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Right now I’m reading Who Let the Dogs In?, a collection of old newspaper columns by Molly Ivins. She sure could write.

Molly died a year ago January. In January two years ago, she wrote that she was “Not. backing. Hillary.”

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone. This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it.

I wish Molly were still with us. I’ll bet she’d have something to say about Hillary’s “as far as I know” remark. “Enough sneaky insinuation,” perhaps? And I’d like to hear what she thought about the obscure junior Senator from Illinois.

By the end of his first term as president, John McCain will almost certainly have had a chance to nominate one or two Supreme Court Justices. Almost certainly, McCain’s nominees will be extreme conservatives, replacing aging moderates. It will be an unrestrained hard-right court then, and for many years to come.

Not everyone named to the federal bench by recent Republican presidents has been a right-wing ideologue, but the ones who aren’t are called “mistakes.” The modern Republican Party likes judges who protect corporate power not only from government, but from individual citizens, as well. They want a Supreme Court who rules that the president has no immunity from civil lawsuits when the president is Bill Clinton, and rules that the American people have no right to know how federal energy policy is made when the president is George W. Bush.

Hillary Clinton’s “kitchen sink” campaign against Barack Obama gave her pyrrhic victories in Texas and Ohio, and, I fear, gave the November election to the Republicans — something that seemed almost impossible a few months ago. She smeared Obama and tainted herself. Her “no we can’t” message to young voters energized and mobilized for real change this year is likely to sour another generation of citizens on the idea that political involvement can make a difference — and that gives us another generation of government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations.

If this country is to be restored, this is the time. By 2012, I fear, we will find we come too late.

Via Coyote Gulch, The Moderate Voice tells us why Barack Obama is unfit to be president:

His father was a Muslim. He doesn’t have to go first in debates. He sometimes dresses like a foreigner. He’s too young. He experimented with drugs as a teenager. He’s naïve. He has an unfair campaign spending advantage. He’s not a war hero. He bought a house from a slumlord who once had a business deal with a former accomplice of Saddam Hussein. His middle name is Hussein. Louis Farrakhan endorsed him. Lou Dobbs plans to endorse him. Tina Fey doesn’t like him. His superdelegates are committed to him. He doesn’t try to retaliate when attacked. He’s a radical centrist. He once was invited to a coffee klatch at the home of a former Weather Underground member. He’s a cult leader. He hasn’t had to lay off any campaign workers. He doesn’t cry on cue. He doesn’t wear an American flag lapel pin. He’s not black enough. He’s a secret Manchurian Candidate put up by radical Islamists. He’s too charismatic. The news media is biased for him. He doesn’t have to tone down his rhetoric. His campaign is organized from the bottom up. He doesn’t have enough experience. When people offer him lines for his speeches he uses them. He’s a leftist. He once had a teacher who was a Communist. He refuses to play the race card. He wants to withdraw American troops from Iraq. He doesn’t engage in fear mongering. He lives in Chicago. He’ll take away votes from Ralph Nader. His wife says she only recently found a reason to be proud of America. He’s no Mike Huckabee. He scares the Washington defense establishment. He hasn’t been able to attract elderly white woman voters. He’s an idealist. He keeps giving the same damned speech.

The Lou Dobbs thing troubles me.

It’s leap day today, and the stock market celebrated by plummeting. Stocks dropped yesterday, as well.

I think it’s because at his press conference yesterday, George W. Bush said, “I don’t think we’re headed to recession.”

Yikes! That’s about as official an announcement as you can get that we are headed for a recession. Wall Street insiders know you should never, ever, ever believe anything George W. Bush says. They ain’t dumb.

Mark Shields on the PBS NewsHour:

I just think the Clinton campaign strategy, I think, is open to serious question. And I compare it, quite frankly, to the United States’ policy in Iraq. There was no plan B after Baghdad fell. There was no understanding about the occupation.

There was no plan B for the Clinton campaign after the 5th of February. Whether that was a misconception, a delusion in arrogance, overconfidence or what, but there’s no doubt about it.

Hillary Clinton is out on the campaign trail asking, “Who do you want to have in the White House answering the phone at 3 o’clock in the morning when some crisis breaks out around the world?”

I’m thinking Barack Obama.

It’s difficult to predict how someone will respond in a moment of crisis — how he or she will cope with the unexpected. But Hillary Clinton’s “stay the course” campaign strategy isn’t a real confidence builder.

