The Religious Right's True Colors

In recent years, when Pat Robertson has made statements like "We should assassinate Hugo Chavez" or Gays and lesbians are to blame for 9/11" or "Cities that reject intelligent design deserve to receive a hurricane", evangelicals would always claim that his influence has been lessened over the years and he is no longer relevant.

On the August 23, 2005 episode of Fox News' Special Report, Hume declared, "The televangelist Pat Robertson's political influence may have been declining since he came in second in the Iowa Republican caucuses 17 years ago. And he may have no clout with the Bush administration."

Morton Kondracke echoed Hume, exclaiming that "Pat Robertson's day has long since passed."

Therefore, I guess the least relevant evangelical leader in America just endorsed Rudy Giuliani. (Hey, how's that "We deserved 9/11" business square with that?)

I'm not sure what his import is anymore. His influence in creating the law school, Regent University, attended by the likes of Monica Goodling and dozens of other Bush Administration Justice Department officials, is considerable. My point is that this will suddenly be seen as "the most important endorsement EVAH" after years of hearing that Robertson is a crazy old coot and an afterthought. Just a window into how the media works.

Robertson is a partisan political operative, not a religious leader, and this endorsement kind of proves it, as it goes against all appearances of principle on what he's considered to be core issues like abortion and gay rights. Other social conservatives are looking in other directions, like Sam Brownback, who chose his Senate colleague John McCain.

"John McCain is the only candidate who can rally the Reagan coalition of conservatives, independents and conservative Democrats needed to defeat Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat in the general election next year," Brownback said in a statement.

He praised McCain for spending a lifetime "standing up for human rights around the world, including a consistent 24-year pro-life record of protecting the rights of the unborn."

I guess none of that matters to Robertson, who would rather choose the candidate most likely to eat a terrorist and spit out the bones. Ultimately I think these endorsements mean little compared to boots on the ground and organization in the early states. What they are is a window into the real concerns of the so-called "religious right."

The Third-Party Question

Everybody's trying to read tea leaves, wondering if there would be an evangelical third-party run if the nominally pro-choice Rudy Giuliani were to take the Republican nomination. The latest signals are conflicting. Sam Brownback, whose support is so wide and deep that he just dropped out of the race in the middle of October, proclaimed himself much more confortable with Giuliani's views on abortion and particularly the appointing of "strict constructionist judges," which is code. The backlash from various sources suggests that Brownback's view is kind of unpopular, which is obvious, considering he's no longer in the race.

"There's obviously something more going on here than fidelity to the pro-life cause," said (Jim) Bopp, a legendary pro-life activist and lawyer who is an important voice for Romney because he vouches for his conservatism. "Brownback is angling for some personal political benefit by cozying up to Giuliani."

[...]

"I'll believe he supports Giuliani when I see it," FRC veep (Charmaine) Yoest says. "For the pro-life movement as a whole, life is a deal-breaker. There would be no better way to demoralize the GOP base than to nominate Giuliani. It would be a disaster for the Republicans party."

Whether this is all talk, or presumptive of action, is the $64,000 question. I think at this point, it's clear that there would be a third-party effort against Giuliani. The real question is whether or not it will be sanctioned by the larger groups of social conservatives, or whether it will be just from the fringe. The latter is manageable; the Constitution Party runs a wacko candidate every year who gets a handful of meaningless votes. The former would really close Republican hopes in 2008. I don't think anyone can be confident about which way things will go.

The Hazy Days Of Brownback

I completely forgot about this bit of Sam Brownback trivia. Remember that he had an elaborate painting of himself in his own office? With fallen angels on it?

Yep, that is a huge painting of Brownback superimposed over an American flag and the Capitol. Man, that is humility. And check out a close up of the bottom of the painting:



Yes indeed, those are angels with black wings, or fallen angels:


A fallen angel in Abrahamic traditions is an angel that has been exiled or banished from Heaven. Often such banishment is a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against God.

The best-known fallen angel is Satan. According to some traditions, fallen angels will roam the Earth until Judgment Day, when they will be banished to Hell.

