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"Bill Richardson and anyone else should have the right to an opinion. Now, he (Richardson) has not proven that his opinion hurts anyone. He just see's it that way...so what was the slip??"

The guy's running for President, his opinion means more than your or mine because if he's elected his opinion does have the potential to hurt people through the policies of his administration.

Bill Richardson and anyone else should have the right to an opinion. Now, he (Richardson) has not proven that his opinion hurts anyone. He just see's it that way...so what was the slip?? Why would he even try to cover it up? Its not like there is scientific proof that being homosexual is NOT A CHOICE. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary. If we have "feelings" of one preference or another, is it still not "OUR CHOICE" as to whether we choose a whole lifestyle to SUPPORT those feelings or not???

Born that way, or genetically pre-disposed??

So you argue about this slip up but if a republican said it was because they were possessed by demons, a good part of your electorate would lap that up.

With the sub-prime mortgage issues, Chris Dodd has a shot now to make a splash from an economic standpoint. He's been there a while himself. It should be interesting to see if he can capitalize on this.

"Last week, the shipment of new armored vehicles, necessary to protect U.S. soldiers from deadly Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), was postponed for lack of funding.

don't let this make you think we don't care about the troops - we do, as long as they can deliver the election for us, otherwise - screw them."

Ollie, Zouk, et al., maybe you should look at the real reason for the delay: overly rosy estimates (sounds familiar), corporate America's delays, and DoD bureaucracy. It's odd that your answer seems to be to just throw money at the problem:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070822/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/armored_vehicles_iraq

Here's some more reading for you, Proud:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Proud, didn't he know what he was talking about back in 2004 also?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49283-2004Sep25.html

No, just another partisan cheerleader who happens to have stars, I wonder how he got them (meanwhile, soldiers who are doing the grunt work get derided by Tucker Carlson becuase their critiques are inappropriate for servicemembers, apparently...)

Dona Dunsmore -- I agree with your analysis of the Iraq situation, and have thought that from the beginning. This country needs a good, rational, reasonable man, like Bill Richardson, to stabilize the Mideast at the conference table, and to recover our public image to the world that Bush has demolished. He has the only sensible redeployment plan, combined with diplomacy. of all the candidates.

The gay gaffe was unfortunate as he has done so many positive things in N. Mex. to support their rights as Americans. And it is most unfortunate that many of you bloggers haven't done your homework.

I believe that Bill Richardson is the only person who can bring unity, stability, safety, and honor to This Great Nation of ours.

"The war in Vietnam wasn't lost during "Tet '68" no matter what Walter Cronkite said. Rather, it was lost in the pages of America's newspapers, on our televisions, our college campuses - and eventually in the corridors of power in Washington.

We need to pray that this war isn't lost the same way."

The War in Vietnam was lost in Europe in 1945, when we chose to back French imperialism over national sovereignty. We won every battle we fought in that war, and it didn't matter because war is all about achieving a political objective, and forming a democratic society is not an objective that can be achieved by military force. Just like Iraq, an occupation can only give our allies time, but if the political will isn't there, no amount of time will matter. We gave the S Vietnamese government 10 years and did our best to wipe out all of the VC, but in the end it didn't metter. The S Vietnamese government was an illusion and folded the minute the North invaded.

Likewise, the current Iraqi government is a shell, unable to come together on fundamental issues that divide the people. The longer we stay and the more we work to successfully route out AQIZ, the more the Iraqi government divides and the more strength the various factions gain, and the more resentful of our occupation the people of the region become, undermining our longer term strategic objectives. Prolonging this disasterous strategy is not winning, it is only extending this farce so you republicans can try to blame someone else. And you think just because more people today are buying your lies about Vietnam you can get away with it.

Richardson's slip of the tongue or gaffes whatever one wants to call them are pretty much majoring on the minors, at the end of the day its the actions we hold accountable. So far much of Richardson's passed political actions have all been reasonable and in the best interest of the people of his state and country. If we had a nickle for every U.S. President that made a slip or gaffe, we all be rich like Romneys, McCains, Clintons and Bushes. Lastly, if Richardson going to make it, his campaign will need to kick in high gear now, preparing position statements on every possible issue, orchestrating communications, and giving him the time to rest and prepare to perform for televised events (he still a Gov. of a State). Richardson also needs to just to project a relax style while on television - and keep it personal, keep it to the point and most of all get aggressive with the facts.

That was the single most painful interview I have ever watched. Richardson has had a series of painful episodes throughout this campaign and he just doesn't look or sound presidential. God bless him for his long history of public service in many different positions, but I would never vote for him to be president. Never.

Dona - Here's an idea -read the truth from someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

IRAQ'S RE-LIBERATION

HOW GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS CHANGED THE COUNTRY'S RULES

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08222007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/iraqs_re_liberation.htm?page=3

but I can go all day. I just have to resort to insults or double postings. I won't let that zouk beat me. does content count? I sure hope not if I am to regain my position.

"now I need to get back to my frantic postings. I am falling behind my quota for the day of one post every four minutes. I can't possibly do this if I have to make sense."

Once every 4 minutes? You'll have to do better than that! Within the 21-minute period starting 12:04 and ending 12:25, Zouk (or someone with exactly his opinions and style) made 9 posts which were copied and pasted from conservative news and blog sites. That's one post every 2.3 minutes!

I have sent Gov. Richardson money. I desperately want a competent person that wants to represent the whole country. I hope he will drag every skeleton out of his closet soon and discuss it to death so we can get on with the most important thing. Would he be a good president? Gene Weingarten said in his chat the other day that being a flawed person doesn't mean one is unable to make the right decision at the right time. I didn't like President Clinton's personal life and didn't vote for him but he knew how to govern.

BTW, we didn't lose the war in Iraq. We won. We haven't been able to force them into the kind of government we want them to have because we haven't tried to do that. If that is what we are there for--start killing them until they do what we want.

Last week, the shipment of new armored vehicles, necessary to protect U.S. soldiers from deadly Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), was postponed for lack of funding.

don't let this make you think we don't care about the troops - we do, as long as they can deliver the election for us, otherwise - screw them.

