^{Image credit - Yikes!}

Friday on the MSNBC show Countdown Obama Infomercial with Keith Olbermann,  Keith apparently had to scramble back into the studio for a "Breaking News" story  - An interview with Barack Obama responding to widespread coverage of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's inflammatory sermons. The interview video is linked here.

Barack Obama responded directly to Olbermann's questions with thoughtful, intelligent answers, as we've come to expect from the Senator. More interesting to me was the context of the interview and the analysis between Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Alter before and after.

After advising that  "Hillary Should Get Out Now" in a column last week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter was  patching a leaky argument in yesterday's column before Clinton wins in Ohio and Texas put a couple of torpedoes below the water line.   In his most recent column "Hillary’s Math Problem" he says to "Forget tonight. She could win 16 straight and still lose."

Long had the House of Clinton practiced the ancient arts, honed their dark craft and schooled in the political weirding way. Long had the Lord King Clinton ruled over the Land of the Dems and held the people entranced under a spell of power and guile.  

"Behold your Queen" King Clinton exclaimed "For I am  passing my power to her and she shall rule over you as did I. Accept her and love her as you loved me."  And the Dems were afraid and did bow before them.  

But the children of the Dems flocked to the hero Obama and said "You must free us from this curse!" and so he went forth to battle the Queen of the Hill.

Meet Emanuel Lasker, world chess champion at the turn of the 19th century. Contemporary chess grand-masters believed Lasker made moves to intentionally complicate the board without a specific plan of attack, but instead to confuse his opponent and increasing the likelihood of his opponent making a mistake. Some of his opponents (like Richard Reti) even believed he would deliberately make bad moves to psychologically undermine an opponent's play. Lasker reigned as champion for 27 years, the longest tenure of any recognized world chess champion in history.

A few Democrats in three congressional districts in California have an opportunity to make a Lasker move, complicate the political chess board, and deal a psychological blow to Republicans that will have ramifications through the GOP convention and into the general election. As few as 18,000 San Francisco Bay Area Democrats could nullify over half a million Duncan Hunter, Brian Billbray, and Orange County Southern California registered Republicans at the Republican convention. Now wouldn't that be fun?

[With posthumous apologies to Black Like Me author John Howard Griffin.*]  

^{On the left, DWSUWF(D), providing aid and comfort to the enemy.  
On the right, DWSUWF(R), soliciting illegal corporate contributions to lobby corrupt members of congress for political favors.}

For a year the idea had haunted me, and Thursday night it returned more insistently than ever.  If a Democrat became a Republican in San Francisco, what adjustments would he have to make?

If there is a lesson to be learned from 9/11 that transcends considerations of how to secure airports and borders, assess risk, protect property and lives, play politics or fight terrorists, it is a lesson that Rick Rescorla taught us that day. A lesson on how to live and how to die.

This is the final post in a three part series examining the question "Is Iraq like Vietnam?"

The catalyst for the series was the President's recent speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, where he invoked a historical analogy to Vietnam, explicitly states that the legacy of Vietnam was a U.S. withdrawal precipitating a blood bath for the Vietnamese and Cambodian people, and asserts we should apply that lesson to Iraq. In the first diary we conclude it is the wrong question to ask about future steps in Iraq. The second diary questioned the historical basis for the President's claim. In this diary we turn to the question of legacy and "lessons learned."  

This is the second of three diaries examining the question "Is Iraq like Vietnam?" The first concluded that this is the wrong question to pose about our future involvement in Iraq. This diary and the next address the analogy directly, looking through the prism of actors on the political stage who played important roles in both conflicts. Today's lead - Henry Kissinger.

Why bother with a detailed rebuttal of an obviously flawed argument? Hunter and Jay Elias despair in two recent posts about the lack of progress beginning to undo the Iraq mistake. I submit that it is exactly this argument (fear of the consequences of withdrawal from Iraq) and this analogy (1975 Vietnam cut off vote leading to a blood bath) that is the last bastion of defense for the administration Iraq policy. Time to storm that wall.

A couple of weeks ago the President spoke at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention and formally announced the designated autumn 2007 argument for justifying a continuing US military presence in Iraq.

   " ... one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields' ..."

The Designated Argument
Since the Democrats voted to cut off funding for Vietnam in 1975, and massacres occurred in Cambodia, irresponsible Democrats were to blame and Congress must continue to support the President to avoid the same outcome in Iraq.

^{continued after the fold...}

For libertarians, liberals, and even some conservatives, an alarming aspect of the Bush administration has been the drive to dramatically expand the power of the executive at the expense of the judicial and legislative branches. The recent WAPO series "Angler" confirms the fears of many - This administration, while paying lip service to the constitutional notion of three co-equal branches, has consciously and forcefully promoted an agenda to institutionalize the Presidency as "more equal" than the other two branches. This is not new. The administration has been explicit about their intent to expand the power of the presidency, a theme that continues with the broad application of "executive privilege" now being asserted in Alberto Gonzales attorney firing hearings.  

