- By the time you read this, the Iraq Survey Group will have released their report. But, really, is there any incentive for their recommendations to be taken seriously? Matt Taibbi:
[W]ith the midterm elections over, and George Bush already a lame duck, the Iraq war is no longer an urgent problem to anyone on the Hill who matters...The Baker-Hamilton report is being praised for its cautious, sensible, bipartisan approach to the Iraq problem (Time magazine even called it "genius") but actually all it is is a tacit recognition of this pass-the-buck dynamic in Washington.
- Al Gore has some advice for Bush: "[T]ry to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for [the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States] and instead recognize it’s not about [you]." Ouch.
- Speaking of waking up to reality, the Wall Street Journal editorial page recently ran a short paean to John Bolton. [Sorry no link -- I got this out of the newspaper.] What a bunch of wankers:
The announcement that Mr. Bolton will resign as US Ambassador to the UN...was no doubt cheered in Tehran, Damscus, Caracas, Pyongyang, and Christopher Dodd's Senate office.
Right. Because it really is us against the rest of the world and if you're against John Bolton, you're a terrorist sympathiser. Whatever. Actually, what caught my eye and made me laugh was this statement about Bolton: "He has understood that the essence of realism is, or ought to be, to see the world as it is." Well then, this might come as a rude surprise to, say, George W. Bush. After all, the world changes all the time whereas we know that Bush's opinion of the world is as constant as the Northern star.
- Holy crap -- Mary Cheney is pregnant. And, just to make things more interesting, she and her partner live in Virginia:
The [newly enacted anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution] ensures that Mary's partner has no legal rights whatsoever in their child, or in what happens to Mary (or vice versa), such as if one partner has to go the hospital, the other can't visit. The law may even nullify any wills that Mary and Heather write regarding each other...
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