The old Joe is back

One would think the prodigal son had returned the way the Conservative media is speaking about Senator Joe Lieberman of Conneticut. Granted he is the first Democratic Senator to speak with some cogency concerning Iraq and it future. I felt rather good about Joe up to the Gore/Lieberman run in 2000. I had found Joe to be a solid thinker and someone who had the capability to be reasonable. Then he drank some of the Gore/Clinton cool aid and he was gone. Well since of his return from Iraq, Joe is back. This morning the Senator was squaring off against The I Man on national radio and publishing his very positive thoughts about Iraq....

"The country is now in reach of going from Saddam Hussein to self-government and, I'd add, self-protection," the Connecticut Democrat said in a conference call with reporters. "That would be a remarkable transformation ... I saw real progress there

U.S. military officials told him they hope that by next year, two-thirds of Iraq's military will be able to carry the fight to insurgents with limited logistical support from U.S. forces. Lieberman said U.S. commanders had learned from their early mistakes and were successfully pursuing a "clear-hold-build" strategy against rebel forces. He cautioned, however, that "prematurely" pulling out U.S. forces would jeopardize the progress made thus far. The senator said he ate three Thanksgiving meals at different bases visiting with troops, including about 50 soldiers from Connecticut. "They look good, they're proud of what they're doing and of course they're anxious to get home, but they know they have a job to do," said Lieberman.

All of this flying in the face of the current rant being shouted from the likes of Joe Biden and others who want the White House back in 2008. What is refreshing is that instead of getting some data and taking a Howard Dean spinorama with it. Good ole Joe can report some honesty and hard work is paying off. Time to kill the fatted calf.

When is a Woodward not a National Hero??

A movie with Robert Redford playing the handsome, brave and risk taking hero was the first that I can remember having a face to Bob Woodward. He was the hero! Everyone knew he a white hat somewhere. We never saw it because the newrooms of Washington don't allow such Texas type attire then or even more in 2005. A few months ago the news came out about who was deep throat, the secret hero lurking in the parking garages of Washington D. C.. A sworn to follow and obey the law FBI executive who purported never had any desire to wear women's clothing but did want to run the FBI. For some reason, maybe like he never got the job from Richard Nixon, he decided to break the law and leak highly classified information to the boys at the Washington Post.

"All the President's Men" was great movie with lots of newsroom drama. It was about the thugs who worked for Nixon and not the news guys and Felt who were breaking the law as well. No wonder Woodward and Bernstein kept Felt "undercover" he might have gone to jail. Remember he was prosecuted soon after anyway. No one seemed to care then or last summer that leaking was against the law. Least of all Woodward who listened to Felt share classified information without the knowledge of his department. Yet, he may be in hot water because he was listening to White House or FBI or Cia leaks the very same thing that created his heroic status as a medial darling. Unaccustomed as he might be to leak it may shock him to realize that some folks have lost there jobs and may go to jail for such behavior. Mark Felt was deep throat and some have called him a traitor. They really dont' count because they are Republicans from that era who thought that leaking classified material while on the payroll of a an official department is against the law.

Mr. Woodward may very well feel the 30 year old effects of his journalistic legacy applied to himself. I can almost feel the feeding frenzie. Some Washington Post staffers already have sprung. Woodward doesn't have to go to meetings like they do. Uh-oh, nothing a good reporter likes better than fighting agains the "big dog" on the block. This should be interesting.

Protesters, the 60's and now

In the recent months I have heard from the Demo counterparts the mantra that we are in a quagmire, like Vietnam, that we are in a war we cannot win. The mental results for these good folks is one response vilify Bush and call for retreat.

I grew to some level of adulthood during those conflicting years where the left fought itself over Vietnam and foreign policy. Remember it was Kennedy-Johnson as Democratic Presidents who expanded and deepened our commitment in Vietnam and it was Richard Nixon, of whom all on the left love to hate, who closed and got us out of Vietnam. It was the deception of Kennedy who hid his involvment in the invasion of Cuba, the Bay of Pigs, which was a major failure because of his lack of resolve. And the sense that Johnson had no purpose and commitment to the concepts that sought to protect a free Vietnam that gave the foundation of protest and the sense that our government always "lies" to us. They lied about Cuba, Vietnam and then by gosh the fellow who got us out of Vietnam lied about watergate. They all lie, right?

