HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. PRESIDENT, OUR BELOVED COMMANDER IN CHIEF!!!
 

That's an Op-Ed piece, Hank. LAT allows all kinds of numbnuts, including Jonah Goldberg and Max Boot, to take periodic dumps in the end of the California section, but that strategic decision doesn't really translate to changes in the paper's philosophical outlook (Hi, bilmore!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. PRESIDENT, OUR BELOVED COMMANDER IN CHIEF!!!
 

more or less credibility than "Ellen?"

Joementum.
 

It's a primary. CT Democrats can pick whoever they want. If they pick someone too far to the left, a moderate can run as an independent.

I happen to agree that there's a place in the system for moderates. I happen not to like Lieberman for reasons that don't relate to his positions. When you say he's bucking his party, it sounds like you mean his positions, but that's not it.

And on Iraq, I suspect that Lamont's position is closer to the average CT voter than either Lieberman or the GOP dude.

"Cut and run" is a slogan, not a policy. Don't you think we've had enough of sloganeering instead of policy? The place is in a civil war already.

That said, I could be convinced that leaving the troops there is the right thing do. But I have zero confidence that Rumsfeld can get it right. He has made a total mess of the situation. You need a Sec'y of Defense who doesn't have his head up his ass.

Since Bush is going to continue to stand by his man, you get an utterly immaterial debate about whether we should withdraw the troops or not. We should be discussing what kind of policies will work over there, but there's no point in having that conversation because Bush and Rumsfeld wouldn't listen, and because the GOP couldn't score political points from it.

Like I said, I don't know why you waste your time complaining about the lack of convincing Democratic solutions, since the Democrats are not going to have any meaningful say about Iraq policy until January, 2009, at the earliest.

I wish you were right. But check out this and this, about the planning for war with Iran. For example:

• The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium. . . .
  
  There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”
  
  A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”
  
  One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

What are they smoking indeed? But you could ask that question about Iraq, too.

Ask yourself, why are people in the Pentagon leaking this stuff to Seymour Hersh? Obviously, because they are trying to head this Iran stuff off at the pass.

Joementum.
 

I ask, why aren't they leaking it to someone OTHER than Seymour Hersh? Please God, have them call Jim Fallows or Dana Priest or somebody that doesn't make my head hurt when I read them.

Hersh may well be right about this (who knows?), but I can't take reading such apolcalyptic stuff with such consistency.

Joementum.
 

I don't think Hersh says much in those pieces that Fallows didn't say in the two pieces he's written in The Atlantic about the same subject.

OK, there is that bit about how the civilians at the top of DOD were pushing for planning re the use of tactical nuclear weapons. That was a little disturbing. I haven't seen anyone deny it, unfortunately.

Joementum.
 

Ty -

1. You don't withdraw the troops with undoubteadly disatrous consequences to follow merely because Rummy and W don't have a great plan. An undoubtedly catastrophic plan is not preferable to a poorly executed one.

2. You're right. "Cut and run" is a slogan. An accurate one.

3. We can't afford to go to Iran, and it will never be politically possible. Hersch may be right about what Bush thinks, but thats a far cry from what Bush can actually do.

4. I complain about Democrats becasue they have an obligation to put together a sensible alternative plan, if for no other reason than to foster a debate. Behaving like Berkely-ite academic lefties casts them further and further into the wilerness. Remember, I'm a Libertarian. A lot of what the Dems believe on social issues is what I believe. Joe ain't my favorite Dem, but he's one who has a voice, and makes the party look good, so I don't see any good reason to cut the guy off.

But hell, what do I know? The Dems are more in tune with middle America... they're going to get the breadbasket and bible belt to vote Hillary into office in 2008!

Joementum.
 

You have to hand it to the Republicans on the slogan thing - they nail it every time. "Cut and run" is catchy and easy to remember. Plus it skips over the whole issue of how we got there in the first place, which is, like, pretty contentious.

I thought "bring it on" was really super kickass too. All our troops must have been totally stoked when the President dared the terrorists to try to kill them.

I can't wait for W to roll out "Fuck me? Fuck YOU!" in 2007. Then the world will really see how serious and tough we are.

Joementum.
 

none of them big brains at all Ty's blogs thought up that maybe leaking Iran attack plans was intended so Iran calms the fuck down?

Joementum.
 

I tend to agree, but I think reasonable minds can differ about whether the result would be worse than the current course we're on.

What makes you think it accurately reflects Ned Lamont's views?

We can afford to bomb the shit out of Iran, especially if we pay for it with the deficit spending you love. And Bush doesn't need political support to do it. He's the CIC for the next 2+ years.

The Dems have an obligation to try to get elected to end this nonsense.

Joementum.
 

I'm sure this half-thought out anti-bush shit goes over big in your conference rooms with european associates watching fag ball, but this is the PB- we don't need another dull-normal slogan spouting half wit, unless.....do you know is Panda going into a big project that will keep him from posting for awhile?

Joementum.
 

If you want more friends, be more friendly. :)

Joementum.
 

Okay, I'm sorry, that was rude. but from now on Ironweed's nickname is Panda-lite!

Joementum.
 

I'd forgotten how this started. It's been so long since I had heard of Panda-lite referred to as anything else. God, this Hank invented almost every good thing on these boards.

Joementum.
 

Hank drinks too much HaHa!!

Joementum.
 

I am? Do tell.