Dan Savage explains to Mary Cheney what its like to get what you paid for:

In today's New York Times Mary Cheney defends her decision to get her lesbo self knocked the fuck up. Like her father, Mary Cheney believes she shouldn't have to answer for her party's attacks on same-sex parents.

Yes, it's a baby, not a prop. My kid isn't a prop either, but that never stopped right-wingers from attacking me and my boyfriend over our decision to become parents. The fitness of same-sex couples to parent is very much part of the political debate thanks to the GOP and the Christian bigots that make up its lunatic "base." You're a Republican, Mary, you worked on both of your father's campaigns, and you kept your mouth clamped shut while Karl Rove and George Bush ran around the country attacking gay people, gay parents, and our children in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. It's a little late to declare the private choices of gays and lesbians unfit for public debate, Mary.

And so long as your party insists on making the fitness of homosexuals to marry or parent--or, hell, exist--a subject of public debate, Mary, your decision to become a parent is germane and very much fit for public discussion and debate.

Surprise, Surprise.

 "I'm not going to talk at this time to the critics," Grossman says. "I feel we have one more game to win before they don't have anything to say."

Bears.  Bigtime.

"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."

 

What's the point of us being there?  Our "best friends" there are allied with our current no. 1 enemy.  Our enemies hate our no. 1 enemy.   Why?  All for the sake of internal U.S. politics.  From the beginning this war was about Republican dominance under the leadership of Bush.  They selected a war that they knew would split the Democrats.  Of course all of that has changed and its about saving the political ass of George W. Bush.  One thing it isn't about is the interests of the Republic. 

There was a time when if you suggested that the Iraqis made poor soldiers, impossible to train or motivate and unlikely to "stand up, as we stand down", then you were a racist or not paying attention to all the progress being made.  Now, if a group of Iraqis show an incredible amount of planning, tactical and weapons sophistication in pulling off a daring raid, then they are either Iranians or trained by the Iranians. 

I don't know who pulled off the Karbala raid and I don't rule out Iranian involvement, but reading Thomas Ricks book Fiasco has impressed upon me that you can't entirely discount the Iraqi insurgency which has shown unacknowledged levels of operational and tactical sophistication that has never adequately been explained to the American people by the Pentagon except in the increasing numbers of US dead.  Given the bent of the White House and Pentagon, I'm not surprised they are quick to point to Iran but what happens if we're talking about some rogue interior ministry or Iraqi special ops troops trained by us?  Spoke some English?  American uniforms?  Knew our security procedures and how to exploit them with a little inside help?  I'll wait to see the evidence but it seems that scenario isn't entirely improbable either, is it? 

When the U.S. military reported the deaths of American troops in a sneak attack on joint US-Iraqi compound in Karbala on Monday they meant to say that one American was killed at the base and four were kidnapped, driven over twenty miles away and executed.  Kinda makes the excuses made by the Iraqi security forces at the scene look even fishier, doesn't it?

(h/t: Spread the Word:IraqNAM)

... or at least that's what Dick Cheney thinks.  Dana Milbanks column in the Washington Post today looks at the testimony of Cathie Martin, Cheney's former communications director and finds that the VP loved to go on Meet the Press when the administration was in a tough spot.  Why?  Well, for all his supposed gravitas and journalistic seriousness, it appears Tim Russert has a penchant for giving Cheney a pass, and the White House knows it.  Cheney goes on MTP because he knows that Russert won't ask him any really tough questions and regardless of what he says he know there will be no follow ups or challenges to what he said.  This really isn't news to anybody who watches the show but one wonders if Tim Russert will bristle at the fact the White House essentially thinks of him as some sort of D.C. Larry King ready to throw softball questions at officials undeserving of his help.

The wording of your latest Quick Poll is quite the cop out.  I especially like how you threw "perceived" in before "blunders".

The reason Libby is arguing he was put forth as a sacrificial pawn to protect Rove is so that the defense can impeach the prosecution's witnesses on their alleged motive to lie to protect Rove.  The also need an alternate narrative.  You can't win by just poking holes in the prosecution's case, you have to present a believable theory as to why the facts are as they are.  Unless you are O.J., of course.

Any chance you guys exercise your amazing "bipartisan" powers and get this minimum wage bill through the Senate?  Last I looked a minimum wage increase had far more popular support than any of the divisive and extremely conservative judicial nominees the President put forward last year, so this should be a no-brainer.

