy out ahead of hillary by 7 points in the last month

predict

"It will result in another election defeat next year."

You mean like last year's defeat, idiot?

everyman- being called zouk by that ignorant coward is not an insult - it is a recognition that you have defeated them and that they no longer wish to debate. the debate is ended and the insults start.

this always happens right after all the facts are revealed.

thier positions are so weak they really have little else to say. Just try to get them to discuss Hillaries policies or a single answer to a hard question. Oh wait, I forgot, she has never answered any hard questions.

I refer to IC as them because he has so many different personalities and can outpost all the other bloggers combined by the use of cut and paste from all the uber lefty sites out there. you will notice the effort and thought required to do this - zero. no idea encounters any resistance while traversing ignorant cowards feeble brain - it just goes straight through.

The Libs deserve these kind of fools as thier base. It will result in another election defeat next year.

Democrats foolishly dismissed the president's insistence on cutting $22 billion from overall discretionary spending, claiming it was a puny amount. To them, it is. To the public, it's not.

A veto war on spending bills is likely to work in Mr. Bush's favor, though not if weak-willed congressional Republicans cut and run. Should it lead to a government shutdown--call it the shutdown trap--that would be all the more harmful to Democrats.

The recipe for Republicans is to stop acting like, well, Republicans--that is, Republicans of recent vintage.

Dem in Congress have preserved earmarks, the source of so much corruption. Republicans should advocate their elimination and, additionally, urge Mr. Bush to veto any bill containing earmarks.

Again, it's not lazy for me to ask you to back up your assertions. If I told you that Bush admitted he invaded Iraq for the oil, but didn't give any citations, you'd be right to ask me to back it up. And I don't know how I'm being dishonest; you're the one who keeps posting irrelevant examples and pretending they prove your point.

But you're getting closer. Dave Delp's story is similar to that of the Ranks. Except for the fact that he wasn't arrested. He was escorted out of the room by "polite" officers and banned from the Capitol for the day. That's not as bad as being handcuffed, arrested, jailed, etc. And there's no evidence that this was done on command of Clinton's team, while the Ranks were arrested on the order of White House staff. But the situations is pretty similar to what happened to the Ranks.

So congratulations. After 2.5 hours and 5 irrelevant examples, you've finally found a case in which an anti-Clinton protester was treated almost as badly as anti-Bush protesters are. (Assuming you ignore the details, like him not having a permanent arrest record from the incident.) And I commend you on remaining cordial and pleasant throughout the discussion.

WASHINGTON -- Democrats who captured control of the House last year after a 12-year hiatus are dominating the first clash of the 2008 elections: the money race.
The most vulnerable House Democrats -- freshmen who won in districts that went for President Bush in 2004 -- raised an average of $600,000 in the first six months of this year, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. That's nearly double what Republican freshmen raised. If the trend continues, it will make it difficult for the GOP to reduce Democrats' 231-202 House majority.

'Avoid, Thou She-Devil!'
John Edwards, perhaps worried that he's been coming across as too presidential, "fired the latest round in his ongoing verbal feud with Ann Coulter," reports ABC News:

"We know these people. We know their game plan. They're going to attack us personally," Edwards said. "They attacked Elizabeth personally, because she stood up to that she-devil Ann Coulter. . . . I should not have name-called. But the truth is--forget the names--people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language."

"She-devil"? Jules Crittenden has some fun with this:

For some reason, this "she-devil" business reminds me of Jimmy Carter admitting he lusted after women in his heart. I think it's the flirting with irrelevant sinfulness, the abashed piety. A flash of rather square humanity slathered in piousness . . . holier than thou piousness in this case. I'd rather see Edwards cut loose. I'd maybe even develop some respect for him, if he started calling Coulter names like "Jezebel" . . . "Wh*re of Babylon" . . . you know, pouring it on, with a little of the old eyes rolling back into the head and some pulpit pounding.

But you know, stifled deep under that kind of righteous, wrathful condemnation sometimes lies something more sinister, men being weak, creatures of passion, at war with the lust in their hearts . . .

It's just a short hop, skip and jump, on the road to Hell all mortals tread, from "She-devil!" to "Strumpet!" to "Saucy minx!"

On the other hand, this sort of language also calls to mind an uglier episode in American history. Consider this passage from Cotton Mather's 1693 account of the Salem witch trials, reprinted in "The Witchcraft Delusion in New England: Its Rise, Progress and Termination" (1866):

Robert Downer testifi'd, That this Prisoner being some Years ago prosecuted at Court for a Witch, he then said unto her, He believed she was a Witch. Whereat she being dissatisfied, said, That same She-Devil would shortly fetch him away! Which words were heard by others, as well as himself. The Night following, as he lay in his Bed, there came in at the Window, the likeness of a Cat, which flew upon him, took fast hold of his Throat, lay on him a considerable while and almost killed him. At length he remembered what Susanna Martin had threatned the Day before; and with much striving he cried out, Avoid, thou She-Devil! In the Name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Avoid! Whereupon it left him, leap'd on the Floor, and flew out at the Window.

If there is a feminist with a sense of history, she may be displeased with John Edwards

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - The families of the Crandall Canyon miner's aren't the only ones raising questions about the handling of the rescue effort.

Many news organizations are also now asking questions about the governments role and the man chosen to lead the rescue effort, Mine and Health Safety Administrator, Richard Stickler.

Sonny Olsen, families spokesperson said, "We are at the mercy of the officials in charge and their so-called experts."

Increasing attention is now being paid to Stickler, the federal government's main mine man.

