Let's review;

We might as well start measuring the curtains for the Oval Office as the GOP has decided to commit seppuku just when the Democratic Party has reunified.

I've heard from Nina Totenberg of the Main Stream Media that Bush "only" commuted Libby's sentence. That will be the spin from our slave masters, but  mark my words, Bush will pardon Libby completely before he leaves office.

Let's start with a list of the people we are supposed to hate, despise, mock, condemn, etc.

1. Ralph Nader (idiot)

2. Ron Paul (racist)

3. Mike Gravel (kook)

4. Dennis Kucinich (ugh)

Below the fold let's examine to whom we should show "patience"

In the following I try to offer some food for thought concerning a body-count morality.

I should start off by saying that I served in Iraq for 14 months, killed and was nearly killed several times. I hate this war and want to see it end immediately, but the Lancet number that is being pushed is simply not believable.

March 20 2003 plus 4 years,

Plus 24 days in this fourth year

Plus one leap day.

1486 days.

655,000 divided by 1486 = 441 per day.

A typical terrible day in Iraq does not yield that much carnage, but let's assume that it did.

While we are on the subject of using Bush's uni-dimensional mind against him, why don't we send Bush a balanced budget packed with all the stuff we love, and he hates? Let Bush add to his legacy a veto of the first balanced budget since Clinton, while Democrats strengthen their bona-fides with fiscal conservatives.

I would not vote "yes" on the grounds that the war in Iraq needs to be stopped, not surged. I would not vote "no" because almost every other thing in the bill I could support with PAY-GO in effect. There are enough votes already to make my opinion moot. What would I do? Abstain.

I have heard so much blather about the surge "showing signs". Did you know that 2007 is shaping up to be the worst year ever in terms of American KIAs?

My source is the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

Simply stated there are 365 days this year. We have had 76 of them. 210 Americans have died in action.

365 days per year / 76 days  * 210 deaths = 1008 deaths per year.

The previous yearly totals were:

Year US Deaths
2003 486
2004 848
2005 846
2006 821
2007 210
Total 3211

The previous record was 848. 1008 is a lull? America is truly finished if we buy that logic.

The death rate is at its highest AND the Shi'ites are laying low. They are  hoping that BushCo will disappear and the next President will turn Iraq over to the Shi'ites and get out. They won't lay low forever. It's their country, they will always be there. We will not.

Get the troops out now.

Last week was Bush's bumbling and fumbling attempt at diplomacy in the Middle East. I feared that His Ineptness would take a horrible situation in Iraq and make it even worse by tilting towards the Sunnis. If we want to leave Iraq anytime soon with any kind of potential order in our wake we must face the demographic and geographic reality that the Shiites are the dominant faction in Iraq.

Hakim's trip to the Oval Office could be a sign that the adults have finally intervened in Bush's Folly.

Thanks for the letter. It was really thoughtful of you to take time out of your busy schedule to write to Americans about justice and so forth. You deserve a reply.

This diary puts words to some thoughts I've been toying with for a while. In this you will find some back-of-the-envelope calculations about the death rate, the birth rate, the ovulation rate, and the mutation rate for Homo sapiens.

There is a meme circulating inside the beltway that "Afghanistan was a good war which Democrats support, Iraq was a bad war which we oppose." This kind of analysis might "poll well" in a country that thinks Saddam was behind 9-11, but it is dangerously wrong as national security strategy.

I'll start with the correct thesis:

Our freedoms are more endangered by a centralized government run amok than by whomever is in Afghanistan or any other place.  Precious time and resources are being wasted on individual coutries when the world as a whole needs a comprehensive approach to the ultimate threat which is too many people and not enough to go around.

I cannot recreate the emotional baggage that comes with being a Jew, but perhaps that is a good thing; here is my attempt to look at the current conflict through the eyes of an Israeli Realist as he attepts to craft a strategy that could actually lead to American-style normalcy in his region.

The anger of the people is translating into votes: Democrats are winning, Republicans are sweating. We need to sieze on this to bring our troops home.