What is new... below the fold.

Good News / Bad News. The good news is that we have entered the "End Game" of our military involvement in Iraq. The bad news is that the man making the smart closing moves on the chessboard is Moqtada al-Sadr, likely future leader of Iraq, and the face of "Victory in Iraq" as defined by United States policy. To be clear, this is a prediction and not a preference. I dearly hope to be wrong about this. Few in the U.S. would be happy about a Moqtada al-Sadr led Iraq. Nevertheless, it may be the best least bad outcome that we can expect and, believe it or not, is completely consistent with the administration's continually evolving definition of "Victory."

very long post contines and continues and continues below the fold...

... and Senator Joe Lieberman, and Senator John McCain and Senators Inhofe, Kyl, Lott, Craig, Hatch, Stevens, Bond & Cochran, not to mention the Senate Leadership (Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell) of both parties. He does like Senator John Warner though.

This video is of Hagel speaking from the Senate floor on Monday, making good on the promise of John Warner's letter to introduce amendments and fight until the Warner-Levin resolution is debated in the Senate. Hagel takes on Senators (both R and D, but mostly R) who have called the resolution "ambiguous", "irresolute", "inconsistent", "meaningless", "irrelevant" "unprecedented", and claiming that "one cannot support the troops while criticizing the mission", by showing these self-same Senators supported similar binding and non-binding resolutions when Bill Clinton was president.

Additional detail and supporting links below the fold.

Question. I spent more time watching c-span this week than the rest of my life up to now put together. Does that mean I am now old?  I don't know why, but I was completely absorbed by the Iraq resolution cloture vote soap opera (It would be charitable to call it a debate) and accompanying Senate procedural arcana.

Net net - The promised five day Senate work week knocked off a day early, there was no Iraq debate, and there is still no Iraq debate scheduled in the Senate. The most interesting bit was the exchange between Lieberman, Hagel and Warner on Monday about "non-binding resolutions".

My YouTube take on the exchange is linked to graphic with additional supporting links and details below the fold.

Found this over at the Carpetbagger Report, and cannot resist posting it here. They believe they have found the "dumbest poll questions ever":

"Fox News released a poll this week with many of the usual political questions one would expect to see right now — the 2008 presidential race, the war, etc. But, with the Super Bowl in mind, the network also asked respondents two of the strangest questions I’ve ever seen in a national poll."

I didn't really believe it myself, but sure enough, Question 36 reads "Which team do you think God wants to win the Super Bowl this year?" The complete poll (pdf)linked here.

<center>Being a Ghost Story of the Superbowl.
Stave 1
[with apologies to Charles Dickens]</center>

I have not posted a diary here for a while. I should be focused on covering every detail of the titanic constitutional struggle unfolding between the legislative and executive branch over the war. But I cannot. The truth is - I cannot focus, I cannot concentrate, I cannot think. I have barely slept the last three days. My mind keeps replaying what I have seen. I have spoken of this with no one. But if I do not tell someone I will go insane. Perhaps I already am. No matter, I decided I will write down what has transpired and post it on this diary. Perhaps then I will get some peace.

[Note: Not a Bears fan? - don't bother below the fold]

Well, more accurately, they like the notion of a divided government resulting from a Democratic victory.

Which presents quite a conundrum for at least one TV personality.

Say you are a rabid Republican pundit. Say you have a fervent, almost religious belief in the wisdom and "invisible hand" actions of free markets. Say that you observe a direct correlation between plunging Republican polls and the stock market surging to record highs.

Can you say: Cognitive Dissonance?

Watch Larry Kudlow's head explode in this video.  

more below the fold (including supporting links and quotations) ...

This post is about Denny Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and third in the line of succession to the presidency of the United States. But before we talk about Denny, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. George Washington Plunkitt. He is pictured in the center of this photo, dated from about 100 years ago. A New York State Senator, he was part of the notoriously corrupt and powerful Tammany Hall political machine that ran New York City.

In 1905 he gave a talk that was serialized in the newspaper, and ultimately compiled into a book. The name of the talk, was "Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft".

Nick Gillespie, Reason editor, has posted the final reaction essay to Kos' "Libertarian Democrat" essay at CATO Unbound. Kos indicated yesterday that he will not be responding until after the election. This is wise. After two swings in the batter box on the 'Libertarian Democrat' concept, the count on Kos is 0-2 with libertarians pitching. Kos should look a few pitches over before taking another swing.

Two observations on the libertarian reaction, and my cross-posted response to Gillespie are below the fold ...