Risky Business for All

President Bush unveiled his plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq last night, taking a risk he can turn it around.

His platform was clear -- withdrawing from Iraq and allowing it to continue to devolve into disaster would be an unacceptable failure, one that would surely embolden the terrorists.

And his plan is straightforward -- quell the insurgency and hold the Iraqi government accountable for its progress.

Politically speaking, this is his last chance to get it right -- if allied forces don't crush Al Qaida and sectarian militias swiftly and definitively, the GOP will be the losers in the next presidential election.

The Democrats have problems of their own however. They've squawked about the additional troops and made noises about blocking funding, but they don't dare. That would make them look like don't support our troops.

They also failed to provide an alternative plan -- apparently they haven't figured how to run away and abandon our allies without looking like cowards.

"Don't flap your arms so much. And don't run with your knees up so high. And for the love of gravy, stop shrieking!"

So if the president succeeds, the Dems are the losers in 2008.

If they block the extra troops and he fails, everyone gets the stink on them, and 2008 is a foodfight.

The America public may be tired with the war and impatient with the situation. But the one thing they won't tolerate is failure.

Iraq by the numbers

Reuters noting that the number of American troops killed in Iraq has now passed 3,000.

It won't be long before the anti-war crowd will be pimping this figure as further proof that Iraq is a catastrophe, spiraling out of control and destined to failure.

But it's not necessarily so. The Iraq conflict actually has the lowest casualty rate of any war in U.S. history. And while Reuters says December was the deadliest month in the war, American combat deaths have declined every year since the invasion.

Consider also:
-- During WWII, we lost 3,000 soldiers on D-Day alone;

-- Three times that many were killed at Gettysburg during the Civil War;

-- Ten times as many American troops had been killed by this time in the Vietnam War (the original "quagmire" -- and a Liberal adventure, incidentally) .

I hate to boil it down to a simple comparison of numbers -- it seems so callous and cold. It is a tragedy every time an American soldier is killed. But if the anti-war guys are going to use the numbers for their purposes, someone has to put them in perspective.

There is no question the situation in Iraq is very bad, could get worse, and may ultimately lead to defeat. But the casualty rate is not one of those proof points.

Saddam's End

Saddam met his end today, at the end of a length of official Iraqi government rope -- it was a far more merciful fate than he doled out to his victims during his dictatorship.

Estimates for the number of people he murdered range from one million to more than seven million. That doesn't count the one million soldiers killed during his war with Iran.

At the low end, those numbers put him in the same category as Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin.

The atrocities committed by him and his sons are astonishing, including:

-- The rape of girls as young as 12 as a form of recreation;

-- The torture of children, even infants, to extract information and confessions from their parents;

-- The murder of children as part of military training exercises;

-- Extermination of whole villages of Kurds via gas attacks;

-- Torture methods including rape, beatings, gouging out eyes, lopping off hands and feet, electical shocks to the genitals, burning, and cutting;

-- Execution methods ranging from firearms and hangings to stuffing people into shredding machines or tossing them into vats of acid.

For a fuller accounting of his barbarities, you can go review this British report.

Brown, Ford Pass

Two icons from different spheres passed over the holidays.

James Brown died early Christmas morning and President Gerald Ford passed away this morning.


Brown -- "The Hardest-Working Man in Show Business," "The Godfather of Soul" -- electrified R&B and was widely imitated by soul singers and rockers alike. Tussles with the law over guns and drugs led to time in the jail, but couldn't diminish his legacy.

Ford was a disintinguished statesman known for his integrity who had the dubious distinction of being the first Amerian politician victimized by late-night-comedian character assassination -- notably impressions of him as a bumbling stiff by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live. Chase later admitted that he portrayed Ford as a dull-witted fumbler to sway the '75 presidential election.

Frightening to realize that many people still get their information from the likes of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Letterman and the other late-night chuckleheads.

Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau once observed that anyone who gets his political information from the comics deserves he gets at the polls. He was talking about the funny papers, but the principle applies to the midnight yucksters and those who listen to them as well.

Experts say: Send More Troops

Experts told incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates that more troops are in needed in Iraq.

"Sir, I think we need to just keep doing what we're doing," Specialist Jason Glenn told Gates, who along with other soliders serving in Iraq had breakfast with the new DS."I really think we need more troops here. With more presence on the ground, more troops might hold them (the insurgents) off long enough to where we can get the Iraqi army trained up."

These are, after all, the REAL experts -- not the armchair kind back in DC writing up reports. These are the people doing the fighting, the bleeding and the dying. They're also the ones most intimately familiar with the strength, tactics and psychology of the enemy.

So maybe someone ought to listen to them.

Ahmadinejadidn't

Iranian Whackjob President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- as in "I-hate-Israel-death-to-America-the-Holocaust-didn't-happen-I-want-nukes" Ahmadinejad -- got a smack in the face this week when his party lost big time in the influential Tehran local elections.