Today Vietnam remains a Communist backwater that has none of the foresight of the Chinese and all of the Moscow like weakness of Communism keeping a society one century behind. The result was the never ending chinese water torture of protest after protest by ever angry and ugly protesters and the American public growing weary of night by night awful messages being transported across the nation by the televison media. It was the gruesome pictures of bombs exploding and the loss of American life that eventually eroded the generations of resolve that had fueled our passion to defeat oppressors in an evil world. World War II brings little discussion that the world would have been better if Hitler, Tojo or Mussolini had offices in St. Louis. We persevered through the United Nations mess of Korea, a war still being played out upon the national and international scene. But we faltered, retreated and failed eventually to walk away from Vietnam. They were just Communists and hell what made the difference when your Political Science teacher was a Communist as well.

We had a few forays of military force internationally since. Jimmy Carter, whose main view of the milatary was to be sure someone got him on Air Force One, tried to rescue the hostages in Iran. He looked weak. The world knew he was weak and so it began where the opponents of freedom began to know that if they could keep media pressure upon politicians and the American mindset they could win. Americans were soft. Somalia and the answers to the bombings of the Cole and the Twin Tower trade center of the 1990's gave even deeper impetus to this thinking. Clinton was weak. He could not fathom being compared to Carter or Johnson. Who would?

What is the result? In Iraq a view of the Islamic Fundementalists that if they keep blowing things up and keep the news in the United States about who has detonated what, that eventually the resolve and purpose of a populus who spends the majority of their thinking time to who is going to be voted off the island will weaken in the same fashion that it has for thrity years. So far my bet is on those who are blowing up Iraq. They seemed to have pegged us properly. We are weakening. At this point the Islamic fascists are blowing up mostly Iraquis and most recently Jordanians. The result "protests" which says for the most part, when you are doing that to weaken the United States that is one thing but to attack other Muslims, NO, NO, no not acceptable and the resolve of the Jordanians comes through. I have to hand it to them at least they stood up better than the crowd CNN reports about ready to "cut and run" again!!

Mike Wallace BE SERIOUS

Senator Jay Rockefeller has been dipping into the Demo Kool Aid it seems. Echoes of Kerry resonate. He was for the war before he was against it as well. With stark evidence provided by Mike Wallace of Fox News concerning Rockefellers statements prior to the Iraq invasion (showing the tape is devastating), Senator Rockefeller, one of the ranking Senators on the Intelligence Committee did not sound that intelligent as he did his best to avoid the “responsibility” of voting for the war in Iraq.

Senator Roberts, the co-chairman of same committee, sitting next to him said he believed that the Intelligence Briefings the President received would have has even less controversial or conflicting messages than the ones the committe recieved. But there was Senator Rockefeller telling the world from the Senate floor that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and would have them soon in the form of Nuclear capabilities. Revisionism........or just I need to sound like the rest of Howard Dean's talking points in 2005?

So if the reporst the Senator got had much more conflicting information than what the President got…………….who is the bonehead for making this argument now. Who pressured Senator Rockefeller. Seriously .......................Mike Wallace wasn't drinking any of this Kool Aid.(After showing the clip of Rocekefeller saying the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction)

WALLACE: Now, by that point, Senator, you had read the National Intelligence Estimate, correct?

ROCKEFELLER: In fact, there were only six people in the Senate who did, and I was one of them. I'm sure Pat was another.

WALLACE: OK. But you had read that, and now we've read a declassified...

ROCKEFELLER: But, Chris, let's...

WALLACE: Can I just ask my question, sir?

ROCKEFELLER: Yes.

WALLACE: And then you can answer as you choose. That report indicated there was a disagreement among analysts about the nuclear program. The State Department had a lot more doubts than the CIA did about whether he was pursuing the nuclear program. You never mentioned those doubts. You came to the same conclusion the president did.

ROCKEFELLER: Because that — first of all, that National Intelligence Estimate was not called for by the administration. It was called for by former Senator Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Dick Durbin.We didn't receive it until just a couple of days before we voted. Then we had to go read it and compare it to everything else that we thought we'd learned about intelligence, and I did make that statement. And I did make that vote.But, Chris, the important thing is that when I started looking at the weapons of mass destruction intelligence along with Pat Roberts, I went down to the floor, and I said I made a mistake. I would have never voted yes if I knew what I know today.

