New Theme?

Yeah, maybe.

I think I’ve found a theme that I like the look of, and at first blush doesn’t look like it’ll take forever to write our stuff to. The look is a little cleaner, though it’ll take some work to get it where I want it.
If you chanced by last night at about 2300 eastern, you might have even seen it; I know several people did.

There’s a few issues with the display I have to work out, one of which is it’s not a widget -aware theme, which means I’ve got some coding to do.

I think when I get it close, I’ll make an announcement and post it for a day to see if folks like it, and draw comments, and suggestions for changes to it. Sometime in the next week or two.

David and Fers, I’ll be sending something to your e-mail tonight to show you what I’ve got. Understand, I’m looking at about a week’s worth of night time coding to get it polished up.

Been working on cleaning up a lot of loose ends in the background, today.
One thing that I’ve been meaning to fix is the problems with mobile phones, Palm pilots and whatnot, not being able to get a good view of the pages, here.
I think I’ve handled this. If you have one of these:

Elaine/3.0, iPhone, Palm, EudoraWeb, Blazer, AvantGo, Windows CE, Cellphone, Small, MMEF20, Danger, hiptop, Proxinet, ProxiNet, Newt, PalmOS, NetFront, SHARP-TQ-GX10, SonyEricsson, SymbianOS, UP.Browser, UP.Link, TS21i-10, MOT-V, portalmmm, DoCoMo, Opera Mini, Palm, Handspring, Nokia, Kyocera, Samsung, Motorola, Mot, Smartphone, Blackberry, WAP, SonyEricsson, PlayStation Portable, LG, MMP,OPWV, Symbian, EPOC,Samsung

You should be able to read BitsBlog a lot easier, today. The system looks to see if you’re on one of those devices and modifies the CSS accordingly, allowing a nicer read on your device.

Problems? Questions? By all means, leave me feedback.

Let me know of any problems, via feedback.

[F]or all her claims of “experience” and leadership abilities, Hillary Clinton has now presided over two disastrous national enterprises, the most important professional undertakings of her adult life, both of which she began with ample wind at her back: the healthcare reform of her husband’s presidency, and now her own campaign for the White House. These two failures — and the demonizing of her opponents in both instances — may be the best indication of the kind of President she would be, especially when confronted (inevitably) by unanticipated difficulty and/or entrenched opposition to her ideas and programs

Carl Bernstein, Anderson Cooper 360.

My googling shows 642 bar & grills near Ann Arbor, Michigan.   So I find the amount of research required by E.M. to make this statement, staggering:

We noticed, quite casually, that the only place around us that actually uses Absolut to make its mixed drinks is Applebee’s, which means, of course, that for most people, it would have been nearly impossible to effect a boycott as drinking at Applebee’s is just one of those things that defines us as Americans, like apple pie, cheap pizza and processed cheese

That’s a lot of research.   I hope she called a cab.

I’ve added another feed today, and it’s a biggie; It’s the news feed from Google, and from the news services it in turn subscribes to… all updated in real time. Strictly headlines at the moment, that you can click through to get the current stories of the day. I’m working on getting the listing to be more inclusive, but this is a huge start.

The BitsBlog newsroom is chocked full of news feeds, from sources all over the world, and all in real time. When the various news services update, we get it here, just as fast. Spend a moment today to look around in the BitsBlog newsroom. We think you’ll be surprised at the depth. The button is at the top of this page, just under the header.

And comments, as always, are welcomed in feedback.

Greg Sargent at TPM, yesterday:

Hillary chief strategist Geoffrey Garin dramatically raised the stakes in the battle over Barack Obama’s comments about small-town America, saying in an interview that they would be “damaging” to him in a general election, could set back the Democratic Party’s efforts to reach heartland voters, and should be something that super-delegates consider when deciding whom to support.

“These are the kinds of attitudes that have created a gulf between Democrats and lots of small-town and heartland voters that we’ve been working very, very hard to bridge,” Garin told me today in his first public comments about the flap.

“I saw Senator Obama’s comments as a step backward to building those kinds of bridges,” Garin continued, saying the following of the impact that the comments could have in a general election:

“They will be damaging. And they could be significantly so…I don’t think that the kinds of attitudes that Senator Obama expressed are consistent with Democrats doing what we need to do to win a general election.”

Since this is Hillary Clinton’s people we’re talking about let’s parse that last para. Notice what he doesn’t say, which I would think would roll off the trounge a bit easier:

“I don’t think that the kinds of attitudes that Senator Obama expressed are consistent with views Democrats hold.”