The angels are looking up toward Brownback. I guess this is because they want redemption and Brownback is God.

Every time Sam Brownback drops out of a Presidential race, an angel loses his wings.

I also agree with Bowers, Brownback had no measurable support, therefore this doesn't "hurt" or "help" anyone.

Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job

Sam Brownback will not be the President of the United States.

Republican Sam Brownback will drop out of the 2008 presidential campaign on Friday, people close to the Kansas senator said Thursday.

Brownback, a longshot conservative contender, had trouble raising money to compete in the race. He is expected announce his withdrawal in Topeka, Kan.

He raised a little more than $800,000 in the third quarter of this year, his lowest quarterly amount since entering race. He has brought in more than $4 million overall and is eligible for $2 million in federal matching funds.

I think the rest of the field will probably stay in until Iowa, save perhaps Duncan Hunter. Tancredo and Keyes are running vanity campaigns that don't cost much money, and everyone else has a reason to compete. Sam Brownback actually thought he could be President. He suddenly woke up to the reality that he can't. As for who this benefits, was Brownback even polling at a measurable number? I'm not sure it benefits anyone.

Dateline 1863: President Schwarzenegger Vows To Veto Emancipation Proclamation

Washington (Pony Express Press): As the War between North and South rages on, President Arnold Schwarzenegger has again announced his intention to veto a bill that would emancipate the slaves throughout the American territories, based on the fact that the practice of slavery has been ratified in the states of the Confederacy in the past.

“It would be wrong for the people, and by people I mean wealthy landowners, to vote for something and for me to then overturn it,” Schwarzenegger said. “So they can send this bill down as many times as they want, I won't do it.”

This is the second year in a row that President Schwarzenegger has vetoed the emancipation bill from the Congress, refusing to offer a proclamation of his own. The bill would set free millions of colored Americans from the bonds of slavery. Some have suggested that the people actually voted for the legislators who drafted the bill, but the President, in the midst of shuttling back and forth to Gettysburg for updates on the fighting, dismissed this.

The situation was made all the more intriguing by the fact that the President's chief of staff is currently a slave. Abolitionist activists have called on the chief of staff to resign.

OK, the metaphor is getting tired, but you get the idea. But really, gay activists have called on Susan Kennedy to resign.

GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER said today, that he will veto the bill legalizing same-gender civil marriage because 61% percent of California voters favored Proposition 22 in March 2000. Ms. Kennedy agreed with the Governor's decision using Prop 22 (which only bars California from recognizing same-sex marriages performed outside California), when he used the same excuse to veto the bill in 2005. He says he will never sign this bill. In 1948, if California voters had been allowed to vote on inter-racial marriage when the California Supreme Court struck down the anti-miscegenation law and found in favor of inter-racial marriage, over 72% of the voters would have voted against it.

Even though I, a plaintiff, am going to the California Supreme Court next year, (and the Governor has said he will "abide" by the CA Supreme Court's decision), I am not only extremely disappointed in the Governor's lack of courage, but am especially disappointed in Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff, whose "same gender wedding" I attended in Hawaii several years ago.

Since I attended Susan's wedding, why is she so against attending mine? Both Arnold and Susan know that it is unconstitutional for the majority to deny a minority equal protection under the law. To hide behind that [Prop 22] as an excuse, is cowardly and unforgivable, for both the Governor and especially for Ms. Kennedy, a lesbian. Rather then backing the Governor's decision with unacceptable excuses, I ask that Ms. Kennedy resign as Chief of Staff. If not, shame on you Susan, to side against your community, and deny civil marriage to your friends.

I wonder if she'll respond.