She expected to have the nomination locked up after Super Tuesday. When that didn’t happen, she decided to hunker down and wait for Texas and Ohio, much like Rudy Giuliani’s strategy of waiting for Florida.

Enough of that. Time for a change.

Over at All Hat No Cattle they’re talking about the George W. Bush Presidential Library:

The Library will include:

The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you can’t remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don’t have to even show
up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don’t let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don’t let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room (Which no one has been able to
find).

The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you to
go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tours.

The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with
shooting gallery.

The Mike Luckovich cartoon sums it up pretty well.

After 49 years as Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro is stepping down.

The U.S. government won’t change its policy toward Cuba:

Bush and his top advisers made it clear yesterday that they do not intend to relax the trade sanctions and other policies aimed at isolating the Cuban government.

Sure, why would you change a policy that’s working so well?

Just think: if this country had engaged economically, culturally or diplomatically with Cuba during the past 46 years, we might have had to settle for something less than the complete triumph of U.S. interests. If we had talked with the Cubans, who knows how long Castro would have been dictator?

Now, this is just piling on.

Just days after poor old John McCain was smeared by association with moral nullity Mitt Romney, here comes another assault on McCain’s reputation: he’s been endorsed by George Bush.

To be fair, this is George “Read My Lips” Bush, not George “I’m the Decider” Bush, but do you think the Democrats will note that little nuance when they’re running against McCain? No, they’ll keep repeating “John McCain was endorsed by George Bush” until McCain dies of shame.

Politics is a rough business.

Poor John McCain can’t catch a break. He’s headed toward the Republican presidential nomination at a time when eight years of Bush-Cheney rule are going to make things tough for any Republican. And now, a dishonorable rat-bag with no principles that aren’t up for bid crawls back out of the woodwork to taint McCain’s reputation by association with his own.

Senator McCain deserves better.

Via Wired, the Republican Party’s version of Valentine’s Day cards.

You know, I think this explains more about Republican worries about marriage than gay marriage ever did.

Stephen Colbert pays tribute to Mitt Romney:

Mitt will be missed … by comedians.

Today is Abraham Lincoln’s 199th birthday.

Lincoln succeeded James Buchanan as President of the United States. Buchanan always shows up on the short list when historians consider who was the worst president ever.

Despite his lack of Washington experience — he had served in the Illinois legislature, but had just a single two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives — I think Mr. Lincoln did a fairly creditable job as president.

It’s good to remember, in an election year, that we don’t have to settle for replacing the “worst” with someone “a little less bad.” We can aim higher than that.

Happy birthday, Abe.

So, how are things progressing in the Hundred Years War in Iraq? Not well:

Women in Iraq’s southern city of Basra are living in fear. More than 40 have been killed and their bodies dumped in the streets in the past five months for behaviour deemed un-Islamic, the city’s police chief says.

A warning scrawled in red on a wall threatens any woman who wears makeup or appears in public without an Islamic headscarf with dire punishment.

…

“Some women were killed with their children,” Basra police chief, Major-General Abdul-Jalil Khalaf, told Reuters. “One with a six-year-old child, another with an 11-year-old.”

…

During the long rule of Saddam Hussein, who suppressed Islamists, Iraqi women in urban areas enjoyed some of the most casual dress codes in the Middle East.

Conservative Islamist influences have spread since the U.S.-led invasion removed Saddam in 2003. This has led to stricter interpretations of Islam in many parts of Iraq.

I read about religious extremists murdering women in Iraq, saying that the women are violating God’s law. And I hear Republican candidate Mike Huckabee saying:

I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards, rather than try to change God’s standards …

Now, for some reason, I get nervous whenever I hear politicians talking about “God’s law” or “God’s standards.” Theocracies are never run by God — they’re run by guys who have set themselves up as God’s spokesmen, guys who tell everyone what they want, claiming authority from God. It’s always that way.

No theocracy for me, thanks.

On Friday, George W. Bush spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):

Listen, the stakes in November are high. This is an important election. Prosperity and peace are in the balance.

Yes, there’s a chance the voters could elect a Democrat, bringing us prosperity and peace.

We had those things before Bush took the White House. Remember those dreadful days? Seven years into his administration, we don’t have either one. CPAC, the GOP and Bush are all determined to keep it that way.

A Daily Show listens to Mitt Romney’s withdrawal announcement, and has the only appropriate response. (Warning: strong language, bleeped but not really disguised.)