He doesn’t say that because he can’t; It’s simply not true.

Garin knows that Democrats as a rule DO hold those views. Which is exactly why Obama will get by with it; It’s not shocking or unexpected in any way for those outside the Democrat party to see such views being expressed by a presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, having seen it so often at every other level of the party in this and every other election cycle for the last dozen at least.  Those inside the Democrat party, and in particular, those to the far left wing or in the Jeremiah Wright wing of the party, agree with the man and see nothing wrong with what he said.  So Garin parses his comment differently, and to his true issue; Winning the election.

And if you doubt this one, perhaps a visit to Obama’s website in the commentary sections, will give you a clue. Funny thing; I just took some heat tonight for suggesting the Democrats tend to come up with this nonsense more frequently.

Addendum:  (David L)

Newt Gingrich, Newt is directly addressing BO(Barack Obama) but Newt strikes pretty close to the ‘rats in general:

If you go to the most expensive private school in Hawaii and then move on to Columbia University and Harvard Law School, you may not understand normal Americans. Their beliefs are so alien to your leftwing viewpoint that you have to seek some psychological explanation for what seem to be weird ideas.

They can’t really believe in the right to bear arms.

They can’t really believe in traditional marriage.

They can’t really believe in their faith in God.

They can’t really want to enforce the law on immigration.

Therefore, they must be “bitter” and “frustrated.”

This is the closest Senator Obama has come to openly sharing his wife’s view that “America is a mean country”. Not since Governor Dukakis have we seen anyone so out of touch with normal Americans. It makes perfect sense that it was in a fundraiser in San Francisco that he would have shared the views he has so carefully kept hidden for the entire campaign

Yes BO doesn’t understand Americans, then neither do his fellow ‘rats.   BO, in particular, and the ‘rats in general, are fustrated normal hard working Americans will not abandon traditional ideas that work, for the ‘rats’ promise of some mythical utopia.

Austin Bay, who I quote far too little:

Realclearpolitics.com featured last week’s Creators Syndicate newspaper column and the gents at Powerline commented. As the column attests, I saw the Basra and east Baghdad counter-militia operations very differently from the NY Times, etcetera. I don’t even want to bother with the various links logging the defeatist assessment, other than this typical herd-media column by Trudy Rubin. She labels Basra as a “debacle.” Hey, she wrote it. It’s dated April 7.

Quote:

Petraeus and Crocker did not expect that their testimony would be preceded by the debacle in Basra. As I wrote last week, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki initiated a major Iraqi military operation without prior consultation with the Americans. This has now been publicly confirmed by Crocker and other top administration officials…

(If the first link doesn’t hold up, try this one, entitled “Basra Blunder” in her home newspaper, the Philiadelphia Inquirer. It’s an earlier column, from March 30, which displays an even more reactionary negativism. What her analysis amounts to is anti-Bush Administration polemicism.)

Well, heck, Austin, did you expect any more than that?

I wonder how the coalition military did not know about the operation — there are coalition advisers in Iraqi brigades. Trucks move on roads watched by both Iraqi and coalition troops. I realize “prior consultation” is the important phrase — in my view, that’s a positive. The Iraqis planned the operation and carried it out on their own, without consulting Petraeus and Crocker. Good deal. In the long run that plays well politically in Iraq and it corners Sadr — the US did not tell Maliki to go after Sadr. If the US had, Sadr could tout that “prior approval,” maintaining that Maliki is a puppet, etc. Instead, you have an elected democratic prime minister who happens to be a Shia ordering his nation’s troops to strike a Shia gangster. Did Rubin miss that? Judge for yourself. I’d say she did.

What you say is true, here right up to the end. I’d say she didn’t miss a thing. She simply can’t admit what she saw, because if she does her whole argument falls apart. Here we have yet another case of the left trying anything it can to declare defeat in Iraq. The only way they can do that is to bend and stretch the truth until it’s no longer recognizable.

The left has been complaining we’re not doing enough to win politically. Here’s the proof that reading is dead wrong…. and the left and the press (A redundancy) predictably ignore it.  What is this but a political loss for Sadr, and a major victory for Maleki?

Is Mrs. Clinton a staunch defender of individual freedom, or she merely a shriveling hoplophobe?    Well it depends on whose vote she is seeking.