Dirty harry and San Fran Nan

I am so bothered by the invasion of Ollie and zouk (have you ever seen them together?) that I can no longer edit my cuttings before posting. I am increasingly finding myself as a Che clone and circling irrelevance. how do you cons manage to think through everything before you post? how can you keep up all day and night if you bother to read anything? Please excuse my news clippings about inance subjects. to comprehend and process would mean abandoning the Lib positions I so dearly hold.

now I need to get back to my frantic postings. I am falling behind my quota for the day of one post every four minutes. I can't possibly do this if I have to make sense.

And most importantly -- as President Reagan's assistant secretary of state, Lawrence Korb, said on this newscast Friday -- we were only in a position to win the Cold War because we quit in Vietnam.

We went home. And instead it was the Russians who learned nothing from Vietnam, and who repeated every one of our mistakes when they went into Afghanistan. And alienated their own people, and killed their own children, and bankrupted their own economy and allowed us to win the Cold War.

We awakened so late, but we did awaken.

Finally, in Vietnam, we learned the lesson. We stopped endlessly squandering lives and treasure and the focus of a nation on an impossible and irrelevant dream, but you are still doing exactly that, tonight, in Iraq.

And these lessons from Vietnam, Mr. Bush, these priceless, transparent lessons, writ large as if across the very sky, are still a mystery to you.

"We'll succeed unless we quit."

No, sir.

We will succeed against terrorism, for our country's needs, toward binding up the nation's wounds when you quit, quit the monumental lie that is our presence in Iraq.

And in the interim, Mr. Bush, an American kid will be killed there, probably tonight or tomorrow.

And here, sir, endeth the lesson.

'Last week, the shipment of new armored vehicles, necessary to protect U.S. soldiers from deadly Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), was postponed for lack of funding.'

THAT'S RIGHT. BUSH VETOED IT.

PEOPLE ARE LEAVING THE CAPITAL? YOU MEAN LIKE BUSH DID FOR A MONTH IN AUGUST 2001, AFTER RECEIVING A MEMO ENTITLED 'BIN LADIN DETERMINED TO STRIKE INSIDE US?

This president has his fictitious Iraqi WMD, and his lies -- disguised as subtle hints -- linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11, and his reason-of-the-week for keeping us there when all the evidence for at least three years has told us we need to get as many of our kids out as quickly as possible.

That president had his fictitious attacks on Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and the next thing any of us knew, the Senate had voted 88-2 to approve the blank check with which Lyndon Johnson paid for our trip into hell.

And yet President Bush just saw the grim reminders of that trip into hell: the 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese killed; the 10,000 civilians who've been blown up by landmines since we pulled out; the genocide in the neighboring country of Cambodia, which we triggered.

Yet these parallels -- and these lessons -- eluded President Bush entirely.

And, in particular, the one over-arching lesson about Iraq that should've been written everywhere he looked in Vietnam went unseen.

"We'll succeed unless we quit"?

Mr. Bush, we did quit in Vietnam!

A decade later than we should have, 58,000 dead later than we should have, but we finally came to our senses.

The stable, burgeoning, vivid country you just saw there, is there because we finally had the good sense to declare victory and get out!

The domino theory was nonsense, sir.

Our departure from Vietnam emboldened no one.

Communism did not spread like a contagion around the world.

Perhaps the media and politicians who are so outraged that the Iraqi legislature is on vacation should learn a bit of history.

The British Parliament recessed for all but one holiday -- the summer of 1940 -- throughout World War II.

In keeping with this democratic tradition, the U.S. Congress has done the same thing during every war we have fought, including our own Revolution.

Rather than firing barbs at the Iraqi legislature, critics should focus their ire on Capitol Hill. The 110th Congress, led by Sen. Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is setting new records for irresponsible behavior.

Though they have found time to launch more than 600 investigatory hearings, our good senators and congressmen fled Washington this week for a month in the sun without passing any of a dozen appropriations bills, including those needed to support our troops in the field.

Last week, the shipment of new armored vehicles, necessary to protect U.S. soldiers from deadly Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), was postponed for lack of funding.

Consider your fellow Texan, sir.

He had lofty goals and tried to reshape society for the better. And he is remembered for Vietnam, and for the lies he and his government told to get us there and keep us there, and for the Americans who needlessly died there.

As you will be remembered for Iraq, and for the lies you and your government told to get us there and keep us there, and for the Americans who have needlessly died there and who will needlessly die there tomorrow.

The fourth pivotal lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: If the same idiots who told Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to stay there for the sake of "peace With honor" are now telling you to stay in Iraq, they're probably just as wrong now, as they were then ... Dr. Kissinger.

And the fifth crucial lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush -- which somebody should've told you about long before you plunged this country into Iraq -- is that if you lie your country into a war, your war, your presidency will be consigned to the scrap heap of history.

It is a shame and it is embarrassing to us all when President Bush travels 8,000 miles only to wind up avoiding reality again.

And it is pathetic to listen to a man talk unrealistically about Vietnam, who permitted the "Swift-Boating" of not one but two American heroes of that war, in consecutive presidential campaigns.

But most importantly -- important beyond measure -- his avoidance of reality is going to wind up killing more Americans.

And that is indefensible and fatal.

Asked if there were lessons about Iraq to be found in our experience in Vietnam, Mr. Bush said that there were, and he immediately proved he had no clue what they were.

"One lesson is," he said, "that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while."

"We'll succeed," the president concluded, "unless we quit."

If that's the lesson about Iraq that Mr. Bush sees in Vietnam, then he needs a tutor.

Or we need somebody else making the decisions about Iraq.

Mr. Bush, there are a dozen central, essential lessons to be derived from our nightmare in Vietnam, but "we'll succeed unless we quit," is not one of them.

The primary one -- which should be as obvious to you as the latest opinion poll showing that only 31 percent of this country agrees with your tragic Iraq policy -- is that if you try to pursue a war for which the nation has lost its stomach, you and it are finished. Ask Lyndon Johnson.

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Bush draws parallels with Iraq in Vietnam
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The second most important lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: If you don't have a stable local government to work with, you can keep sending in Americans until hell freezes over and it will not matter. Ask Vietnamese Presidents Diem or Thieu.

The third vital lesson of Vietnam, Mr. Bush: Don't pretend it's something it's not. For decades we were warned that if we didn't stop "communist aggression" in Vietnam, communist agitators would infiltrate and devour the small nations of the world, and make their insidious way, stealthily, to our doorstep.