WALLACE: Well, but a lot of people are not — that's not the point of the investigation, Senator.

ROCKEFELLER: Chris, it is always the same conversation. You know, it was not the Congress that sent 135,000 or 150,000 troops to...

WALLACE: But you voted, sir, and aren't you responsible for your vote?ROCKEFELLER: No. I'm...WALLACE: You're not?

ROCKEFELLER: No. I'm responsible for my vote, but I'd appreciate it if you'd get serious about this subject, with all due respect. We authorized him to continue working with the United Nations, and then if that failed, authorized him to use force to enforce the sanctions.We did not send 150,000 troops or 135,000 troops. It was his decision made probably two days after 9/11 that he was going to invade Iraq. That we did not have a part of. And yes, we had bad intelligence, and when we learned about it, I went down to the floor and I said I would have never voted for this thing.

WALLACE: But my only point, sir — and I am trying to be serious about it — is as I understand phase two, the question is based on the intelligence you had, what were the statements you made.You had the National Intelligence Estimate which expressed doubts about Saddam's nuclear program, yet you said he had a nuclear program. The president did the same thing.


I think the cat is out of the bag here. If anyone in the Senate coulda, woulda, shoulda it mighta been Jay Rockefeller but he felt the same way as the President.

It is time to quit messing and trying to cover his proverbial. You got it wrong too Senator. The whole world thought there were nucs in Bagdad. So better safe than sorry. If there had been and the President had not been brave and MADE A DECISION you and your group would have been first in line to have a congressional inquiry on why we did not stop Saddam before he dropped a bomb on Tel Aviv or did some other dastardly deed, imagine that scenario being played out in Congress.

Female Iraqi suicide bomber describes her failure

There are moments when watching the news when I am just dumbfounded. Wondering just how the world got to be so crazy. It happens when I hear of how pedophiles work or how they have eluded being caught after years of abusing children. It comes to me when I hear of babies being dicarded in trash cans by seemingly aware eighteen year olds. I have the same incrudulity when I wonder of the mental makeup of a mass murder. This weekend I heard some of the report of the woman who spoke of her bomb not going off to match her husbands in a crowded wedding party in Jordan.

These good folks not only strapped explosives to their bodies but included a large amount of ball bearing to increase the death and devastation that would be blasted upon the unsuspecting wedding revelers. They dressed in their western best to blend in and gain access. Women and children where known to be in the room. Like that matters. What if were just 300 men would it make it any less ruthless and unimaginable. Regardless of the political manifestations what kind of mindset would one have to have to spend weeks getting "ready" for such a inhumane and evil event. To walk into a room and know you are going to kill the people around you is not in my mindset. These people do not believe in a God that I understand at all.

War is crazy. War is hell. But this is not war this is murder. Plain and simple. To give any credence to this kind of act is beyond the pale of any reasonable human being, period. It is time good people speak.

I am pleased to see the people of Jordan marching to say that this is not the way Muslims should behave. That this is not the way the faith of Mohammed should function and that others have hijacked this religion. Where is the indignation at these behaviors from the rest of the faithful of Islam. The inhumanity has got to be apparent. Or is it only when it happens in a Radisson in their country. It is time for the faithful of all faiths to begin to repudiate this kind of inhumanity. To tell the Palestinians to start to farm and feed their families rather than get young men and women to strap bombs upon themselves and kill. Just time for this madness to stop.

I am told repeatedly that Islam is not a faith of killing and death. Then it is time for those whose faith is being hijacked to speak and clarify just what kind of people they believe are doing such things. Are these bombers victims of a repressive western regime or are they mass murderers who are evil?

Cabernet Chocolate and a look around

Why Cabernet Sauvignon and Chocolate? Well, I clearly remember that moment. I have had others. When I met my wife. When the children were born. The C & C thing is down the list from all of that, but having one mind changed is a good thing. I remember when I decided to vote republican for the very first time. Oh my, I even voted for Jimmy Carter twice, what a buffoon. Blame me for putting him into office. Thank God we grow. Although, I still love my wife's meatloaf (that is a mid-western thing) but I love Cabernet and Chocolate. Forgive me for the Carter thing and let see where we go from here.