"Relative moderate" and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani -- who lost to Mad Ahmad in the last national election -- polled the most votes, reports AP.

A faint ray of hope that there might be someone rational to deal with in Iran.

Money Talks in Iraq

Newsweek reporting that Iraq's economy is booming.

"Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and—mother of all surprises—it's doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars, televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all."

Interesting.

Interesting because it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Interesting because no one else is reporting this. Interesting because it contradicts the conclusions of the Iraq Study Group.

No, it doesn't mean everything is just swell in Iraq. But it is encouraging, because when people are making money they tend to be too busy to kill one another.

All the more reason we should encourage this trend as much as we can.

I think Senator John McCain has it right too -- send additional troops into the Iraq to cripple the insurgents and sectarian militias.

Then follow up with LOTS of economic building.

Obama? Haysbert!

All this talk about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate in '08? Bah!

My guess is the first black man to be president will be a Republican -- I dunno who it will be, but I think it would be someone like Dennis Haysbert.

Whether he's handling a major crisis as President David Palmer on "24" or firing at terrorists with his trusty M4 as Jonas Blane on "The Unit," Haysbert is everything you'd want in a president -- smart, cool-headed, tough, aggressive, principled, decisive, results oriented.

Heck, you'd even buy insurance from this guy.

Note: I don't know what Haysbert's actual political views are -- I'm referring to the qualities of the characters he plays.

In Denial on Iran

Iran hosting a conference this week questioning whether the Holocaust occurred, hosting all the leading antisemitic whackjobs and screwballs on the planet.

The goal, of course, is to discredit the legitimacy of the state of Israel -- if the Holocaust didn't occur then the Jews don't need a homeland to protect them, the logic goes.

The event is billed as an open discussion on the subject, but only those who don't believe the Holocaust occurred are speaking.

That's nice.

Hey everybody, these are the people who are gonna help us stop the war in Iraq, with all their levelheadedness, tolerance, and sensitivity and stuff!

Uh huh.

ISG Fantasy and Reality

Oddly, the Washington Post editorial page agreeing closely with my views on the conclusions of the Iraq Study Group.

The military objectives are realistic, in fact quite close to those that already exist within the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, and should be vigorously pursued.

The diplomatic ones, however, are pure fantasy -- the idea that an Israel-Palestine peace plan is central to success and that Iran and Syria, the biggest troublemakers in the region, could be part of the solution is preposterous.

Read it all.

I printed off my copy of the report today, btw -- only runs about 85 pages. I plan to read it this week. You can find it here.

Reyes Don't Know Shiite

Okay, not good.

Incoming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes couldn't sort out the main players in the Iraq conflict in an interview with Congressional Quarterly.

When asked whether Al Qaeda was Sunni or Shiite, he guessed Shiite.

Wrong.

Al Qaeda is rabidly Sunni -- so much so, opined CQ interviewer Jeff Stein, that"if a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball."

In fact, it is the stated objective of Al Qaeda in Iraq to spur civil war by conducting and supporting attacks by Sunnis against Shiites.

Pretty basic. Pretty fundamental. For the incoming Intel Committee chair not to know it is pretty bad.

Even I knew the right answer on this one, and I'm just your average, college-educated, mid-level, corporate professional who reads the newspapers -- not a major political leader about to be appointed chair of perhaps the most important House committee.

Remember, Reyes is a member of the party that keeps telling us how much smarter they are than the rest of us and how they're going to fix everything.

I don't feel very well.

One more note -- when President (then candidate) Bush failed a similar pop quiz by a reporter a few years ago, I recall it was the subject of much media attention and chuckling. Yet I see little pickup of this story about Reyes. Interesting.

Spider Webb

Week four of the Democratic Revolution. Any progress so far?

Nope.

But we do have a freshman senator acting rudely to the president at a White House reception for incoming Congressmen.

Virginia's James Webb first ducked the reception line in an attempt to avoid President Bush.

The President later sought Webb out personally to inquire about his son, a Marine serving in Iraq. Webb, a frequent critic of the war, rebuffed him, saying "I'd like to get them out of Iraq."

The president persisted, somewhat testily, saying "That's not what I asked you -- how's you boy"?

Webb replied, "That's between me and my boy."

Is this the spirit of bipartisanship that the Democratic leadership pledged after the election? I don't think so.

Webb doesn't like the president and his policies? Fine. Doesn't want to speak with him? Okay.

But who goes to a White House reception hosted by the president and then deliberatly tries to avoid the host?

Someone trying to provoke just that kind of encounter.

Bad manners at least. Scheming and hypocrisy at worst.

During the election, I actually thought Webb might be an improvement over incumbent Republican George Allen. I'm beginning to rethink that.

But still no progress on the ambitious Democractic agenda for America.