The war machine of 1968 had this "domino theory."

Your war machine of 2006 has this nonsense about Iraq as "the central front in the war on terror."

BAGHDAD, Aug. 22 -- A U.S. Army helicopter crashed north of Baghdad early Wednesday morning, killing all 14 soldiers onboard, the military said.

Meanwhile, a suicide truck bomber in the northern city of Baiji killed at least 20 people at a police station Wednesday morning, police said.

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A statement from the U.S. military said initial evidence indicates the UH-60 Black Hawk experienced mechanical failure and did not come under enemy fire. However, the cause of the crash is under investigation, the military said.

According to the military statement, two helicopters were conducting a night operation when one went down. The aircraft had been carrying four crewmembers and 10 passengers from Task Force Lightning, an American operation whose area of command includes the cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk, Samarra and Mosul.

Military travel in Iraq is often conducted on helicopters to avoid threats from roadside bombs.

Since the conflict began, 63 helicopters have gone down, including 36 struck by enemy fire. Over January and February of this year, seven military helicopters and one carrying private security contractors were taken down by insurgent fire, killing a total of 28 people. The incidents prompted the military to reevaluate flight plans and tactics used to prevent anti-aircraft fire.

Wednesday's incident was the deadliest U.S. helicopter crash in Iraq since 31 troops were killed when their CH-53E Super Stallion went down in January 2005.

In Baiji, a fuel tanker rammed into a newly opened police station, killing at least 20 police officers and civilians, police said. The police department had recently moved into the new office after a truck bombing at its previous headquarters killed 27 people in June.

"He volunteered to go to Vietnam."

-- Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot, yesterday [2/23/04], on National Public Radio

"No, I didn't."

-- President Bush, Feb. 8, responding to a question on NBC's "Meet the Press" about whether he volunteered to go to Vietnam

---ZOUK--WORKING FOR THE PHARMA LOBBY I SEE

who let that zouk in here to ruin my lies and propoganda. I will now have to post every two minutes to make up for it. you will understand if my content leans toward the personal and insulting and ignores any actual substance or issues. but you all know me already.

Socialized Medicine: If Hillary Clinton gets her way and we have socialized medicine in this country, taxes will soar, the quality of medical care will decrease, and the wait times to get surgeries will grow enormously.

Disaster In The War On Terror: When Bill Clinton was in power, the 2nd Intifada started, Al-Qaeda launched terrorist attacks at America practically with impunity, he turned down an offer of Sudan to hand over Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan and India built nuclear programs right under our noses -- and we believe North Korea built nuclear weapons.

If Hillary were to become President, expect North Korea to become a permanent nuclear power, Iran to start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and Al-Qaeda to get a breather to rebuild their forces because Hillary will be more concerned with whether Europe likes us or not than stopping another 9/11.

Additionally, she would certainly curtail the wiretapping of terrorists and would treat them as mere criminals instead of unlawful combatants, which would significantly hurt our intelligence gathering and make another 9/11 much more likely.

Losing Iraq: In 1975, Democrats deliberately delivered South Vietnam into the hands of the Communists by cutting off the aid and air support that we had promised them because the Dems believed it would benefit them politically. The result was a Communist takeover of Vietnam, genocide, an enormous loss of American prestige, and a crisis of confidence in our military that wasn't truly reversed until George Bush won the Gulf War.

If Hillary Clinton becomes President and we are still in Iraq, she will deliberately lose the war early on in her presidency because she will believe that she can blame it on George Bush. That will allow her to avoid taking on a politically unpopular war. The result of her actions would likely be a huge victory for Al-Qaeda, genocide, an enormous loss of American prestige, and a crisis of confidence in our military.

Amnesty and Open Borders: Hillary is a big supporter of comprehensive immigration reform for illegal aliens and with a Democratic Congress to help her, it's entirely possible she'll be able to succeed where George W. Bush failed with amnesty.

George W. Bush - AWOL from the National Guard 1972-'73

I find it interesting that the Bushies start to "distance themselves" from the Iraqi PM just after he reaches out to Iran and Syria, to help stabilize the region. Any connection? You bet. This throws off the Cheney/Lieberman drum beat to hit Iran on behalf of AIPAC, et al. I also wonder why the posting under "Oliver North" continues to spew the old MAC V spin on control of the VC by the NVA, (which didn't happen, although they did "coordinate" operations, including TET which was largely a VC, not an NVA op). Viet Nam is not like Iraq, in terms of force, motivation, and reasoned struggle, but NOT for the reasons in "Ollie's" post. I also find it interesting that the question of the "Richardon gaffe" is such a bogus issue, that 90% of the posters blow it off, and get down to more serious concerns. CC you are out of your element on this one........................

Tax Hikes: Hillary is a diehard socialist and will certainly slow the economy down and take more money out of the American people's pockets with a tax hike. She has even voted against ending the marriage penalty and the child tax credit.

Corruption: Her brother was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to help get pardons from her husband. During Hillary's previous stay in this White House, trips to the Lincoln bedroom were handed out for campaign contributions. She actually drew up legal documents that were used in the Whitewater land scheme and she got away with being bribed through a crooked cattle futures deal. Hillary Clinton would be one of the most corrupt Presidents ever to sit in the White House.

Kyoto: Clinton is a supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, which would cause energy prices to soar and would seriously damage the American economy even though most environmentalists will admit that it won't significantly cut the amount of greenhouse gasses being produced by mankind.

wouldn't want you Libs to concern yourselves with any actual issues. for thinking people only.

My fingers are getting tired from all this cutting and pasting from Kos and friends. I am taking a four minute break. I'll be right back.

It really wasn't fair that the Army kicked me out. I was a good potato peeler. Plus I never had to decide what to wear every morning.

Hey bill, good for you, I never got a hummer from an intern -- i just didn't care about Ossama because I'm a moron.

Can't you see I have an intern under my desk? didn't you see the sock on the doorknob? that means come back later. I don't care about some Ay-rab named Ossoma. I have other things I'm doing.