UPDATE: Just to show you the deception at work on the part of those who argue against two people who love each other being allowed to marry, look at this cool new feature in the Washington Post, The Claim, which takes down Sen. Brownback's silly notion that countries with lenient policies on gay marriage have all kinds of kids born out of wedlock:

Republican presidential hopeful Sam Brownback posits a strong correlation between the introduction of civil unions and same-sex marriage and the increase in the number of children being born out of wedlock. His argument appears to rely on two premises: (1) that the marriage rate has plummeted in countries that have "redefined" marriage, and (2) that the declining marriage rate has in turn resulted in a dramatic rise in the number of babies born to unmarried parents.

Both parts of Brownback's claim are questionable. The decline in marriage rates and the increase in the number of children born out of wedlock long precede attempts to "redefine" marriage by permitting civil unions and same-sex marriage. Domestic partnerships or civil unions were introduced in the District in 1992, Hawaii in 1997, Vermont and California in 2000, Maine in 2004, Connecticut in 2005, New Jersey in 2006, and Washington state this year. Only one state permits same-sex marriage: Massachusetts, since 2004.

Marriage rates in the United States have been falling steadily since at least 1960, according to the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. They have not dropped appreciably faster in the past decade than during the preceding four decades.

As support for Brownback's statement, his campaign cited articles in National Review by Stanley Kurtz, an adjunct fellow at the Hoover Institution, on marriage rates in northern Europe, particularly the Netherlands. Kurtz has also cited counties in northern Norway where 80 percent of firstborn children are born out of wedlock. Although it is true that there has been a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births in the Netherlands since domestic partnerships were introduced in 1997, there has been no appreciable increase in several other countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, that changed their marriage laws at the same time. In general, the rise in out-of-wedlock births in Europe predates changes in marriage legislation, according to the European Commission.

Right On David Friggin' Shuster

Today on MSNBC's "Super Tuesday" David Shuster single-handedly restored credibility to the University of Michigan during an interview with Sam Brownback. Brownback tried to refer to the Moustache of Understanding, Tom Friedman, in talking about Iraq, and Shuster delivered the first broadside at Friedman I've ever seen on national television:

Brownback: So what I'd like to see us do is to capture that military progress that's taking place into a political surge. This is Thomas Friedman's line, but send Jim Baker over to negotiate a deal on a three-state structure within Iraq...

Shuster: But Senator, with all due respect...

(crosstalk)

Shuster: Senator, with all due respect, Tom Friedman, who you cite there, has been saying "Well, the next 6 months are crucial," he's been saying that for the last year and a half...

Somewhere in the Times Building, somebody just threw a coffee cup into a window...

Pressing the Flesh

OpenLeft adds up both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates' time investment in various states (data courtesy of WaPo).

First, here are the Dems:

Democratic Candidate Trips To Early States

Candidate	IA	NH	MI	NV	SC	FL
Clinton	56	37	3	12	16	11
Obama	81	34	3	10	15	12
Edwards	106	53	3	10	22	7
Richardson	68	73	1	32	17	2
Biden	89	17	1	8	10	2
Dodd	89	60	1	14	13	1
Kucinich	6	22	1	5	4	11
Gravel	1	6	1	2	3	0
Total	496	302	14	81	100	46

And total trips per candidate:

Edwards: 201
Richardson: 193
Dodd: 178
Obama: 155
Clinton: 135
Biden: 127
Kucinich: 49
Gravel: 13

Interesting to note the similarity in approach by both Obama and Clinton. And Clinton has certainly achieved impressive net gains in these early primary states compared with Edwards, who has clocked significant more time in every state (it helps that he doesn't have a job), particularly Iowa. I'm surprised how much time Chris Dodd has spent on the road - particularly for someone who (a) is a sitting US Senator, and (b) is running for Vice President. Ditto Biden (except substitute Secretary of State for Veep).


