Vice President Cheney in a speech to the CPAC convention yesterday:

"If our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves, radical factions would battle for dominance. The violence would likely spread throughout the country and be very difficult to contain. Having tasted victory in Iraq, the (militants) would look for new missions. Many would head for Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban," Cheney said.

He said others would head for capitals across the Middle East and work to undermine moderate governments. "Still others would find their targets and victims in other countries on other continents. Such chaos and mounting danger does not have to occur. It is, however, the enemy's objective," Cheney said.

Now I could be wrong, but it seems to me that what he describes as likely to happen if we leave Iraq, is already happening RIGHT NOW!!! while we're still in Iraq.  I'm sorry but the genie is out of the bottle and things will probably only get worse in the years to come, not better.  I don't know why but somehow we're suppose to keep taking this man seriously?

I'm a great fan of absurd conservative paeans to a golden age of freedom before the liberals and the government made every little thing illegal, something like: "I can remember when it was perfectly fine to drive my pickup down the street without my seat-belt on, drinking a beer, throwing firecrackers out the window while my two year old sat in my lap playing with the steering wheel.  Man, try that now and they'll lock you up and put your kid in foster care."  

We have a real grump deliver stuff to our office, your typical guy who hates the government but of course has relied on a state paycheck the last 30 years, so I hear stuff like this all the time, "Did you hear the kids soccer league made it illegal for one team to win because they say it hurts the other kid's self-esteem?"  Its not just the office crank either, check out this crappy editorial from a paid columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. 

Alas, except for reliance on this "compelling" meta-narrative of how the country's gone to hell, most conservative commentators have a particularly thin skin when it comes to defending themselves against criticism as well as a tendency to cloak themselves in the kind of "victimhood" they accuse ideologues on the left of propagating.  Today's example, Glenn Beck.  I've already established that I think Glenn is an idiot but then Keith Olbermann also said as much in a Rolling Stone interview.  This drew a strong rebuke from Glenn using words like "McCarthyism" and "destroying democracy" and "limiting the marketplace of ideas"....which of course makes me think, "Christ, when did it become illegal for somebody to call somebody else an idiot?"

After a week or two of not being able to get a peep out of the Vice-President on his Asia trip save getting a reply to how his breakfast was a few days ago, the reporters following Mr. Cheney did the only thing they could do: agree to identify him only as a "senior government official" made all the more absurd by the fact that they basically quoted him verbatim. 

We were led to believe he was plainspoken, but who knew the President also had a penchant for talking like a convict?  Anybody else embarrassed?

In September 2002, just before Clinton and every other Democrat who hoped to run for president voted to authorize the war in Iraq, Gore gave a no-holds-barred speech inveighing against the invasion. "The chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq," he warned, "could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam."

At the time, recalls Carrick, Washington insiders dismissed the speech as sour grapes. "The Democratic establishment all said, 'Oh, Al's just out there doing this because he's bitter. This just proves he's never going to run again.' But they all proved to be wrong and he was exactly right. There's nothing more powerful than that."

Gore's deep ties to online activists could neutralize Clinton's greatest advantage: her fund-raising prowess. Gore retains a network of big-dollar donors from his 2000 campaign, and many of the party's biggest funders are reportedly sitting on their checkbooks, waiting to see if he enters the race. "If Howard Dean could raise $59 million on the Internet," says Carrick, "the mind boggles as to what Al Gore might do." Joe Trippi, who managed Dean's campaign, believes Gore could raise as much as $200 million on the Internet: "Gore may have more money than anybody within days of entering the race."

I have the good fortune to work with someone who had a perch in the West Wing and the second Clinton campaign who has seen Hillary, Bill and Al up close.  He says that people underestimate Gore's role behind the scenes with Bill Clinton.  He said that Al Gore was smarter than Bill Clinton.  I think that with Gore, a Democratic landslide presidency is something that can really be thought about seriously.

Gore, on speakerphone with Tipper from his home in Nashville, offered his stock response. "I'm not planning on running for president again," he said -- stopping well short of an actual denial.

"He certainly has the right political climate. How many political candidates are being nominated for Nobel prizes and winning Oscars?" said Dylan Malone, co-founder of AlGore.org and organizer of a political action committee trying to draft Gore.

In 2002, Gore asked Malone to stop a draft effort he had begun; Malone did. Malone started up again and, so far, Gore hasn't waved him off.

This has been another episode of interesting facts.

1-10,000 Apparently

From Juan Cole:

State Dept. Official: "Doug, after the smoke clears, what is the plan?"

Feith: "Think of Iraq as being like a computer. And think of Saddam as like a processor. We just take out the old processor, and put in a new one--Chalabi."

State Dept. Official: "Put in a new processor?"

Feith: "Yes! It will all be over in 6 weeks."

State Dept. Official: "You mean six months."

Feith: "No, six weeks. You'll see."

State Dept. Official: "Doug."

Feith: "Yes?"

State Dept. Official: "You're smoking crack, Doug."

Feith: "Oh, so you're disloyal to the President, are you?"

National Review's Jonah Goldberg:

As I've mentioned before, in my spat with Juan Cole way back when, I challenged him to bet me on Iraq's future (the winner would donate $1,000 to a relevant charity like the USO). He sanctimoniously declined, claiming even the suggestion made him sick (even though he made a similar bet before). Well, the deadline for the proposed bet is looming and various leftwing pests are clogging my email box saying if I have any honor I will pay up for a wager Cole refused to accept and denounced me for offering. Well, guess what? The baiting doesn't work. I will give money to war-related charities, as I have done in the past, on my schedule not that of these goads or Cole or anyone else. I will not announce it when I do it, which I have never done in the past because it's not anyone's business (even this post is somewhat sickening in that I'm even responding to these gadflies).

As a matter of intellectual honesty, I'm perfectly willing to admit that, had Cole had the courage to accept the wager, he would have won and I would have made good on it. But, since he didn't, I won't be jumping through hoops for this crowd beyond this post.

Coach Bill Walsh won three Super Bowls with his famous West Coast offense, but in all three of those title games, the 49ers actually ranked worse on offense and better on defense than the opponents they beat in the Super Bowl.

What does this mean for Super Bowl XLI? Berry believes the oddsmakers who installed the Colts as touchdown favorites are putting too much stock in Indianapolis. Berry says that his statistical model and the other mathematical ranking systems he knows of rated the Bears as either equal to or slightly better than the Colts.

“The betting line has Indianapolis by 7,” Berry said. “If you look at any rating system, this game is a statistical tossup.”

Been saying it all week.  Nobody wants to listen.  Too bad for them.  The black and blue division will emerge triumphant.