Giuliani controlled access to the site as if it were his backyard. Yet, when the scope of the health disaster was clear on the fifth anniversary in 2006, he told ABC: "Everybody's responsible." Throwing federal, state, and city agencies into the mix, he diffused the blame. On the Today show the same morning, however, he was more accusatory: "EPA put out statements very, very prominent that you have on tape, that the air was safe, and kept repeating that and kept repeating that."

The city had its own test results, of course, and when 17 of 87 outdoor tests showed hazardous levels of asbestos up to seven blocks away, they decided not to make the results public. An EPA chief, Bruce Sprague, sent an October 5 letter to the city complaining about "very inconsistent compliance" with respiratory protection. Sprague, who wrote the letter only after unsuccessful conversations with Giuliani aides, likened the indifference in a subsequent court deposition to sticking one's head "over a barbecue grill for hours" and expecting no consequences. An internal legal memo to a deputy mayor estimated early in the cleanup that there could be 35,000 potential plaintiffs against the city, partly because rescue workers were "provided with faulty or no equipment (i.e. respirators)." Bechtel, the major construction firm retained by the city as its health and safety consultant, urged it to cut the exit-entry points from 20 to two so they could enforce the use of respirators and other precautions, just as was done at the Pentagon, but the recommendation was ignored.

A Times editorial concluded in May that the Giuliani administration "failed in its duty to protect the workers at Ground Zero," faulting its "emphasis on a speedy cleanup" and its unwillingness "to insist that all emergency personnel and construction workers wear respirators'

JimD in FL writes
"Furthermore, the outrageous cost of health care is seriously undermining the competitiveness of our industries. Health care costs are the largest single cost element in a GM or Ford car."

No doubt. The Dems are really missing the boat on this issue. They could win over the pro-business vote (really the business campaign donations), by promoting a plan that decouples health insurance from employment. Having insurance tied to employment is bad for employers AND bad for employees.

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Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11

August 7th, 2007 9:44 PM
Illustration by John Kascht
Additional research assistance by Benjamin Bright, Ben Greenberg, Jan Ransom, Ethan Strauss, and Tom Wiedeman.
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Continued from page 6
BIG LIE

5. 'Every effort was made by Mayor Giuliani and his staff to ensure the safety of all workers at Ground Zero.' So read a Giuliani campaign statement in June, responding to a chorus of questions about the mayor's responsibility for the respiratory plague that threatens the health of tens of thousands of workers at the World Trade Center site, apparently already having killed some.

The statement pointed a finger at then-EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, issuing a list of the many times that "Whitman assured New Yorkers the air was safe." Instead of also detailing the many times Giuliani echoed Whitman--for example, "the air is safe and acceptable," he said on September 28--the campaign cited several Fire Department "briefings" about "incident action plans" for the use of respirators, suggesting that the city had tried to get responders to protect themselves from the toxins at Ground Zero. The press release did not make a case that any of these "plans" had ever resulted in any real "action"; nor did it dispute the fact that as late as the end of October, only 29 percent of the workers at the site were wearing respirators.

Oliver North - SCUMBAG.

It is all part of a devoutly partisan exploitation of his 9/11 legend. Though Giuliani volunteered to execute bin Laden himself after 9/11, he's never criticized Bush for the administration's failure to capture him or the other two top culprits in the attack, Mullah Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a silence more revealing than anything he actually says about terrorism. The old evidence that Bush relied on Afghan proxies to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora, and the new evidence that he outsourced him to Pakistani proxies in Waziristan, evokes no Giuliani bark. Imagine if a Democratic president had done that--or had said, as Bush did, that "I just don't spend that much time" on bin Laden.

At the Republican National Convention in 2004, Giuliani began his celebrated speech by fusing 9/11 and the Iraq War as only he could do, reminding everyone of Bush's bullhorn declaration at Ground Zero that the people who brought down these towers "will hear from us," and declaring that they "heard from us in Iraq"--a far more invidious connection on this question than Dick Cheney has ever made. Giuliani even went so far, in his 2004 testimony before the 9/11 Commission, to claim that if he'd been told about the presidential daily briefing headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.," which mentioned New York three times, "I can't honestly tell you we would have done anything differently." Pressed about whether the city would have benefited from knowing about a spike in warnings so vivid that the CIA director's "hair was on fire," Giuliani just shrugged.

Oliver North? Why are you on tv and not in jail? Why are you a gop "hero" after what you did? Using money from your boy's in iran to fund anti-marzists "terrorists" in south america. how are you not in jail? Didn't you lie to congress?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North

'Operating in small independent "cells" instead of organized, disciplined military units, the enemy in Mesopotamia has no ability to mount any kind of protracted offensive against U.S. or even lightly-armed Iraqi government forces.'

Oh really? Then why have we spent half a trillion dollarss there?

All you are really proving is that what the right chants, 'if we leave, they'll follow us here' -- IS A BIG LIE.

If you are Oliver North, you should be in prison, you lying traitorous Iran Contra criminal.

'Even the fiercely anti-Clinton Freeh credited the former president," saying his administration did go after bin Laden "with a salvo of Tomahawk missiles in 1998 in retaliation for the embassy bombings in East Africa."

The best example of Giuliani's partisan twist is the USS Cole, which was attacked on October 12, 2000, three weeks before the 2000 election. The 9/11 Commission report found that in the final Clinton months, neither the FBI, then headed by Freeh, nor the CIA had a "definitive answer on the crucial question of outside direction of the attack," which Clinton said he needed to go to war against bin Laden or the Taliban. All Clinton got was a December 21 "preliminary judgment" from the CIA that Al Qaeda "supported the attack." A month later, when the Bush team took office, the CIA delivered the same "preliminary" findings to the new president. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the commission "there was never a formal, recorded decision not to retaliate for the Cole" by the Bush administration, just "a consensus that 'tit-for-tat' responses were likely to be counterproductive." Rice thought that was the case "with the cruise missile strikes of 1998," meaning that the new administration was deriding the one response that Freeh praised.'

And one more thing, I had eagles on my Marine uniform, not stars.

Hillary - my car got a flat. can you fix it for me?

bokonon "-to which I ask, how the hell do you know?"

- I fought in Vietnam, did you? Here's the distincton son...