In the previous century while seeking a Senate seat in hoplophobic New York State, Mrs. Clinton was opposed to individual freedom, CNN:

“We have to do more to stand up to those who refuse to believe the reality that guns do kill and that common-sense gun measures can make a difference.”

Now seeking the presidency, and badly needing to win freedom loving Pennsylvania, CNN:

“I disagree with Sen. Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about trade and immigration simply out of frustration.”

Under our hertitage of English common law, free men have had the right to carry weapons for centuries.   Free men carry weapons.   Serfs do not.   Are you a free or are you a serf.   Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton would have you be a serf.

Hat tip:  Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review.

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OIl is at one hundred twelve dollars a barrel.   The democrats talk about energy independence, but refuse to anything to achieve it, Investor’s Business Daily:

Pennsylvania Democrats must choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom oppose getting crude from Bakken or gas from Marcellus, or anywhere in the U.S. or its offshore waters.

Energy independence? The Democrats are standing on it.

Do the democrat represent the interests of the American citizen or merely the ilk of Hugo Chavez?

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Is Obama really trying to sell me that bullshit? That when he seemed to be denigrating small-town Americans as shoeless simpletons waving their guns and crosses in the air, as well as their “Mexicans, and Irish, Go Home!” placards, he was really praising them for doing so, for falling back on the wholesome religion, and wholesome hatreds, that sustain them through dark times?

Ace, Ace of Spades HQ,

If one were to take BO at this word, and I don’t, he believes that Americans should dump institutions which do work, like faith and family, for some vague New Deal like program which likely will work no better that the original.

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Today, Bruce McQuain continues his honoring of heros by turning his attention to Michael Mansoor, a Navy Seal. Go and read, and learn once again, what Heroism means.

Project Hero, is a worthy attempt on McQ’s part to remind us that we have heroes among us. Further, that these need to be honored as such. We at BitsBlog are proud to lend our voice to such a project.

There’s a lot to this story, that I’m not quite sure how to tap into. But let me attempt to lay this out properly, by first reminding you of our post earlier this week, as regards Jimmy Carter, and his planned trip to Syria to a meeting with Hamas terrorists. It’s that story that got me thinking about the trip that produced this picture of Nancy Pelosi in a headscarf.  But that, apparently, wasn’t all that was produced by that trip. To fully understand this, perhaps we should look back to that timeframe… early 2007, by way of an October 2007 post at ‘Wake Up America“.

That post has to do with the seemingly unconnected, toothless and inconsequential bill aimed to condemming Turkey for genocide back in 1905. As Wake Up America pointed out at the time, there were questions about her motivations from the off.

In the LA Times, Jane Harmon explains her reasoning for changing her mind on the Armenian Genocide bill she once co-sponsored.

One point she made got me to thinking.

I originally co-sponsored the resolution because I was convinced that the terrible crime against the Armenian people should be recognized and condemned. But after a visit in February to Turkey, where I met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Armenian Orthodox patriarch and colleagues of murdered Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, I became convinced that passing this resolution again at this time would isolate and embarrass a courageous and moderate Islamic government in perhaps the most volatile region in the world.

So I agree with eight former secretaries of State — including Los Angeles’ own Warren Christopher — who said that passing the resolution “could endanger our national security interests in the region, including our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and damage efforts to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.”

Perhaps that is exactly why they are picking this time to push this bill, because Turkey is a key ally to us in our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Having failed in all their attempts to force defeat upon our troops, especially now that good news is coming from Iraq on a weekly basis, is this just another attempt to anger an ally of ours and to harm our relations with Turkey as well as our efforts in Iraq?

It’s starting to look like that’s exactly what was up. Pelosi being there is only part of the game, however… but I’m getting ahead of the story.

Now you may or may not recall that at that meeting, so here’s a refresher from The New Anatolian with AP / Ankara
05 April 2007

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Syrian President Bashar Assad yesterday for talks criticized by the White House as undermining American efforts to isolate the hard-line Arab country.

The meeting came one day after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a meeting with the Syrian President which proved thawing relations with two neighboring countries. . .

U.S. President George W. Bush has said Pelosi’s trip signals that the Assad government is part of the international mainstream when it is not. The United States says Syria allows Iraqi Sunni insurgents to operate from its territory, backs the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups and is trying to destabilize the Lebanese government. Syria denies the allegations.

Erdogan and Assad on Tuesday discussed the situation in Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict, as part of Ankara’s efforts to play a greater role in the Middle East.

