A special "wheels coming off" edition of this little occasional link-fest today, apropos of the vehicle of state screeching along down Pennsylvania Avenue on sparking rims.
- Bob Geiger (he of the in-depth Senate coverage) reports on something I must've missed in the newspapers: Senator Jim Webb's proposal for a new GI Bill of sorts for returning war veterans. Says Geiger: "Webb did more for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan on his first day in the Senate than the man he ousted, George Felix Allen, did in the entire previous Congress." And be sure to read Bob's personal postscript about his own post-service education.
- Lance Mannion is en fuego with his takedown of warmonger and faux liberale Joe "Anonymous" Klein today: "I know he's just another Cliff Clavin of the Washington Punditocracy, fancying himself an expert on any and every subject that comes up, endlessly spouting off, happy to substitute opinion and conjecture for actual knowledge and asserting unreliable and even nonexistent experts to back him up, and retreating into bluster, paranoia, and hysteria when anyone challenges him on the facts, and I ought to ignore him." Smack.
- Says Chervokas: "Before the November elections Dick Cheney told ABC News that no matter what the outcome of the vote it would be full speed ahead in Iraq.Turns out he wasn't kidding." And he believes Congress will shut him down. Hope so.
- Steve Gilliard continues to believe - as he has for more than a year now - that Bush cannot survive in office; that his presidency must fall. He hasn't said it in a while - perhaps he's as weary as I became - but he's back on it today: "...in the end, I think America has had enough. Sending the Guard back is an insane political mistake. Two tours for part-time solders? ... I think Bush will lose the country, and eventually leave in disgrace because his plan will fail. It will fail badly and bloodily and he will be exposed as the weak little man he is and we will not have long to wait."
- Jim Wolcott quotes Steve and compares Bush with Richard Nixon, the last (and only) man drummed out of office by his own party. But he finds a key difference: "Bush will not enjoy a lion-in-winter third act. For better or worse, Nixon was his own man, a stark lesson in the possibilities and limits of self-reliance. Bush, who has always relied upon others to bail him out of jams, is not his own man. If he were, he wouldn't let Cheney secretly run the show."
- And while Cheney and Rice plot war on Iran and Syria, the Republicans peal off. The voluble Chris Bowers has the language from 12 - count 'em, 12 - members of the minority in the Senate who have had enough.