Tick tock.

Pelosi: In Harman's Way

Week three of the Democractic Revolution in Congress, and still no signs of any progress.

But we do find Speaker Nancy Pelosi again playing politics, this time backing disgraced former federal judge Alcee Hastings for chairman of the House Intelligence Committee over frenemy Jane Harman.

Harman is a member of the committee and was thought to be the shoo-in for the leadership post, but according to the Washington Post she and Pelosi have an only slightly less skanky Paris Hilton-Nicole Richie thing going on.

Before serving in the House, Hastings was impeached by Congress on corruption charges while serving on the federal bench -- an impeachment Pelosi voted for.

Pelosi apparently didn't learn her lesson after getting trounced on the Murtha/Hoyer majority leader thing. Be shame if she squandered all of her political capital this way, before the new Congress takes office in January.

And what does backing Hastings say about Pelosi's pledge to clean up Congress -- the #1 issue on the minds of voters in the November elections?

Still no progress on saving Iraq, keeping us safe from terrorists, lowering the cost of college, making us energy efficient and environmentally friendly, boosting the economy, reducing the deficit, and all the other things the Democrats said they were gonna do.

Oh well, I'm sure after all the politics they'll get around to it...

Tick tock.

Dem Revolution -- Week 2

Two weeks since the Democrats took over Congress, and let's see how much progress they've made on their ambitious agenda.

Okay, well, first the majority of the House members flipped new Speaker Nancy Pelosi the bird after she backed resident whack-job Jack Murtha for the majority leader over Steny Hoyer. In secret balloting, Hoyer crushed Murtha for the job.

So much for unity within the party. Although the crazy-old optimist in me says maybe this is good -- maybe it means the Dems won't march in lockstep like automatons behind every nutty idea Pelosi fronts.

But it seems like an awfully big waste of her political capital so early on -- it was a real "in your face" moment for her. She has a reputation for being a dragon lady, and in this case it looks like her own allies slew the dragon.

Next we had Congressman Charles "Big Pimpin'" Rangel once again calling for the resinsitution of the military draft -- a measure expected to get absolutely no support from anyone in Congress or the current administration. Rangel has pulled this stunt before -- apparently trying to make some political point that's lost on everyone.

Unless the point he's trying to make is that he merely likes to make grandstanding plays like this in a pathetic attempt to draw attention to himself.

So, for week two we had domestic squabbling and a hail-mary pass that bounced harmlessly on the 20-yard line.

Or in other words: business as usual for Congress.

No progress on lowering the deficit, keeping us safe from terrorists, finding a solution for Iraq, raising the minium wage, making college more affordable, fixing the healthcare system, making us energy self-sufficient or protecting the environment.

Tick tock, people.

Tick Tock for Dems

Well, it's been a week since the Democrats regained control of Congress.

So....have they fixed everything yet?

Sorry, was just pretending I was a typical American voter.

Still the Dems have laid out a rather ambitious -- and in many cases, noble -- agenda:

-- End corruption in Congress (I'd suggest they start with Harry Reid, William Jefferson and Alcee Hastings)

-- Keep America safe in the war on terror

-- Create a cleaner, greener, energy policy less dependent on foreign oil

-- Raise the minium wage and lower college tuition

-- Reform healthcare

-- Keep Social Security solvent and protect retirement income.

Pretty lofty goals. Good luck with them. I wish them well.

But the Dems won the election by capitalizing on the short attention span and impatience of the American voters. And that could just as easily come back to bite them if they don't show progress -- fast.

I figure they have maybe six months to show some progress on some of them. Otherwise, it will be back to "throw the bums out," with the Democrats in the starring role.

Well, that didn't take long

Less than a week after capturing both the House and the Senate, Democratic congressman are sounding the retreat in Iraq, calling for troop drawdowns within months.

''There is no military solution in Iraq,'' said Senator Carl Levin said. ''There is only a political solution.''

"Hold me -- I'm frightened," he added. (no he didn't)

So all this talk about a "new direction" in Iraq was what we suspected all along -- a call for cowardice and abandoning our allies.

Imagine my shock.

Nice Nancy

Presumuptive House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi promised more niceness in government yesterday, pledging that a Democratic-controlled Congress would work across party lines, cooperate with the President, and generally behave like ladies and gentlemen.

Her comments followed conciliatory remarks from President Bush yesterday who also pledged to work more closely with the Democrats for the good of the country. He offer up the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a mark of sincerity.

Uh huh

The White House has often been abrupt and dismissive, but Bush has a record of being to act in a bipartisan fashion while Texas governor, and pledged to act that when when first elected in 2000.

But the Democrats led by Pelosi have set a tone of shrillness in Washington, often referring to the President and his counselors as incompetent.

It could be that circumtstances now force to two parties for work together.