Now, to the Republicans:

Republican Candidate Trips To Early States

Candidate	IA	NH	MI	SC	FL
Giuliani	31	20	2	15	17
Romney	96	54	11	27	26
Thompson	1	2	0	1	0
McCain	32	30	12	25	14
Huckabee	76	28	0	23	2
Brownback	116	7	0	17	2
Paul	17	12	0	3	0
Tancredo	67	21	0	3	0
Hunter	24	16	1	18	3
Total	460	190	26	135	74

And each candidate's total trips:

Romney: 214
Brownback: 142
Huckabee: 129
McCain: 113
Tancredo: 91
Giuliani: 85
Hunter: 62
Paul: 32
Thompson: 4


Sam Brownback's return on investment is fairly grim here. And look to see less of McCain on the road, now that his campaign's financial concerns have imposed belt-tightening on trips and field operations in these key states. No doubt McCain wishes he's spent less time in Iowa than New Hampshire, which is his key opportunity (as it was in 2000, before his success there induced the Bush folks to run the Straight Talk Express off the road in South Carolina). Finally, Giuliani's doing very well despite relatively little on-site presence.

Last week, I gave a brief explanation of why Fred Thompson should to take a moment to understand pundits' and politicos' puzzled reaction to his late entry. The fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper provides a nice companion narrative to the story told by the numbers above.

One key to campaigning - about which Frederick of Hollywood seems blithely unaware - is that your campaign does not exist in a vacuum. Your competitors' strategies must be taken into account when devising your own. And Thompson's misplaced faith in the magical pony plan of social networks and earned media would be bad enough on its own. But add to that a lack of curiosity about the value his other competitors are acquiring from old-fashioned retail politicking and you have a foolish naivete.

Paul Curtis at the Right's Field samples conservative commentary about Frederick of Hollywood's decision to announce via the web. After Hillary and Obama paved the way for this strategy eight months ago, the bar is pretty high for any stragglers to this now not-new technique. One hopes it won't feel like a replay of a Law & Order episode.

Republican Debate Aiming For A Lie A Minute

I'm kind of half-listening to the debate on CNN Pipeline, and already I've heard Rudy Giuliani say that Iran will get weapons "very soon" or something (in contrast to the truth, that they're many years away), and I heard Brownback, in the midst of basically endorsing Joe Biden's three-state solution, say that he "chaired hearings" in a Middle East subcommittee during the run-up to war, when in fact the Democrats were in charge of the Senate and he didn't chair anything at that time.

Tommy Thompson claimed that the Maliki government should give the Iraqi Parliament the ability to vote on whether or not the Americans should withdraw. Um, they did. Today.

Huckabee just claimed that the Taliban is fighting Ronald Reagan. Reagan ARMED them!

I'm pretty much done with this thing. The truth is gasping for air.

(Parenthetically, Ron Paul just got CHEERS, in a Northeast audience but a Republican one, for calling for a quick withdrawal of Iraq...)

UPDATE: I love how Duncan Hunter thinks he built the border fence in San Diego by himself. You think he's ever held a hammer? It's also interesting that he calls it the "Bush-McCain-Kennedy" bill. These guys can't run away fast enough from the President.

UPDATE II: Shorter Mike Huckabee: "Who knows how the world was created? What's it matter?" Ahem, I want to know if my President believes in the scientific method. That has application to a vast majority of Presidential decisions.

Also, I do want to add that every single one of Ron Paul's answers have been met with cheers. I haven't necessarily agreed with all of them, but the Republican audience appears to have.

Romney's being deliberately stupid about Big Oil. He's saying "these companies should just build more refineries" when in fact they aren't for a reason, because it jacks their price up. The Republican line on global warming is nuclear power. Pretty much it. Maybe they can bury the waste in their own backyard.

UPDATE III: Duncan Hunter just told us the new standard of winning in Iraq. "A modicum of freedom." Smell that modicum!

UPDATE IV: Watching Republicans talking about healthcare is kind of hilarious. Tommy Thompson at least has a smidgen of credibility on this, being the former HHS secretary. Everyone else literally has no idea what they're talking about. Watch Mitt Romney run away from his policy in Massachusetts (which isn't that good, by the way, as those premium prices are skyrocketing despite an individual mandate). Watch Rudy Giuliani talk about useless Health Savings Accounts. Watch them all lie about the actual Democratic policies on the issue. But they ALL know that the public is worried about health care. So they try to talk about the issue without actually saying a word.