Sen. Lieberman is now attacking bipartisanship in the Senate.  For years he's argued the Senate is too "partisan", but now that the plan for escalation in Iraq is creating a growing bipartisan opposition to the war, its suddenly time to step back and not go there.  Hey Joe, make up your mind!

Wow, looks like Scooter's defense is that he was chosen as a "sacrificial lamb" by the White House in order to protect Karl Rove.  Meanwhile it appears Libby learned of Plame's identity from his boss and destroyed notes that detailed Vice President Cheney's deep involvement in the Plame leak and pushback against Joe Wilson.  Big surprise, right?  

This only goes to show Lynn Cheney was half right when she said it didn't reflect well on the judicial system that a man like Scooter Libby was on trial; what she meant to say was it would reflect better if her husband was on trial.

I get the feeling that somewhere out there Dick Cheney is reading this LA Times article about no clear evidence of Iranian advanced weapons technology in the hands of Iraqi insurgents and saying to himself that it clearly bolsters the case for going after the Iranians.  Maybe we'll hear a line about it in the State of Union address or something?

Bush in free fall at 28%.

This summer is going to be long and hot here in Washington, D.C.  I can't wait.

I heard this on the news this morning and I gotta say I'm with Daniel Gross in asking why wouldn't increased demand for corn from both the ethanol and livestock industries lead American farmers to increase the amount of corn acreage in order to meet that demand?  Or are they saying in the short-term American farmers and imported corn are unable to meet skyrocketing corn demand which will cause some economic dislocation among livestock growers (smaller herds) and the meat-packing industry (one processing plant closed?) until things shake themselves out later? 

Now, I know not liking the President and his policy in Iraq can get you kicked out of the jury pool for the Scooter Libby trial, but why would it get you kicked off of a Qantas airline flight?

(h/t Americablog)

What do this story about the 2006 NIE estimate still not being ready and this story about the audacious insurgent raid on an American military compound in Karbala have in common?  They are both attempts to forestall bad news that might lose the White House's "new Iraq strategy" even more support. 

What, you say you can understand that they don't want anyone to see how bad the NIE estimates are but why Karbala?  Why does this bode ill for the upcoming "surge"? 

Look at it this way, the raid in Karbala looks bad for one because a number of American servicemen died and it suggests that insurgents are even more sophisticated than we've been lead to believe, after all they had American uniforms and spoke "some English", but the implication of the news reports is that the killers definitely had inside help.  From whom? well probably members of the Iraqi Army and police forces, the same guys we will be relying on to be out front pacifying Baghdad.  Its one of the only ways of reading the fact that these guys exclusively targeted and killed Americans and Iraqi security forces watched them run off without intervening. 

It's definitely a double whammy so I suggest you'll see much more made of the fact that the insurgents are really tricky as opposed to the fact the Iraqi military isn't entirely trustworthy.

In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, 51% of Americans strongly disapprove of the president's performance in office.  Wow.  Those are terrible numbers.  Nearly Nixonian.

If you'd ever wondered why our public discourse on the issues of the day seems so ridiculously retarded then I recommend Howard Fineman's latest piece because it explains a lot about how members of our elite press corp view the country's political process.  Fineman moves away from the old "horse race" analysis to the new "high school musical" analysis which basically says that the political process is typified by all the unbearable stereotypes that so annoyed you in high school. 

In effect, that political process is juvenile and unserious and you really shouldn't give a damn because you're screwed either way. This especially holds if we're only talking about the 2008 Democratic Primary, because I gotta tell ya I have a hard time seeing Fineman give John McCain the kind of send up he does Al Gore, ie. "... the ultimate goody-goody but who had grown a beard, made a film and dropped out to attend the School Without Walls".  

Dirty hippy or beatnik references seem a little dated to me but hey, I don't work for GE/NBC/Newsweek nor do I get paid for juvenile crap like this... kinda what you'd expect from say, the annoying editor of your high school yearbook.

(h/t Kevin Drum)

And Big Pharma isn't interested in funding the research trials because they can't make enormous profits off of the potential cure?

I don't know what will happen or whether DCA will be the next medical breakthrough but I think this is just wrong on so many levels.  For an industry already heavily subsidized by you and I through exorbitant drug prices that  fall heaviest on American consumers, a large dose of federally subsidized drug research and a broken patent system that encourages the production of "me-to" drugs over actual innovation, you'd think that ponying up for an inexpensive cure would at the least be a good PR move, but evidently no.  Mr. Michelakis will hopefully find government funding for his research but don't expect to see commercials for DCA anytime soon.