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.

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.