When the Democrats were in the minority, the Republicans could pretty much do whatever they wanted, and that led to complacency. The Democrats, being sidelined could snipe at will, but carried none of the responsibility for what was going on.

Now they both have skin in the game.

Election Aftermath

Voting results showing that it would appear the Democrats have narrowly won the House of Representatives and may still capture the Senate.

In essence, the Democrats are now the dog that chases cars and finally caught one. Now that they caught it, they need to figure out what to do with it.

But while they're still doing their chicken dance, they want to remember this: it was very close, and it remains very close.

Here's what I mean:

-- Democrats and the media have characterized the election as a referendum on Iraq. But exit polls show that three-quarters of the voters were most concerned about corruption, reports the AP -- an issue the Democrats are hardly exempt from -- see: Reid, Hevesi, Menendez, Jefferson...

-- Voters rejected antiwar extremists like Ned Lamont, who repeatedly attacked the U.S. policy on Iraq but failed to explain how retreat and cowardice will keep us safe. Lamont was essentially crushed by incumbent Joe Lieberman, who won handily by an 8-percent margin.

-- Lieberman says he is unbeholden to the Republicans as he returns to the Senate. But in reality, it is the Democrats who abandoned him that he owes nothing to -- giving him freedom of action to operate as an independent.

-- Even if the Democrats win both houses, what can they do about the President's Iraq policy? Speaking on CBS last evening, Clinton White House Spokesman Mike McCurry summed it up this way: very little. Foreign policy is the domain of the administrative branch of our federal government. By attacking the current policy and promising change, they've essentially written a check they can't cover -- look for some very angry voters in two years.

-- The Democrats will likely put forward legislation on issues like the environment, healthcare and minimum wage. But with only a slight majority in the House and near parity in the Senate (no matter which way the final races turn out), the Democrats will need to work with Republicans to make them stick -- they don't have the voting weight to override a presidential veto.

Saddam: Justice Served

Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging by an Iraqi court yesterday for the murder of 148 Shiite men and boys.

It is a far more merciful fate than met his victims, and it covers only a tiny fraction of his crimes.

The list of his bestial crimes is long, but I'll try to summarize:

-- Repeated attacks against his neighbors, including a war with Iran that killed one million soldiers.

-- The murder of between one million and eight million of his own countryman -- victims' group continue poring through official Iraqi documents to come up with a final tally. But even the low end of these numbers puts him in the same league as Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. Tactics ranged from rounding up and shooting the victims to gassing whole villages of civilians (see photo above);

-- Torture on an incredible level -- eyes gouged out, electric shocks to the genitals, the rape of women and children, infants tortured in front of their parents, hands lopped off, people tossed into shredding machines and vats of acid, and on and on;

-- Repeated violations of the international peace accords ending the first Gulf War, including continuing human rights abuses, failure to comply with U.N. weapons inspectors, and ardent support of global terror;

-- Continuing concealment of WMD programs despite international requirements to fully disarm and prove that he had done so;

-- The wholly corrupt oil-for-food program, which allowed Saddam to continue to collect money to support his murderous regime while lining the pockets of U.N. officials and their associates, including the son of Secretary General Kofi Annan.

One day before the elections, it's important to keep all this in mind as many anti-war candidates question why we're in Iraq.

We know why.

Left Looking Haggard

Now that we have a little more to go on in the in the Ted Haggard episode, we can intelligently analyze the facts at hand.

Lessee...bought drugs but didn't use them...had an illicit, but non-sexual, relationship with a gay male prostitute...

There's only one conclusion we can draw: Haggard is almost -- but not quite -- qualified to run for higher office as a Democrat.

*sigh* If ONLY he had taken the drugs and had sex with the guy. Maybe put his lover on the payroll in a job he was unqualified for for good measure.

Can't you just see it unfurling like a tableau? The public accusation and the fervent denial: "I did NOT have sex with that man, Mr. Jones."

Then, the evidence would appear -- surreptitious recordings, a garment of some type stained with an incriminating bodily fluid.

There would be weeks or months of media drama, hearings and various events -- accusers and defenders would battle.

And, when the evidence was irrefutable, finally the tearful confession: "I am a gay American Evangelical."

Liberals -- being the caring, accepting, tolerant bunch that they are -- would rush to embrace him. "It's nobody's business but his own," they'd say, as they praised his bravery.

A lucrative book deal would follow. Jake Gyllenhaal would play him in the motion picture adapation -- "Brokeback Pulpit," possibly.

He'd make the rounds of the chat shows -- sitting on Oprah's couch, dancing with Ellen, having tea with the ladies on The View. He'd trade laughs with Letterman, Leno and O'Brien.

He'd be the toast of Hollywood.

And before you know it, it would be 2008 and "Haggard for President" on the Democratic ticket.

If only. If only.

You see kids, this is what happens when you don't plan ahead and follow through.