UPDATE V: Tancredo - "Bilingual countries don't work!" Yes, those animals in Canada are living in a wasteland!

UPDATE VI: McCain - "I'll veto every bill that has pork!" Which will reduce the deficit from $300 billion to $294 billion.

2008 Matters

We're inching toward a time when what happens in the Presidential race might actually matter, so maybe I'll start doing more of these roundups.

• We'll start on the Republican side, where Rudy Giuliani is learning that the worst place to be in the Republican nomination is the front-runner. Adding to the list of recent revelations is that he paid his wife $125,000 a year to "write" speeches for him, and this New Republic article which chronicles his monomania.

• I think it's significant that the other two front-runners on the GOP side are attacking each other in the expectation that Giuliani will collapse on his own. Today John McCain lashed out at Mitt Romney's criticisms of the immigration compromise:

Mitt Romney has been trying to make quite a bit of political hay out of the compromise immigration bill — he sees it as one of John McCain's key weaknesses as relates to the Republican base and a great way to differentiate himself as the One True Conservative in the race (at least until Fred Thompson jumps in).

Well, today, on a conference call with bloggers, Mr. McCain fired back at the former Massachusetts governor, who has (of course) held varying positions on immigration over the years.

"Maybe I should wait a couple weeks and see if it changes," Mr. McCain said of Mr. Romney's position on immigration this week. "Maybe he can get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard."

Ouch. As Romney heads into the front-runner position (he's way ahead in Iowa, according to the last poll), expect more of this. It's amusing that Republicans are giving Democrats all the attack lines they'll use in the general election. But I don't know that this line of attack will work. There are two kinds of flip-flops, the ones that are due to new information and the ones made for political expediency. But people with strongly held views will always believe that a poltician coming to their side is doing it due to new information. Matthew Yglesias has more.

• San Brownback deserves a pat on the back for personally divesting himself of tens of thousands of dollars in companies that do business with Sudan. Brownback's supporters do not deserve a pat on the back for believing that heliocentrism, the idea that the Earth moves around the sun, is an "atheist doctrine."

I support the Bible, and I don’t want my children learning about Heliocentrism in school. I think this doctrine encourages atheism, Darwinism, and anti-Americanism. I don’t want my tax dollars going to finance this kind of false science. It’s complete rot, and I hope that those of us who come to realize this can ultimately prevail against its propogation amongst OUR children with the money from OUR salaries.

At some point, you have to blame Brownback for engendering this kind of anti-intellectualism.

• Somewhere in the middle is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who may spend a billion dollars on his own third-party run, possibly with Chuck Hagel in tow as Vice President. Somehow this is being spun as trouble for Democrats. Ahem? When a Republican mayor and a Republican Senator run for President, they're not quite likely to take away votes from the Democrat.

• Turning to the Democrats, I thought this was a brilliant move by Barack Obama.

Officially, the event held in a large, muddy parking lot north of the city was called a statewide grassroots canvas. Unofficially, let's call it the first of many "Saul Alinsky" days. Alinsky is the legendary organizer and theorist who Barack Obama reportedly counts as an inspiration [...]

To "canvass," means to go house-to-house and collect something. Today, Obama's team is collecting signatures to to pressure Sens. Gregg and Sununu to end the war in Iraq. Unoffiically, the event serves another,more Alinskian purpose. There are so many Obama volunteers statewide that the campaign itself cannot accomodate all the solicited help. So today's event is a place-holder of sorts, a way for those thousands of volunteers to invest their time for Obama's greater cause. The canvass cements their link to Obama by appealing to another part of their political self-interest.

A side benefit: big early grassroots events impress reporters. I was impressed.

This is a GREAT way to get people involved tangibly 7 months before the election. It kickstarts your activist base to organize, and shows that you can run a successful canvas. There's no downside.

