brainrow

What we are supposed to believe is this:

• That George W. Bush totally “gets it” that things aren’t going well in Iraq.
• That he is ready and eager to make the policy changes necessary to end the spiral of disaster there.
• That he cannot make those changes if they would cause him to “lose face.”
• That James Baker’s Iraq Study Group (ISG), a non-partisan group of the nation’s finest minds, will map out a new plan that will save face for Bush, and allow the nation a way out of the Iraq debacle.

Bush met with members of the ISG yesterday:

Bush offered little indication that he is planning to adjust his approach, telling reporters gathered in the Oval Office that “the best military options depend upon the conditions on the ground” in Iraq. The president also met for more than an hour with former secretary of state James A. Baker III, former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) and other members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which is looking to chart a new course in the war.

…

The White House was extremely guarded yesterday about the round of meetings the study group held with Bush and other members of his administration, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Vice President Cheney. Bush said he was not going to “prejudge” the group’s report, which is expected in early December. He said that they had a “really good discussion” and that he was looking forward to “interesting ideas.”

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s my cynicism talking, or maybe it’s my years and years of experience watching this guy. But I’m thinking the ISG report isn’t going to make the slightest difference to Bush’s policies in Iraq. Well, maybe he’ll change some slogans: “Stay the Course” becomes “Maintain Current Heading,” perhaps?

Does this remind you of anyone?

The Al Franken Show has an audio tribute to Donald Rumsfeld:

We’ll miss you, Mr. Rumsfeld*

*this is not actually true.

Warning: strong language in the site comments. No bad language in the audio file, though. (I was going to say “nothing offensive in the audio file,” but that is not actually true.)

Boy, Howard Dean wasn’t kidding when he said the Democratic victory was won with help from George W. Bush. From Daily Kos:

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that President Bush may have been the deciding factor that killed the GOP’s momentum in some key Senate races over the last week. One Republican consultant is convinced that Bush’s last-minute visit to Missouri on behalf of ousted GOP Sen. Jim Talent did the incumbent in. According to the network exit polls, Democrat Claire McCaskill crushed Talent among those late-breaking voters who decided in the final three days (a full 11 percent of the electorate). Bush also made a last-minute trip to Montana, where anecdotal evidence indicates the president’s rally for Republican Conrad Burns stopped the incumbent’s momentum in Billings.

Via Bob Geiger, political cartoonist Nick Anderson shows how the Democrats won.

If you’re a Republican member of Congress, the election results probably felt like a tsunami — after all, how can you squeeze the big bucks out of corporate lobbyists if you can’t guarantee that they get to write the latest legislation governing their industries? But considering just how horribly the Republicans have fouled up everything they’ve touched, I thought the voters’ rejection of the GOP should have been of more Biblical proportions — say, a hundred seats change hands in the House, eight or nine in the Senate.

Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow says that may become a Republican talking point:

Rove: Given the magnitude of this administration’s failures, the fact that voters were willing to vote for any Republican anywhere was actually a repudiation of the Democrats!

Bush: Snicker! Those losers!

Democrats won the Senate by only one vote, and Joe Lieberman is threatening to switch to the Republicans unless he gets his way in everything:

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut said yesterday that he will caucus with Senate Democrats in the new Congress, but he would not rule out switching to the Republican caucus if he starts to feel uncomfortable among Democrats.

(Say, wouldn’t it be nice right now if a couple Republican senators switched to the Democratic Party and stole Joe’s spotlight?)

Seriously, I worry. Why was the election so close? Well, cheating helped:

[T]he National Republican Congressional Committee was responsible for repetitive, often harrassing robo calls in more than two dozen districts across the country in the runup to the election.

In at least seven of those districts, the Democrat failed to unseat the incumbent by only a couple thousand votes. The NRCC’s calls may have been the difference in those races.

There’s always going to be cheating in elections. You don’t win in politics unless you win big enough to beat the cheat.

If this is the best the Democrats can do in a year when Republican failures are so inescapably clear, we’ve got a lot of work to do before 2008.

This time, the Republicans lost. Next time, Democrats have got to win.

Update: A contrary opinion — M.J. Rosenberg says the line that the voters didn’t vote for the Dems, but against Republicans is “a load of crap.”

Elton John has it all figured out:

Organized religion fuels anti-gay discrimination and other forms of bias, pop star Elton John said in an interview published Saturday.

“I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people,” John said in the Observer newspaper’s Music Monthly Magazine. “Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.”

“But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion,” he said. “From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.”

Yes, if history has taught us anything, it’s that the only way to fight intolerance is with more intolerance. That’s the sure cure!