In the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, enemy combatants are a combination of disparate Sunni Jihadi-terrorists, disenfranchised Ba'athists, Shia militias aligned with Iran, fanatical foreign Wahhabi Mujahadeen, Muslim Brotherhood-supported radicals and well-armed, hyper-violent criminal gangs, often with tribal connections that are stronger than any ideological, religious or political affiliations.

Though many Jihadis receive indoctrination, munitions and refuge from a network of mosques and sectarian Islamic groups, centralized command, control and logistics support is virtually non-existent.

Operating in small independent "cells" instead of organized, disciplined military units, the enemy in Mesopotamia has no ability to mount any kind of protracted offensive against U.S. or even lightly-armed Iraqi government forces.

Increasingly dependent on improvised explosive devices and suicide-bomb attacks to inflict casualties, the opposition in Iraq is more "anarchy" than "insurgency."

The second great fable about the war in Iraq is the horrific casualty rate. This is always the most difficult aspect of any war to address for all comparisons seem cynical. For those of us who have held dying soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines in our arms it is particularly painful.

Yet, it is one of the oft-cited reasons for why we were "forced" to get out of Vietnam - and why we are once again being urged by the media to "end the bloodshed" in Iraq. Here's a reality check.

Over the course of the entire Vietnam War, the "average" rate at which Americans died as a consequence of armed combat was about 15 per day. In 1968-69, when my brother and I served as Rifle Platoon and Infantry Company Commanders - he in the Army and I in the Marines - 39 Americans died every day in the war zone. In Iraq, the "kill rate" for U.S. troops is 2.06 per day.

During the 1968 "Tet Offensive" in Vietnam there were more than 2,100 U.S. casualties per week. In Iraq, the U.S. casualty rate from all causes has never exceeded 490 troops in a month.

None of this is to say, "my war was tougher than your war." As of this writing 3,000+ young Americans have been killed during three and one half years of war in Iraq. That's roughly the same number killed at Iwo Jima during the first three and one half days of fighting against the Japanese.

Every life lost was precious and every loss grievous to those who loved them. Unfortunately, our media intends to use every one of those killed to make their point. It's a lesson they learned in Vietnam.

On 27 February 1968, after a month of brutal fighting and daily images of U.S. casualties on American television, Walter Cronkite, then the host of the CBS Evening News, proclaimed that the Tet Offensive had proven to him that the Vietnam War was no longer winnable.

Four weeks later, Lyndon Johnson told the nation that "I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President." It didn't matter that Tet had been a decisive victory for the U.S. and South Vietnamese.

As the presidential debates heat up and tensions increase, the candidates need to be reminded of the critical issues that still trouble our society today. Issue such as global poverty needs to be address by our candidates to each and to the general public. As one of the nation that has pledge to fulfill the goals of Millennium Development Project, whose goal is the elimination of world hunger and poverty, the Bush Administration has not shown any substantial action to bring this fundamental problem to a stop. According to the Borgen Project, dedicated to fighting and ending Poverty around the world, only $19 billion dollars are needed annually to stop world wide poverty, hunger and malnutrition. However, more than $340 billion dollars has been poured into this "war on terror." And each year, our country has a military budge of $522 billion dollars. It's time for a new leader who will be addressing an issue that affects 1.2 billion people everyday worldwide.

Of course, the consequences of putting the center there were predictable. The terrorist who engineered the 1993 bombing told the FBI they were coming back to the trade center. Opposing the site at a meeting with the mayor, Police Commissioner Howard Safir called it "Ground Zero" because of the earlier attack. Lou Anemone, the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the NYPD, wrote memos slamming the site.

"I've never seen in my life 'walking distance' as some kind of a standard for crisis management," Anemone said later. "But you don't want to confuse Giuliani with the facts." Anemone had done a detailed vulnerability study of the city for Giuliani, pinpointing terrorist targets. "In terms of targets, the WTC was number one," he says. "I guess you had to be there in 1993 to know how strongly we felt it was the wrong place."

zouk is a fascist

The US does have the best quality health care - for those who can afford it. For those with no insurance or limited insurance coverage, it doesn't do them a lot of good. I am not in favor of socialized medicine but it is disingenous to offer that as an answer to the question fo what to do about the under-insured and the uninsured.

Furthermore, the outrageous cost of health care is seriously undermining the competitiveness of our industries. Health care costs are the largest single cost element in a GM or Ford car.

BIG LIE

3. Don't blame me for 7 WTC, Rudy says. In response to his critics' most damning sound bite, Giuliani is attempting to blame a once-valued aide for the decision to put his prized, $61 million emergency-command center in the World Trade Center, an obvious terrorist target. The 1997 decision had dire consequences on 9/11, when the city had to mobilize a response without any operational center.

"My director of emergency management recommended 7 WTC" as "the site that would make the most sense," Giuliani told Chris Wallace's Fox News Channel show in May, pinpointing Jerry Hauer as the culprit.

Wallace confronted Giuliani, however, with a 1996 Hauer memo recommending that the bunker be sited at MetroTech in Brooklyn, close to where the Bloomberg administration eventually built one. The mayor brushed the memo aside, continuing to insist that Hauer had picked it as "the prime site."

why wouldn't the Army keep me? what is wrong with me? why aren't I an elected official? I am so smart yet no one seems to know.

Anon, if the draft were reinstated, do you really think the "loudmouth chickenhawks" would not find, like Dick Cheney in the '60s, that they had "priorities other than national service"?

they should bring back tar and feathers for folks like that.

Anon, if the draft were reinstated, do you really think the "loudmouth chickenhawks" would not find, like Dick Cheney in the '60s, that they had "priorities other than national service"?

The mayor had also done nothing to make the radios interoperable--which would have enabled the police and firefighters to communicate across departmental lines--despite having received a 1995 federal waiver granting the city the additional radio frequencies to make that possible. That meant the fire chiefs had no idea that police helicopters had anticipated the partial collapse of both towers long before they fell.

It's not just the radios and the OEM: Giuliani never forced the police and fire departments to abide by clear command-and-control protocols that squarely put one service in charge of the other during specified emergencies. Though he collected $250 million in tax surcharges on phone use to improve the 911 system, he diverted this emergency funding for other uses, and the 911 dispatchers were an utter disaster that day, telling victims to stay where they were long after the fire chiefs had ordered an evacuation, which sealed the fates of hundreds.

i'm just an ignorant rightwingnut coward.

watch this: Libs, socialism, Hillary, blah, blah, blah

In the end, firefighters had to rely exclusively on their radios, and the inability of the Giuliani administration to find a replacement for the radios that malfunctioned in 1993 left them unable to talk to each other, even about getting out of a tower on the verge of collapse. And so they died.