• Richardson announced for President today in Los Angeles. Late last week he unveiled his climate change and energy policy to good reviews. I actually had the opposite reaction to Richardson when I met him, I thought he wasn't impressive at all personally, but I caught him before an important speech, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that. What I'm not willing to waive away is his continued adoption of right-wing frames on tax policy. Matt Stoller has more on the climate policies of all the candidates. It's great that all the Democratic candidates HAVE a climate and energy policy; it's a far cry from 2004. Edwards and Richardson and Dodd all have excellent policies.

I have more on Edwards and Hillary Clinton, but they're going to be separated into their own posts.

Absolutely Strange Quotes from the Republican Debate

San Brownback, moments after saying that overturning Roe v. Wade would be a glorious day for America, and before saying that we shouldn't take a life in order to heal a life: the present tax system "ought to be taken behind the bar and killed with a dull ax." It's apparently appropriate to advocate for a culture of life unless you're talking about something inanimate, in which case you can kill it in the most gruesome way possible.

John McCain, on the capture of Osama bin Laden (which hasn't happened yet): "We will catch him. We will bring him to justice and I'll follow him to the gates of hell." Yes, by the power of Grayskull! I will slay his goat-boy minions with my bare teeth and drink his blood through a golden goblet! None shall ride the River Styx without answering to me!

We don't have two political parties in this country. We have one party and a bunch of old white guys yelling things out at the end of the bar. By the way, I'm sure the conservosphere had a collective orgasm at that "gates of hell" comment.

Prepare for a Filibuster-Proof Majority

If the Republicans want to keep talking like they want to end the war but block even the debate about stopping it, they're doomed to the minority for a long, long time. People like John Warner and Chuck Hagel, who filibustered THEIR OWN resolution, are simply terrified of offending their Dear Leader of a President. Think Progress has the list of names of those who talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk.

– Sen. John Warner (R-VA): “Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a resolution today ‘making clear that he does not support the President on increasing the troop levels in Iraq’ and calling escalation ‘a mistake,’.”

– Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE): “It’s Alice in Wonderland. … I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR): “This is the president’s Hail Mary pass. … We are extending an ineffective tactic to further the status quo.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. John Sununu (R-NH): “Sen. John Sununu told CNN Tuesday he will not support President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, although he hasn’t yet decided whether to back a Democratic resolution opposing the move.”

– Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME): “We should not place more American servicemen and women in harm’s way to instill a peace that the Iraqis are not willing to seek for themselves.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS): “I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. … Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution.”

– Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): “We’re all looking for a plan that will work. … The current plan is not working, and 21,500 additional troops — it’s a snowball in July. It’s not going to work.“

There's going to be a debate on Iraq, no question about it. These hypocrites are only delaying the inevitable. But in the process, they've told the whole country that they support the President's plan for Iraq. They can SAY whatever they want, but ultimately that's what this comes down to. They are in favor of this President having a completely free hand in determining military matters, without even so much as questioning from the legislative branch.

This is the exact opposite of what the American people want. They want the Congress to stop this quagmire. Not only that, the troops themselves have no belief in this escalation and think it will fail.

"To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do," said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated."

While senior military officials and the Bush administration say the president's decision to send more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who're already there say it's a lost cause.

"What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us," said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. "Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight."

"Once more raids start happening, they'll (insurgents) melt away," said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. "And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back."

We're running a counterinsurgency strategy against a civil war, meaning we have to take up sides in the conflict and consider the other side the insurgents. This is exactly why the Mahdi army is sitting it out and waiting for the US troops to do their dirty work for them.

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

"Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory."

(by the way, both of those stories are from the great Tom Lasseter, one of the best journalists working in Iraq today)

But of course, there's no reasoning with Senators who know these arguments, who EMPLOY these arguments, and who then vote in the exact opposite fashion. There's only one thing to do, and that's to make sure that everyone knows about the dishonesty of these men and women, every day until they're up for re-election. They will not survive being yoked to Mr. 32%, and they will certainly not survive while giving up their Constitutional responsibility to act as a co-equal branch of government. Their actions yesterday tell the country that they are not necessary. The voters will tell them the same son enough.