Turkey has been trying to improve ties with neighbor Syria after a chill that lasted until 1999. Ankara previously accused Damascus of harboring the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and even threatened Syria with war.

With this move, Turkey risks further deterioration of Turkish-American relations which is said to be below zero since March 1, 2003, when Turkish Parliament refused to pass a government motion allowing the U.S. use Turkish air base for its Iraqi offensive.

Turkey is a U.S. ally and member of the NATO military alliance, but it is also a Muslim-majority country that has close ties with most Middle Eastern states. It also enjoys friendly, but occasionally tense, relations with Israel.

After Erdogan’s move, the California Democrat Pelosi and accompanying members of Congress began their day by holding separate talks with Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa and then met Assad, who hosted them for lunch after their talks.

Why is Turkey important?  Remember, please that Turkey has been providing us with a place to run a supply line to our troops in the field. Also, we were allowed to use a Turkish air base to support our Iraqi operations. If Pelosi had been successful at pissing off the Turks enough to shut down the supply line, the long string of advances being made by our people there would come to a halt. Halting the success in Iraq is likely exactly what the Democrats were after, there, and most certainly what Assad would have wanted.  Funny, then, how this measure of condemming the Turks 100 years later comes up so soon after the Assad visit.  As Wake Up points out, the Wall Street Journal concuded something was amiss as well:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, famous for donning a head scarf earlier this year to commune for peace with the Syrians, has now concluded that this is the perfect moment to pass a Congressional resolution condemning Turkey for the Armenian genocide of 1915. Problem is, Turkey in 2007 has it within its power to damage the growing success of the U.S. effort in Iraq. We would like to assume this is not Speaker Pelosi’s goal.

To be clear: We write that we would like to assume, rather than that we do assume, because we are no longer able to discern whether the Speaker’s foreign-policy intrusions are merely misguided or are consciously intended to cause a U.S. policy failure in Iraq.

They also bring up the name of Tom Lantos:

Back when Bill Clinton was President, Mr. Lantos took a different view. “This legislation at this moment in U.S.-Turkish relations is singularly counterproductive to our national interest,” he said in September 2000, when there was much less at stake in the Middle East. According to Reuters, he added that the resolution would “humiliate and insult” Turkey and that the “unintended results would be devastating.”

If Nancy Pelosi and Tom Lantos want to take down U.S. policy in Iraq to tag George Bush with the failure, they should have the courage to walk through the front door to do it. Bringing the genocide resolution to the House floor this week would put a terrible event of Armenia’s past in the service of America’s bitter partisanship today. It is mischievous at best, catastrophic at worst, and should be tabled.

The bill very nearly suceeded in causing serous probelms between us and Turkey.

One name they don’t mention that was more than along for the ride, was Louise Slaughter. She and Tom Lantos were along for the ride, and there’s much in the way of info I’m still sifting through that suggests they were there for far more than this.  Fortunate that the Congress… even some Democrats, managed to figure out that damage would be caused by the Turkey condemnation.  Wake Up America:

[Update] Since it has been made very clear that Pelosi’s intention to harm our Iraq efforts was the reasoning she has been so set to proceed with the Amenian genocide bill, support from the house is eroding.

NYT:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution backed by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago.

Almost a dozen lawmakers had shifted against the measure in a 24-hour period ending Tuesday night, accelerating a sudden exodus that has cast deep doubt over the measure’s prospects. Some made clear that they were heeding warnings from the White House, which has called the measure dangerously provocative, and from the Turkish government, which has said House passage would prompt Turkey to reconsider its ties to the United States, including logistical support for the Iraq war.

Until Tuesday, the measure appeared on a path to House passage, with strong support from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was approved last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But by Tuesday evening, a group of senior House Democrats had made it known that they were planning to ask the leadership to drop plans for a vote on the measure.

Once again, Nancy Pelosi gets called out and shown to be the political dog she is and others are backing away. More on this tomorrow. [End Update]
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All of which brings us to Jimmy Carter, and his planned trip to Syria, openly consorting with Hamas terrorists. I noted the other day, and I note again, the time frame involved, relative to the elections here in the states. Your name doesn’t have to be Andretti to figure out where this race car’s going. Am I suggesting that a former President of the United States is going to commit treason? Yes, I am. And why not? He’s done it before.

We know, for example, by way of Peter Schweizer’s book, “Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism“, that Carter enlisted the aid of the Soviet Union in both the 80 and 84 Presidential elections. Schweizer apparently found this evidence while pouring over Soviet era documents. Those documents, Schweizer says now, show that in the closing days of the 1980 campaign, Carter sent Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy for a meeting, in secret, with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin. Dobrynin’s records of that meeting record that Carter, through Hammer, complained to Dobrynin about the way things were going in the election, Hammer, say the records, asked for Soviet help, particularly as regards Jewish emigration, which would have helped Carter in key states.  According to the Record, Hammer promised Dobrynin that “Carter won’t forget that service, if he is re-elected”.

It gets better.

In 1984, Carter once again took a hand, visiting Dobrynin at his home. Those Soviet era records show that Carter at that meeting, complained to Dobrynin about Reagan and te Defense buildup, and told him that if something wasn’t done about Reagan, “there would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan remained in power.”

The inention of Mr. Carter seems clear; He wanted the Soviets to help him put a Democrat back in the White House… a clearcut case of treason.

So, yes, Carter has done it before, and Pelosi is of the same mold, if her meeting with Assad and her actions as regards Turkey later are of any indication.

And yes, the idea that Democrats commit treason seems well established. But this establishment of pattern gives us only one logical path to follow in terms of Carter’s planned Syria trip: This trip to Syria should be prevented at any cost, including the arrest and jailing of Mr. Carter. And as for Mrs Pelosi… well, follow your nose.

Barack Obama, speaking to donors in San Francisco:

But – so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is – so, we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing – close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American. So we’ll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

What are Barack Obama’s core beliefs, if any?   The same man who has been a member of a black liberation theology church for some twenty years, refers religion as something to which one clings.  Has BO become the black version of Christopher Hitchen?    BO wants a mandate for “change.”  Yet without knowing BO’s core values. what changes would BO bring?

When BO proclaims the bitterness in small town Pennsylvania, I don’t see BO as psychoanalyzing, but rather projecting.   That is BO sees bitterness because BO is a bitter, hateful, person.    While BO talks of reconciliation on the stump, his minister and wife  are bitter hate mongers.

Rick Moran, Pajamas Media,  argues that there are two Obamas, might I say akin to John Edwards’ Two Americas.

The more we learn about Obama, the wider the gap grows between the messianic character on the stump whose golden voice and pitch perfect rhetoric has inspired millions of people and the coldly calculating careerist politician whose elitism has blinded him to the struggles and hopes of ordinary people.

The two Obamas are irreconcilable. And the confusion felt by many will almost certainly translate into a loss of support for the candidate in these final primaries that will determine the Democratic nominee for president.

Rich compares BO to Lyndon B. Johnson.   Johnson gave us the War in Vietnam and the War on  Poverty.    The nation has yet to recover from either of Johnson’s disasters.

Addendum: (Bit) Linked by the Chiago Sun-Times Thanks!

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Jesus in a meadow. What classic bullshit

Rachel Lucas on Barack Obama

Hat tip:  Memeorandum.

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• That’s OK, Jon. Tell ya what; Greenwald can claim I’m pro-torture, if he likes… because under some conditions I am. .. and for all the moralizing that’s been thrown at the issue, nobody’s ever come up with an even remotely lucid reason against it that can be used under all conditions, thereby negating the blanket ban on it that some, including yourself,  have called for… and particularly under the post 9/11conditions and arguments originally presented.  But somehow, I figure Meagan will hold her own. Greenwald has some smarts, but refuses to use them. That’s a malady Meagan doesn’t share.  As an example, take his statement that people “who advocate aggressive wars, such as the invasion of Iraq, are responsible for what naturally follows.” I say it’s people like Greenwald… the ‘capitulation at any cost’ crowd, who refuse to defend our country with every tool to hand, are responsible for the bloodshed that invariably follows.  We were attacked on 9/11 because they saw in us a chicken ripe for the plucking.  Too many years of kissing the backside of the enemy… and by their own declaration 15 years before, that’s what they are. And why did we do so?  To placate numbnuts like Greenwald, and keep the incompetent Clinton White House looking good in the press.
• Boortz makes an interesting point, one I nearly made yesterday:
  

  Interesting … Randi Rhodes calls for someone to assassinate George Bush and nothing happens. She calls Hillary Clinton a whore and she’s off Air America. Hmmmmmm

  Look, gang, what this boils down to is numbers of listeners. It’s OK on the left to send such attacks against Republicans… but to pick on Democrats in the same way, is verbotten. In a far left station ticking off Republicans is par for the course. But with a primary running as close to 50/50 as no matter, doing what she did amounts to pissing off about half your listenership… all of them leftist Democrats… something Err America can ill afford to do. Half their listenership being lost means it’d be down to what, seven people?

• We are reminded today that the Clintons lie. And yes, I think we need the reminder. That she holds office at all, is testiment to that need.
• Captain Ed notes that there are some people who will do anything in educational pursuits.
• Hey, Joe Klein: You’re an IDIOT.
  

  Krauthammer swallows whole the Likudnik eschatology, filled with “apocalyptic” mullahs just itching to wipe Israel from the map

  Yeah, how dare Krauthammer judge their intentions by what they actually SAY.

  Who says Iran has any intention of nuking Israel? If the mullahs dropped the big one, they would likely wipe out as many Muslims–including their Hizballah allies in southern Lebanon–as Jews.

  Only one problem with that, Buckwheat; They consider that a cheap exchange of life, at the cost. They would consider any Muslims killed to be among the Honored dead. They didn’t seem all that concerned about killing Muslims on 9/11 and since, did they? Like I said… you’re an IDIOT. Side note to Time: Your buddy Joe needs a replacement, rather badly. Try brains, this time. Sorry, Gang, I have no kinder words for this guy. OK, I’ll try. He makes a nice doorstop. How incredibly lifelike.  There… How’s that?

• Yon is worth reading, today.
  

  The Iraqi central government is unsatisfactory at best. But the grass-roots political progress of the past year has been extraordinary – and is directly measurable in the drop in casualties.This leads us to the most out-of-date aspect of the Senate debate: the argument about the pace of troop withdrawals. Precisely because we have made so much political progress in the past year, rather than talking about force reduction, Congress should be figuring ways and means to increase troop levels. For all our successes, we still do not have enough troops. This makes the fight longer and more lethal for the troops who are fighting. To give one example, I just returned this week from Nineveh province, where I have spent probably eight months between 2005 to 2008, and it is clear that we remain stretched very thin from the Syrian border and through Mosul. Vast swaths of Nineveh are patrolled mostly by occasional overflights.

  We know now that we can pull off a successful counterinsurgency in Iraq. We know that we are working with an increasingly willing citizenry. But counterinsurgency, like community policing, requires lots of boots on the ground. You can’t do it from inside a jet or a tank.

  Over the past 15 months, we have proved that we can win this war. We stand now at the moment of truth. Victory – and a democracy in the Arab world – is within our grasp. But it could yet slip away if our leaders remain transfixed by the war we almost lost, rather than focusing on the war we are winning today.

  Or, by those within our own government who didn’t want us winning in the first place, and have been working against it. . I’ll address these this coming weekend. Watch for it.

• Finally, Beck notes something I was planning on writing to for this Ramble, and I think he does it better;
  

  “In his first major policy decision on the environment, Gov. David A. Paterson on Thursday blocked the nation’s first floating liquefied natural gas plant, which had been proposed for Long Island Sound. Moving ahead on the $700 million plant, he said, would put a large section of the Sound off limits to boaters and would not guarantee low-cost gas for Long Island.’One of my goals as governor is to protect Long Island Sound,’ Mr. Paterson said at Sunken Meadow State Park, on Long Island. “Shame on us if we can’t develop a responsible energy policy without sacrificing one of our greatest natural and economic resources.'”
  (New York Times)

  Thank you, Governor Paterson.

  His big idea?

  “Mr. Paterson said the region could find other, more responsible ways to ensure sufficient energy supplies and he outlined a series of initial steps to meet growing energy demand. They include a new state energy plan and a $1 billion, 10-year program by the Long Island Power Authority to increase efficiency and to reduce energy consumption on Long Island.”

  Take the matter to bureaubot committee with outlandish sums, and plot more Endarkenment. Nevermind getting out of the way of producing. Of all things: that’s the one that’s right out.

  Which is exactly… and I mean EXACLTY why I have been so heavy on energy issues of late where Democrats, energy, and the environment is concerned. Both here, and elsewhere. Shying away from the one thing that will actually solve the problem; IE increased domestic production… both drilling and refining… will invariably get sacrificed by these morons. Every. Single. Time.  Isn’t it time to ask the question why we continue to elect Democrats to any office at all?

Edit: (Bit) Link repaired. Sorry, Billy..