'zouk' and 'truth' are two words which have nothing in common and don't belong in a sentence, except in 'zouk wouldn't recognize the truth if it bit him' -- which eventually, it will.

here's hoping for reinstatement of the draft, so that all the loudmouth chickenhawks will actually get to fight the war they love so much.

I remember very clearly the daily fearmongering led by FOX as they cheered for war with Iraq. The 24/7 images, sound effects, yelling and threatening were an ever-present drumbeat for war. We had to invade, and we had to invade now.. anyone who didn't see that was a traitor. They viciously attacked those of us who worked to get out the truth.

You'd think that with the complete failure in Iraq, those days would be behind us. Sadly, you'd be wrong.

FOX wants war with Iran.

It's almost too ridiculous to believe, but it's shockingly real. We've already compiled over 4 hours of FOX footage just in the last few months... the same images, sound effects, yelling and threatening that led the U.S. to invade Iraq is happening right now to sell a war with Iran. They are saying the exact same things!!

Here is the video evidence, side-by-side with what they said about Iraq.

http://foxattacks.com/iran?utm_source=rgemail

This time is different though. We're prepared, and we have the means to alert people to what FOX is doing. Everyone has seen the terrible tragedy and the awful price paid by so many Iraqis and Americans. We know this is coming, and we can stop it.

It was about this time in the lead-up to the Iraq war when the other TV networks started following FOX's lead. As CNN's Christiane Amanpour says in the video, they were intimidated by FOX into cheerleading for the Iraq war.

WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.

This is a critical moment, and we must send a message to the major television networks urging them to ask tough questions, be skeptical, and tell us what is really happening. They must not follow FOX down the road to another war.

We've put together an open letter to the networks. Will you sign it?

"This hurt comes from the honest word"

"Do not speak to fools they scron the wisdom of your words"

"Who's to be praised? The mighty dollar, or the mighty GOD"

Nas

Peace to you all. This site is a waste of time

oN Point diagnosys jimd. Finally, something I agree with you on. Without political progress, there is no progress. How long are you gop'ers willing to wait for that. I know it may be easier waiting here, than my brothers and sisters waiting over there. How long are you gop'ers willing to keep up the status quote, until there is political progress? 5 more years? 10? How are we goign to keep sastained troops over there, a draft?

Time to come ut of fantasy island. What do you gope'rs want. What more can WE as americans give you gop'ers? HAven't we given you enough?

zouk, keep your truth to yourself. this is my blog.

the 45 million figure is misleading. Thirty-seven percent of that group live in households making more than $50,000 a year, says the U.S. Census Bureau. Nineteen percent are in households making more than $75,000 a year; 20 percent are not citizens, and 33 percent are eligible for existing government programs but are not enrolled.

For all its problems, the U.S. ranks at the top for quality of care and innovation, including development of life-saving drugs. It "falters" only when the criterion is proximity to socialized medicine.

Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how "fairly" health care of any quality is "distributed." The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but "unequal distribution" would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution.

WHY AREN'T YOU IN IRAQ, ZOUK?

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Rufus, you seriously need to work on your reading comprehension. When I said that we were winning in Iraq, I was being sarcastic; it was an imitation of the way Republicans trumpet minor advances as signs of victory. That was very clear from the sentences preceding the ones you quoted. If you're going to quote someone, maybe you should actually read their post and attempt to understand it first.

The Clintons exploited traditional notions of fair play with regard to candidates' wives in 1992 and 1996. Hillary revolutionized the art of spousal politics by implementing a simple strategy: Make the woman the emissary; have her slam her husband's political opponents; play the victim when political opponents respond.

Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards have learned Hillary's lessons well. Obama's comments are surely the first of many. Edwards has already led the charge against President Bush, Sen. Obama, Ann Coulter and Hillary.

Hillary is the frontrunner and will certainly become the main target of her challengers' wives' ire. And she is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she responds to Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards directly, she will be seen as a bully. If she allows President Clinton to counter their remarks, she will be seen as a weakling, sending her husband out to defend her against the other ladies. Ah, the irony.

Hillary changed the rules of the game in 1992 with her passive-aggressive victim routine. Now, Hillary will have to lie in the bed she made a decade and a half ago. It won't be comfortable.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

On Tuesday, Michelle Obama, wife of floundering presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, got aggressive. "One of the things, the important aspects of this race, is role modeling what good families should look like," Mrs. Obama told a crowd in Illinois. "And my view is that if you can't run your own house, you certainly can't run the White House."

This was an oblique slap at Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who has famously failed to keep her house in order. Michelle Obama's statements made her the second Democratic candidate's wife to act as attack dog during this election cycle. The first attack dog wife, Elizabeth Edwards, rapped Hillary across the knuckles in July for failing to adequately represent women's issues. "[S]ometimes," Mrs. Edwards stated, "you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women's issues."

The 2008 presidential race is producing the most bellicose crop of first lady candidates in American history. First lady candidates used to be of the Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Rosalynn Carter sort -- helpful, caring, sympathetic. Even the most controversial first ladies -- women like Eleanor Roosevelt -- were controversial for their personal political activities, not for their shock-troop status. Now our first lady candidates are fire-breathing stump orators.

What happened? Hillary Clinton.

Obama gore 08 :)

"Oliver North" says:

"Both the NVA and VC responded to centralized command and control directed by authorities in Hanoi. None of that is true of Iraq."

-to which I ask, how the hell do you know? If I remember correctly, the US was convinced that Iraq had nukes... well, but they tried to buy enriched uranium... OK, but maybe biological or chemical weapons... no? They must be hiding them... can't find them? Well, but they attacked us on September elev- what? "Al" who? But all Muslims are the same anyway... not in Iraq? Just wait. They will be.

And of course, now they (al Qaeda) are (in Iraq), albeit not in large numbers. This should not surprise us, as we invited them in.

