Well, it's over.  The results came in from Florida last week and Super Tuesday didn't provide any big surprises (unlike the Super Bowl).  It was probably over a year ago but most people didn't see it.

It will be Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain.  It's just a matter of formalities and time.

Of course the problem now that Super Tuesday is over is the campaign isn't.  It will be nine more months  of grueling rhetoric before the pain and the noise finally stops.

By election time we'll be so tired of candidates, hoopla, money wasted, dirty tricks and name calling that we'll all be voting for people that nobody likes.

 

How to create credibility as a politician

1. Cast your vote in the Illinois state legislature.

2. Explain to the people that have supported you and can't understand why you voted against something they supported that you made a mistake and accidentally hit the wrong button when you voted.  You really meant to vote for the legislation not against it.

3.  Let the people that you voted with know that even though you are saying you opposed what you just voted for that it is OK because the vote can't be changed.  Besides that legislature that you help pass the laws for says it is OK too,  

4.  Do it five times. 

5.  Run for President. 

The primaries are underway and everybody wants to be the President.  Aside from eating regular and free airplane rides the job's kind of a dead end.  Where do you go from there? Which leaves you wondering what the big hook is.  

According to the candidates it's because they are going to do all the things you would do to make all the wrong things in the world right,.... if you had the time, kind of.  Some of 'em will even tell you what some of those things might be, sort of, if they can figure out what it is you think they should tell you. 

And then there's the money.  You don't get a big salary by some millionaires standards but you get to spend just about everybody's money in the whole country including the bucks they don't even have yet.  

 

 

 

 "The Whatevers"

 

Supreme Court is trying to decide what to do with Guantanamo and the Muslim folks who’ve been vacationing there for the past six years courtesy of the Bush Administration. 

 

According to the President they aren’t considered to be POW’s because then they would have rights under the Geneva Convention and we might have violated those rights.  The Iraq and Afghan Wars where we caught most of them really aren't wars either for this particular purpose or else they would be POW's.  They are wars only when we need more funding. 

 

I guess if they are not POW's, or soldiers or what.....I guess we'll call them "The Whatevers". 

 

So now the question is.....do these "Whatevers" have any legal rights at all or can we keep them till they die?.....at which point we'll all just forget about this.    And of course the answer is going to have all kinds of ramifications no matter which way the court decides it.

 

If they have rights it is going to be hard to argue that they have been dealt with fairly over the past six years unless you consider being held in secret, in solitary confinement, without an attorney and without charges, "due process".  And they haven't been tortured either because the vice-President has declared that anything we have done to the "Whatevers"  to make them talk isn't torture but he can't tell you what we've done.  That's a secret.  He says whatever we've done it is to protect us . .........from whom he didn't say. 

 

And on the other hand, if the court finds these "Whatevers"  don”t have any rights then I have to start worrying about my own.

     The surge is still going on in Iraq and the generals are trying to find ways to tell us that it is working without  having to provide any proof.  That's because there isn't any. 

     The latest broohaha is about the number of weapons issued to the Iraqi Army and police by the U.S. that can"t be accounted for (that means they are missing).  Like half of the rifles and pistols are gone or at best we don't know where they are or who has them.  The Pentagon says they don't have a clue.

     Like you need a Phd. to figure that one out.  If we don't have them and the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police don't have them and they are still in Iraq I bet you know who has them. So call the Pentagon and enlighten them.  who knows they may be so impressed they'll put you in the army and send you over there to look for them.

 

Seems everybody has an "Iraq Plan.  For the Democrats, John Edwards wants out ASAP and believes the Iraqis will solve their own problems (and they have the weaponry to do it).  Joe Biden wants to subdivide the place into three countries, which makes sense, which is why they won't do it.  Barack Obama says we shouldn't have gone in the first place, therefore, if we don't go the problem is solved.  Hillary says we shouldn't have gone, but we did but we shouldn't be there but we can't leave so time will tell.  Oh fiddle-dee-dee.  tomorrow is another day. Stay tuned.

 The Republicans are just as vacant.  President Bush wants to send back the troops that he took out last year to re-accomplish the mission that was accomplished, again.  John McCain wants to send everyone who lives east of the Mississippi .If that fails the backup plan is everyone west of the Mississippi.  Rudy won't say.  Works for him.  Mitt Romney doesn't know and the rest of the candidates we don't know, so they don't matter.

