Six days MIA from blogging feels like a lifetime. Here are some some topics covered by others that I would've, should've, could've....
+ Filibusters: Once up a time they were a threat to our republic. Once upon a time the media loved to cover them. The Republican Party made sure of it. Now? Now Republicans love the filibuster. Now it is a wonderful tool of democracy. And now the media could care less. Blame the media? Sure thing. But blame the Democrats, too. If they started screaming, I have no doubt Mr. Blitzer would turn all of his situational powers towards covering the story minute by breaking minute.
Or better yet, rather than let them filibuster by request, why not force their hand and make them literally talk the issue to death. The TV will be both irresistible and educational, forcing the public to both pay attention and learn the truth. Congressional inaction isn't bipartisan. Play the game, Harry. It's not that hard.
+ Al Qaeda may be back to pre-9/11 strength. Yet more proof, says our glorious leader, that we must stay the course in Iraq. Of course, the fact that he is unaware of a new intelligence report produced by his own National Intelligence Council - a report entitled “Al Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West”, no less - may help explain his puzzling response.
And really... I've long been used to the press' ability to paint up as down if it will somehow help this president and his sorry excuse for an administration, but this really is a new low... erm.. high... erm... something.
+ The President has ordered his former aides, now private citizens all of them, to ignore summons to appear before congressional committees. The president has no such authority under the constitution, of course, but that's no matter. His boy Gonzo took care of that for him. Harriet Miers
, legal genius that she is, has decided to obey the directives of her man and ignore the directives of the congress. The congress is not amused, and will likely soon begin contempt proceedings. Three things are needed here: A lock. Some keys. A trash can into which said keys can be placed after they have been used to lock up Ms. Miers.
+ David Vitter, the conservative Republican Senator from LA, like prostitutes. A lot. He also likes telling others how they should live their private lives. A lot. Why this should surprise anyone is beyond me. Those who screech the loudest always have the most to hide.
Also, while I'm on the subject: so long as prostitution is illegal, stories about politicians hiring the services of prostitutes are by definition major, legitimate political event. The illegality of their actions are enough to warrant major coverage. If there is public hypocrisy involved, so much the better. This should be beyond obvious. Apparently, however, the idea that politicians should be held publicly accountable for breaking the law is quite difficult for Tucker Carlson, among others, to understand.
One wonder, for example what Tucker would say about Florida state Rep. Bob Allen, a Republican who is both serving as McCain's Florida co-chair and who was recently arrested for offering to pay an undecover officer $20 if he would allow him perform oral sex on said undercover cop in a public restroom. (Got that? The cop was offered $20 and a blow job.) Are news stories exposing Allen's exploits "unfairly holding up his sex life to public ridicule? If not, what makes them different than Vitter's? Both were illegal, never mind hypocritical.
+ Al Qaeda is only 5% of the insurgency in Iraq? Duh. We have known this for years. It is only because our political dialogue is so fundamentally broken that anyone can be surprised by this latest restatement of such a long-obvious fact.
+ McCain's apparent descent into hypocrisy is also apparently confusing many people. Why? The man has always been a hypocrite. He has never been a maverick. That was marketing, not reality. Please do not confuse the two.
+ $282 million in US currency was stolen from a bank in Iraq. could someone please explain to me why a bank in Iraq has $282 million in cash? Better yet, could someone please provide for me the number of individual bank branches in the U.S. that currently have over $280 million in cash on hand? I have a very strong hunch that number will be zero, but before ranting, I thought I would check.
+ Matt via Kevin is right. The American people want us to leave Iraq. The Iraqi people want us to leave Iraq. The American government wants us to stay. So too does the Iraqi government. Thus, we are staying, all so that we can promote democracy. The logic at work is so clear it is almost astonishing.
+ Sara Taylor, a former advisor to Karl Rove and his White House, is a moron. Behold:
Dahlia Lithwick examines her testimony here. Pay particular attention to her criticisms of Taylor's use of the passive voice. It's nice to know I'm not the only one aggravated by this nonsense. Things don't just "happen." We make choices with our lives. Those choices matter. Remember when personal responsibility was a favorite topic for Republicans to cover? I do. But apparently all of the people of my generation who actually work within the Republican Party missed that whole thing. Maybe they were too busy going to church to pay attention to lectures about morals and responsibility. Who knows.
+ Last but not least, Jonah Golderg is at it again. It is as if he is absolutely determined to demonstrate that he has no knowledge whatsoever of American history. Over at NRO's Corner, he has offered up a post on the possibility of a "new left-right anti-market convergence." Because god knows conservatives in this country have never once in our history been concerned that free markets might undermine traditional values. Never. Ever.
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