I would also ask "General North" - in what way(s) is it better to have a decentralized enemy, all of whom do not answer to the same authority? It complicates negotiation (as if that were ever to cross Bush's mind!), intelligence, surveillance, security - especially in an age when one person can hide in his clothes enough ordnance to take down a building. Yes, those attacking the US forces are less organized, and can't fight the US in the same way as could the NVA. The better analogy is to the Vietcong, and it's the Vietcong that the US forces were never really able to get a handle on.

As to Mr. Obama being the candidate for change, this idea seems to have originated with -- Mr. Obama. His home page has a big map at the top titled "Road to Change." And he wrote an audacious book claiming the novel audacity of a politician offering the change of hope to the voters. Of course, politicians since the beginning of time have peddled either fear or hope -- with the better ones offering both simultaneously.

Moreover, his policy thinking appears to be politically safe and routine left-of-center Washington think tank ideas -- nothing terribly innovative.

Nor is offering to end partisan bickering much of an innovation -- although accomplishing it would be. And that is where a shrewd assessment of Mr. Obama would suggest his is an unlikely personality to end partisan bickering. He has already, in his short Washington career, displayed a haughty pride in his own high intelligence, a definite instinct for sarcastically toned comments about his opponents (even in his own party), a refusal to admit any errors and an undisciplined and flippant manner.

Imagine a President Obama -- with all those traits -- reaching out, working with and compromising with the full menagerie of Capitol Hill creatures. He couldn't possibly hold his tongue for eight weeks, let alone eight years, working in harness with congressmen, senators and interest-group representatives he judged to be knuckle-dragging nincompoops. This is a guy destined to be the Godzilla of skunks at any Washington bipartisan picnic.

Which is not to say that he wouldn't be a prince of a president. It's just that it will not be based on changing the way Washington does business.

The media should not be so willing to parrot each of Mrs. Clinton's and Mr. Obama's campaign themes. They are able work-a-day politicians trying to get themselves elected president. Nothing is wrong with that. But Hillary Clinton is one of the least-experienced major candidates for president in the last hundred years, and Barack Obama is neither stylistically nor substantively offering any more change than have most candidates over the generations.

But this season's premier political cliche is already both hackneyed and trite, while having no obvious truth to it. I am referring to the claim that Sen. Barack Obama would bring real change to America, while Sen. Hillary Clinton would bring extensive experience to the office.

First, it is interesting to note where this cliche came from. As far as I can tell, its origins are nothing more than the campaign claims of the two candidates. Sen. Hillary Milhous Clinton has been lumbering around the political landscape talking about herself as commander in chief. She joined the Senate Armed Services Committee as a freshman seven short years ago and has managed to pick up enough military jargon to sound like an Army major on his third tour of duty in the Pentagon's administrative office. She has taken on the world-weary sound of a veteran European diplomat -- although she has not carried out even one day's duty as a diplomat.

In fact, prior to being elected to the Senate in 2000, her only recent professional employment had been as a lawyer in Little Rock, Arkansas while her husband, coincidentally, was governor of that state. She represented clients who sometimes had an interest in getting to know her husband better.

She has never managed anything larger than a Senate office, although she did exercise the traditional first lady's prerogative of trying to get various of her husband's staff fired.

Her international activities while first lady were more in line with the ceremonial responsibilities of a Pat Nixon or Laura Bush, than with the actual interventions of Eleanor Roosevelt -- who she does claim to have spoken to via seance.

In other words, she doesn't have the government management experience of a Reagan, Carter or Bill Clinton. Nor does she have the international, military or naval experience of an Eisenhower, Hoover or a Franklin Roosevelt. Now, this doesn't mean she would not make a jim-dandy president (although I would prefer about 295 million other Americans in that job before her). But it does mean that the cliche that she is the experienced candidate is just hooey.

Progress? After how many years? 4? You gop'ers are happy about SOME progress after four years? Is SOME progress in a country half way across the world worth 4000 americans and a large portion of american tax dollars, or does the money come from china? Either way, how much are we spending there? Hwo many deaths on both sides? Where is bin laden? Why have the sunni's pulled out of the government?

Don't believe these gop spinsters, independant thinkers. They have been lying to you ever since they found out 9/11 was an inside job. Why? Because they really believe what they say? No. You can't tell me O'REilly believes half the things he says. No. They are fascists. The gop are lying propogating faascsits. Why?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Wag the Blog Redux: OK, so an exhausted presidential candidate slips and says he thinks being gay is a choice. Minutes later he steps back and says that the bottom line is all people are equal under the law and should be so treated.

I ponder the importance of the question, the answer and reality.

Here are some simple facts:

As Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson has enacted and fought for an historic expansion of laws to recognize and protect LGBT citizens of New Mexico.

Bill Richardson regularly talks about his LGBT record and plans in presidential forums, big and small, gay and not.

Bill Richardson is not running to be arbiter-in-chief of how people become lesbian or gay. He is running to be a President of the United States for every American. Period. Regardless of sexual orientation or other characteristic.

Having said all of that, it is high time we focus not on trivial slips-of-the-tongue and minor policy differences, but rather on the fact that seven years of GOP dominance in Washington has created an America so divided, so frustrated, so angry that the winds of change are blowing at category five.

I have not personally decided who I will support, but let me assure you, I'll take Bill Richardson over any of the lightweights running on the other side.

At a time of chaos at home and abroad, any one of the Democratic candidates go a long way towards bridging the divides among us, restoring our standing in the world, bringing our troops home, restoring our economy, providing healthcare for every American, facing the challenge of climate change, and yes, expanding the rights, responsibilites and protections for LGBT Americans.

Eric C. Bauman
Chair, Los Angeles County Democratic Party

A candidate who thinks touching his heart is an answer of substance is just not right. A candidate who takes his posin' shovel down to New Orleans to announce his candidacy and care for the residents while investing about $16 million in a subprime lender (Fortress Investment Group) that's foreclosing on homeowners there is just not right. And what about working as a consultant for that group and investing in its tax-free Cayman Island hedge funds after having spoken publicly against subprime lenders and offshore tax shelters?

Both of these polls are far more interesting than the current topic of this blog:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/romney_encounters_more_core_opposition_than_clinton

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/south_carolina_clinton_38_obama_30

The R 'base' hates Romney as much as the D 'base' hates Clinton. Are Clinton's unfavorables decreasing?