Stickler used to be a mining executive who ran mines which had several fatalities and "...an incident rate that was often twice the national average."

Also coming to light, is the fact that Stickler's nomination to head the mine administration was twice rejected by congress and rejected when republicans were still in charge.
Rejected reportedly by senators who were concerned about Stickler's safety record when he operated mines.

After his nomination was twice rejected by the Senate, President Bush gave Richard Stickler the mine safety job with a recess appointment.

http://www.abc4.com/news/story.aspx?content_id=cded9797-246e-4dc6-9d55-cc4e6506e018&rss=20

Emergency relief -- food, shelter, clothes -- is one thing. Protection, as a matter of policy, from bad decisions (e.g., borrowing without the means to repay) penalizes good decisions. It says to citizens, don't bother to plan, to save, to reason things out, to act with discretion and judgment, because if you do blow it through carelessness or irrationality, along the government rescue wagon will come, bells jingling and dollars flying through the air.

When the course of least resistance works, it becomes the course increasingly preferred by the majority. Where's the incentive to make good decisions if bad decisions pay off? Pain hurts -- yes. It also toughens and strengthens, concentrates the mind wonderfully on those tasks needful to avert it in the future.

Nor are voters, generally speaking, so dumb they never figure out the ruinous consequences -- moral as well as economic -- of rigging outcomes and rewarding bad luck.

Sen. Clinton isn't talking morality -- of this kind anyway -- and she certainly isn't talking economics. She's talking politics -- the acquisition of votes through a species of bribery disguised as good old American compassion.

Blessed are the merciful, we are advised on High Authority. And cursed, in considerable degree, are those whose politicians pretend to preside over a bed of roses in which difficulties wilt away and no one gets pricked by thorns -- and if someone gets pricked anyway, his representatives in Washington will find the culprits, you bet, and make them pay. Them and everybody else around

What makes Karl Rove's politics uber alles strategy chilling is connecting the dots between Rove's use of federal regulatory mechanisms to reward major GOP contributors and the Utah mining disaster. Major contributors such as Big Coal, which has donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the Bush era began -- with 88% of that money going to Republicans.

And what did that largess buy the coal mining industry? Mine safety regulators far more interested in looking out for the financial well-being of mine owners than for the physical well-being of miners. Rove may be on his way out the door, but the destructive legacy of his politicization of the federal government will be with us for many years to come.

January 1999, a Pennsylvania man named Dave Delp was removed by the Capitol police from the Senate gallery for wearing a t-shirt that said, "Clinton doesn't inhale, he sucks."

A Pennsylvania school teacher was yanked out of a VIP Senate gallery and briefly detained last week during the impeachment trial for wearing a T-shirt with graphic language dissing President Clinton.

Dave Delp, 42, of Carlisle, Pa., and a friend had just settled into their seats when four Capitol security guards approached them. Delp said at the time that he was ordered to button his coat and follow the guards. Outside the chamber, he was told "several people felt threatened by your shirt."

Even after establishing that Delp was a guest of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), the guards wouldn't let him back in and escorted him to a basement security area, where they questioned and photographed him.

After being given one of the photos as a souvenir, Delp said he was banned from the Capitol for the rest of the day. "They were polite and professional," Delp added, "but they really did scare me. I think I should have been given the chance to cover up."

Everyman, I may be a fool, but I do know some things:

1. I have never intentionally made any anonymous posts in the several months that I've posted here.
2. I didn't accuse you of being Zouk, or of being conservative. That was someone else. I accused you of being wrong when you said that Clinton has arrested peaceful protesters, just like Bush did.
3. The examples you cited to back up your assertion are not at all comparable to the example of the Ranks.
4. When you post something and I debunk it, you immediately move on to another irrelevant example and more insults. You ignore the fact that I keep proving you wrong.

So there. I'm a fool, but I definitely know 4 things. And that's 4 more things than you seem to know.

Despite the desperate yearnings of liberals in bloggerville, the latest Gallup poll data shows little movement whatsoever in the structure of the Democratic race -- which means that Hillary Clinton continues to dominate.

Clinton is leading Barack Obama by 23 points. John Edwards, in turn, is behind Obama by another 12 points.

When Democrats are given a head to head choice between Clinton and Obama, Clinton wins by a 61 to 34 point margin!

For better or worse, Clinton has been virtually conceded the nomination by none other a political authority than Karl Rove, who said Sunday: "The Democrats are going to choose a nominee. I believe it's going to be her..."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/gallup/

This is gonna be great!

The topic of this thread is Hillary's New Press Man, Jay Carson. Almost four hours have gone by and not one post on that topic.

I guess nobody believes that Carson will answer any questions either. That would make him a perfect fit for her campaign.

This morning's NYT reports on IRS data showing that the average family's income is lower, after inflation, in 2005 than it was in 2000. It's down about 1%, just under $500, which ain't chump change. It helps to explain the squeeze many middle- and low-income families speak of, and the dissonance between their experiences and the clamoring of the economy's cheerleaders (low unemployment! strong job growth! solid fundamentals! yada-yada...). And the price of both food and fuel is steadily rising.

Mitt Romney has a new radio attack ad running in Iowa and New Hampshire. The target of the ad? New York City.

The ad attacks "sanctuary cities" that don't enforce federal immigration laws, singling out New York. Oddly, the ad doesn't mention its obvious target -- Rudy Giuliani, who was of course Mayor of New York and has come under criticism from Romney for his past tolerance towards illegal immigration. Take a look: