I am again reminded of Ulysses S. Grant’s remark when his officers kept fretting about Lee’s next move:
“You’d better stop worrying about what he’s going to do to you and start worrying about what you’re going to do to him.”
Gee BG, I’ve always considered you quite well informed, but if you can telepathically divine what Stephen Colbert is silently musing about I’ll be really impressed! 
(Or was Colbert just silently writing his musings on a blackboard or something, and I’m whooshed?)
I think Allen is far more shellshocked by the doom this spells to his Presidential ambitions rather than just the Senate race. He wasn’t particuarly interested in being a Senator anymore in the first place: he’d already been shifting over to pretending to be from Iowa instead of Virginia. If he had pulled this one out, he might have still had a shot. But no longer. If he can’t carry Virginia anymore, there’s almost no point.
I kind of figured his presidential ambitions were all but done for after the macaca incident, or, at the very least, '08 was not an option. Then again, the fact that Bush got elected more-or-less twice shows us anything is possible, I suppose. Watching the guy implode was truly astonishing, though. Anyone who can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like Allen did will probably make the GOP pause if he seeks to run again. Not even Webb’s “kiddie porn” could save him. Who could have predicted?
He must’a been too busy to check the news yesterday: Democrats Call for Bipartisan Summit on Iraq Strategy
From your article
"Chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, the group is expected to make recommendations before year’s end.
Baker, a close friend of Bush’s father, is credited with saving the son’s presidency by overseeing the Florida ballot recount in the disputed 2000 election.
Now, he may play a pivotal role in giving Bush a face-saving way to evolve from his refusal to consider a new strategy on Iraq, the primary foreign policy issue on which Bush’s presidency will be judged"
If I were the dems I wouldn’t touch anything with a ten foot pole that Baker was involved with.
You mean the American feller. Born and raised in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Either you’re showing the same kind of racism as Allen, or I just got whooshed. :dubious:
From Washington Monthly regarding Baker-
"“Baker is primarily motivated by his desire to avoid a war at home–that things will fall apart not on the battlefield but at home. So he wants a ceasefire in American politics,” a member of one of the commission’s working groups told me. Specifically, he said, if the Democrats win back one or both houses of Congress in November, they would unleash a series of investigative hearings on Iraq, the war on terrorism, and civil liberties that could fatally weaken the administration and remove the last props of political support for the war, setting the stage for a potential Republican electoral disaster in 2008. “I guess there are people in the [Republican] party, on the Hill and in the White House, who see a political train wreck coming, and they’ve called in Baker to try to reroute the train.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.dreyfuss.html
A valid point. So, since you haven’t completely assed the situation, is this a silly, stupid or counterproductive plan:
So, outline their plan for us then. I don’t see one in your cite.
Frankly, I don’t know that it’s the Congress’ responsibility to come up with tactical war plans. Their job is to advise and consent on the president’s cabinet members who do that. Alternatively, they can defund the war and/or revoke the AUMF. The worst plan I’ve seen put forward is the idea of partitioning Iraq. Firstly, it’s not ours to partition, and secondly, that would only make the violence worse. And don’t anyone come here and say it can’t get worse-- it can get a LOT worse.
The Democrats don’t have a plan for Iraq. But neither do the Republicans. Bush is the guy with the plans, and his isn’t working so well. Maybe time for a new planner…
Well, that’s just it. Now that the Dems are newly-empowered, I’m not sure how they can lay it all in Bush’s lap, even if that’s where it belongs. I think they’re expected, at this point, to propose something. If they’re smart, they’ll try to be as bipartisan about it as possible, if only to share the blame in what is likely to be a number of choices ranging between excruciating and catastrophic. But since they can, in fact now must set the legislative agenda, shared responsibility will be easier for Republicans to shrug off when '08 rolls around than it was.
I’m not lamenting a change in course, BTW, at all, but this is a hell of a climate to inherit, and I’m bracing for a rough ride.
Is referring to someone’s ethnicity suddenly now the same thing as hurling an ethnic slur at them?
You mean besides “We get a bipartisan panel to sit down and work out a plan, something that’s better than the catastropic ‘stay the course’ strategy that we’ve been using so far”?
Frankly, I find the notion that the Democrats are supposed to pull comprehensive 300-page plans for addressing all the ills of the nation inside of 24 hours of winning the election to be nothing more than right-wing jeering, especially since the Republicans have had six years to implement their plans and haven’t gotten any more progress out of them.
Well, you responded snarklily to someone who said the Dems don’t have a plan. They don’t. You needn’t defend the deomcrats so blindingly. They don’t have a plan because they don’t have the executive office. End of story.
“As it stands now…” Very important words, John, pretty much crucial. It is a caveat and an admission, I’ve already make it clear that I am operating, as we all are, in a condition of ignorance.
I think it is very, very unlikely that some new facts on the ground will change my position, not because my position is set, I just don’t think those new facts are there to be found. I cannot even imagine what those facts might be, but if there were some good reason to hope that we can repair at least some of the damage we have so ham-fistedly created, I might very well support a further extension of our deployment there, or even a further increase in our involvement
The question of our responsibility weighs heavily on me, I detest the idea of leaving these people in the lurch. We broke it, we should try and fix it.
But, as it stands now, I see no such prospect. If you do, I am open to hear it, but it would certainly be something new. And however much I detest the idea of “bugging out”, all the others are just that much worse.
Just the kind of thing a coked-out Miami weirdo would say.
Personally, I would love a boquet of snarklilies.
So, it’s not silly, stupid and contraproductive to offer a plan without an assessment then? You can’t have it both ways, regardless of the caveat. If the Democrats, about whom you offered that as an explanation for their planlessness, suddenly announced they had a plan without fully assessing the situation, what would you say about that plan?
Really, I’m not trying to just trick you into a corner. I honestly don’t understand why the Democrats should have a plan to get us out of Iraq other than getting their guy elected in '08. If one of them, or a group of them does develop a viable plan (after fully assessing the situation) then that would be great. But do you think they will ever get access to all the information Bush has? They really can’t do that without depsosing him. Not that there would be anything wrong with that. 
Do you mean like in a “deposition”, like testimony? Or like a surly crowd of peasants marching on Castle Rove with pitchforks and torches?
I should have just come out and said “impeach”. Frankly, I think the Iraq war mess could merit impeachement, although I don’t consider it practical. IOW, the Congress, be it Republican or Democrat controlled isn’t empowered to run a war. They get to declare war and undeclare war. If what they want to do is bring the troops home, then the thing to do is to undeclare war-- ie, revoke the AUMF. Otherwise, they should conentrate on some nice, juicy hearings for Bill’s brother Bob. Which I’m sure they’re doing for both honorable and political reasons.