SC voters split in interesting ways in their support for Clinton versus Obama.

But any evolution in mainstream Democratic Party thinking must not blind us to the reality that many of these same politicians have shamelessly demagogued the issue -- poormouthing the war effort in order to score some cheap political points against President. Bush at the expense of our troops. In that vein, Mr. Durbin told The Washington Post that if Mr. Maliki were to leave office, the Democratic leadership might feel compelled to stop criticizing the war in order to give a new Iraqi government a fighting chance to perform.

Perish the thought that a new, functioning Iraqi government and political system might somehow get in the way of the Senate majority whip's antiwar political agenda.

A small town called new orleans was flooded two years ago, IN AMERICA. Where is fema to fix the damage.

After months of heaping scorn on the very idea that a new military strategy could achieve results in Iraq, a growing number of antiwar critics now acknowledge that the very idea they contemptuously dismissed is achieving results after all. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Monday after visiting Iraq that he saw "credible and positive results" from the troop reinforcements. He added that visits to bases in Baghdad and Mosul showed that the military aspects of the troop "surge" have made progress in reducing violence and giving Iraqi political leaders time to work for political reconciliation.

Mr. Levin and the ranking Republican on the Armed Services panel, Sen. John Warner (another critic of the troop "surge") issued a statement that said they were "also encouraged by continuing positive results -- in al Anbar Province, from the recent decisions of some of the Sunni tribes to turn against al Qaeda and cooperate with coalition force efforts to kill or capture its adherents." Democratic Rep. Brian Baird of Washington, who just returned from Iraq, now says he believes U.S. forces should remain in the country as long as necessary to ensure stability and that he will no longer vote for binding deadlines to withdraw troops. Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Bob Casey, who also just returned, have conceded that U.S. forces are making progress militarily.

WHY AREN'T YOU IN IRAQ, ZOUK?

I broke a fingernail over an hour ago. where is FEMA? why isn't the government here to fix the damage?

Some Sunni militants are fighting Al-Qaeda instead of us! We've achieved partial progress on nearly half of our goals! We're winning!"

No blarg. The sunni's pulled out of the government. how can their be unity without one block of the government? You can't. It is impossible to win if their is no political progress. Impossible to win without that no matter how much gop'ers propogate. Independant thinkers know this

'Rather, it was lost in the pages of America's newspapers, on our televisions, our college campuses - and eventually in the corridors of power in Washington.'

oliver/zouk -- THE USUAL BS. it was lost after 16 years and almost 60,000 dead -- and just like then, people like you cheerlead the deaths, but won't serve. people got sick of death. but not people like you, because you are a vulture.

WHY AREN'T YOU IN IRAQ, ZOUK? WHY DO YOU SPEND YOUR DAY HERE TYPING INSTEAD OF FIGHTING?

So what exactly then is this Â'new war' that Mrs. Clinton says we ought to be preparing to fight? And how does she think we will win it if we just allow our current allies in Iraq to be slaughtered by the enemies we will have to fight elsewhere if they drive us from Iraq? And how are the Democrats going to lead in a new war after beating the drums so avidly for retreat in the current fight? The truth is Mrs. Clinton doesn't believe all the clap trap she's been spooling to her party's base. We hear that in private conversations with military brass, she pointedly says she will not run the war, if elected, as she promises to during the campaign Â-- which is one of the most astounding things we've heard of late.

Once the primaries are done and the general election approaches and as we rack up more success in Iraq, Mrs. Clinton's handlers will bend over backwards to emphasize these hawkish qualifications she placed in the speeches when she was trying to woo those Americans who believe the president and his top advisers are war criminals. At some point, Mrs. Clinton will have to take on the left wing of her party. And that is going to be some donnybrook. It's conceivable that it will turn out to be the new war about which the senator is suddenly talking. She will certainly need to win it if she is going to abandon her commitment to retreat and seek to lead our troops to victory in Iraq and beyond.

"Among those who had read at least one book, conservatives "typically read 3" books in the past year."

Do fantasy and sci-fi count? I don't think so. That's all these gop'ers read. Wecolme to reality gop. This is the real world. We are not living in wizards and witches time. It is not 1748. The year is not 1954. John wayne and elvis are dead.

The year is 2007. Welcome to reality. Don't shoot the messanger. I'm trying to help bring you gop'ers out of fantasy land and into the real world. Take the blue pill. :)

get lost, zouk -- everyone here can see through your lies and propaganda.

'Is there anybody out there that DOESN't think the gop is in bed with the terrorsits and the saudi's (the people who attacked us on 9/11)'

well we know bush is in bed with the saudis -- we've seen him holding their hands and kissing their lips.

blarg writes "In the average person's mind, Vietnam is associated with a brutal, unwinnable conflict"

Purveyors of the "news" in our so-called mainstream media picked up the beat - describing Iraq as a "quagmire"-
though many of them are too young to know anything more about Vietnam than what they learned from a movie. The "Vietnam déjà vu" howl is now in full cry. But it's a myth.

Most importantly, the adversaries confronted in both wars are radically dissimilar. In Vietnam, U.S. troops faced nearly a quarter of a million conscripted but well trained, disciplined and equipped North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars and upwards of 100,000 highly organized Viet Cong (VC) insurgents on a constant basis from 1966 onward. Both the NVA and the VC "irregulars" were well indoctrinated in communist ideology, received direct aid from the Soviet Union, Communist China and the Warsaw Pact and benefited from logistics and politico-military support networks in neighboring countries. During major campaigns against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces - of which there were many each year - both the NVA and VC responded to centralized command and control directed by authorities in Hanoi. None of that is true of Iraq.

Today's potentates of the press are trying to deliver the same message: that Iraq, like Vietnam, is un-winnable. One television network has gone so far as to broadcast images of U.S. troops being killed by terrorists - making Iraq the first war where Americans get their news from the enemy.

The war in Vietnam wasn't lost during "Tet '68" no matter what Walter Cronkite said. Rather, it was lost in the pages of America's newspapers, on our televisions, our college campuses - and eventually in the corridors of power in Washington.

We need to pray that this war isn't lost the same way.