What does Don Burns say.  Well, despite the fact that this was the greatest politically inept operation in modern American history we nonetheless are there and can't leave right away.  The North of Iraq in Kurdistan is secure.  The South in Shiite country is secure.  The center is in chaos.  Would make sense to retreat to the areas where things are working and give the Iraqi government the opportunity to straighten out the middle. 

If it works, you have a success.  If it fails you have two safe havens for the refugees that want to leave the center and you effectively end up with three countries whether you want them or not.  And.... you are strategically positioned in defensable territory.........  Or, you could put the country up for sale on EBAY. 

The President is challenging everybody who doesn't agree with his "surge" idea for Iraq to come up with something better.  That's like the fellow who sets his neighbors house on fire and then criticizes the fire department because they don't have a plan bring it under control.

His policy is correct in the sense that more troops  would be needed to  get things back to normal, if we knew what that was .  About ten times more than he wants to send or has available for that matter.  And then it's a matter of how much time can you commit to the game.  The "game" between the Sunni's and Shiites has been going on since sometime in the 7th century or so, give or take a couple hundred years.  That's a lot of military rotations if you figure it takes as long to solve a problem as it took to create it.  We should be able to declare "Mission Accomplished" somewhere around the year 3350 A.D.  Hopefully we can finish up Afghanistan at the same time.

The other alternatives are "cut and run".  That worked for the President and Vice President when their generation's war  in Vietnam was available for them and I'm surprised they haven't opted for it again.  Probably because somebody's watching this time.  The President is right though.  When we leave Iraq it will likely be a bloodbath as contrasted with the present bloodbath that we have already been powerless to stop.  The difference is we won't be there and consequently can ignore it.  We've shown we can successfully do that in Darfur.

Then there is "Plan B", which no one is talking about because no one has one. 

Took a couple months off and figured the Democrats would sweep Congress and the President would get smarter.  I was half right.

 Our leader spoke to us last night and said we should start a dialogue about what we should do in Iraq.  While he was talking the troops we were going to dialogue about were already enroute.  So much for dialogues.

Mr. Bush informed us he is sending another 20,000 troops to Iraq (+ another 1,500 he forgot to mention).  The purpose of this "surge" force is to shore up the  independent, democratically elected Iraqi government that has not been taking our orders quite the way we want them to.   The President assured us that the Iraqi government is going to get with the program or there will be "dire consequences". 

 Presumeably "dire consequences" means we will leave.  It can't mean we will send more troops or money if they don't do things our way, can it?

But then the President says we can't leave because the world's gas station will then descend into chaos and a hotbed of terrorists.  He didn't explain how we will recognize the difference.  A good comparison would be to go back and see what Iraq was like before we arrived.  No chaos and no terrorists.

He also said he had saved us from eventually facing an Iraq with a nuclear bomb and should probably use the same argument to strike other countries that might develop the same capability.  Perhaps he was thinking of France?

In any event we are now sending more troops and money to a country we can't afford to leave if things get worse and threatening to take our ball and go home if they do.  

Mr. Bush also said he had made some mistakes.  He did not itemize them or go into detail presumeably to keep the speech short. 

 

 

 

 

 

 The White House has decided that "stay the course" is sending the wrong message in trying to describe the the President's policy on Iraq and so we are not going to say it anymore.  Whether that is because no one knew what the course was or if they did it was the wrong course no one is saying.  So now we don't know if there even is a course.  

Obviously we need a new slogan.  How about "Unstay the Course", or maybe "Stay the Uncourse". 

Perhaps the best one would be "Unstay the Uncourse".  It best describes the undescribable and you can make it into whatever you need it to be on a day to day basis.

And if all else fails we can always fall back on the old standby "Mission Accomplished" and go home. 

President went to New Orleans on the first anniversay of Katrina this past week to tell the 50% of the population who are left in the city that now has 25% of it's electrical power restored and 60% of it's businesses still closed,....... that relief is on the way. The people seemed grateful and polite......or just shell shocked and amazed.  It was sort of hard to tell.  Appears to be part of the President's new political strategy called "Shock and Awe II".  The strategy is to show up in places where no one expects to see you and make absurd observations and statements and then escape before the "shock and awe" wear off.  He seems to have the methodology down cold.