Lots Of Baggage, Lots Of Excitement

Condi Rice for VP?  Black, female, single (nudge...) - these are the groups Democrats and the MSM (pardon my redundancy) love as long as they are properly aligned.

Can't say she lacks for qualifications, either.  On the other hand, she is closely aligned with an unpopular President and a dreadfully managed war.  Dems would use her candidacy to refight every word uttered in 2002 and 2003, and that would probably not work for Republicans (Could it work?  Well, if the Dems come off as obsessed with yesterday instead of tomorrow, maybe.  But yesterday is when Ms. Rice established her bona fides, or lack thereof, so a backwards-looking obsession by a wary public is not unwarranted).

I thumped Ms. Rice's lackadaisical effort in the summer of 2001 back during the 9/11 Commission hearings.  Add to that her inability to referee the Rumsfeld-Powell dispute about who would take charge of post-liberation Iraq and you have a pretty unimpressive record.
For my money, McCain could do better.

Nominations are open.

Comments

[PaulL]

Tough, pre-2004 Condi would be great.

I-Can-Relate-To-Your-Situation, post-2004 Condi, no thanks.

[bgates]

Joe Lieberman for VP
Lindsey Graham for AG
Chuck Hagel for State

-but at least the Democrats won't be in charge. Nominally.

[centralcal]

bgates, there is nothing funny about your suggestions!!!

They make my head and my tummy hurt.

[Sue]

Condi has said repeatedly no thanks. It won't be her. I'm still holding out hope for a JC Watts or Michael Steele.

[Ralph L]

I thumped Ms. Rice's lackadaisical effort in the summer of 2001 back during the 9/11 Commission hearings
Well, you got me to open the link to see if Condi or you had time-traveled.

I think McCain needs a tested, unwet conservative for VP. Jesse Helms is tanned (not too much), rested, and ready. Of course, if McCain can't win the Carolinas on his own, he ain't gonna win, period.

[centralcal]

test

[Elroy Jetson]

I like Chris Cox for VP. Romney might be a good choice, but I think McCain can't get over the animosity he felt toward Mitt. Romney might make a good UN ambassador. I think Rice needs time off from DC. He might try to keep Gates as SecDef.

[PaulL]

Hey, how about Jeb Bush? Give him a leg up to continue the dynasty and make it clear that McCain will continue the best of George Bush's policies.

[Sara]

Condi lost my support when she started abandoning Israel and playing kiss-up with Hezbollah, etc. Her performance since the war between Israel and Hezbollah has been less than stellar. IMHO, of course.

[clarice]

I have big doubts about McCain but I have never had any doubts about Michael Steele .

[centralcal]

I completely agree about Michael Steele, Clarice!

I do so hope McCain picks someone for VP that I can enthusiastically support (because it sure isn't him).

[Porchlight]

I like Cox or Steele. Please no Graham or Crist.

[Bill in AZ]

What dreadfully managed war? The one the MSM invented?

[Joan of Argghh!]

I do agree. I love Condi, but for someone with a background in Russian studies and history, how did she not see Putin's impunity?

[Cecil Turner]

Sarah Palin (makes McCain look good . . . because who'd be looking at McCain?); Fred Thompson (makes McCain look . . . well, a little younger maybe); Condi; Giuliani (Lord help us!) . . . dang, the bottom of that barrel came up pretty quick.

[Soylent Red]

Chuck Hagel for State

Nonsense. Chuck Hagel may think that's where he belongs, but he is viscerally hated by the party in his home state. If he ran for re-election he would lose to nearly everybody.

And his whole "publish a book and wait to endorse" strategy emanates from a guy who is painfully unaware of how insignificant he really is. Despite being a media darling for Bush bashing.

Steele or JC Watts for VP. Condi, I don't think, really wants it. I know she isn't interested in the Presidency, and we need to be setting up our next shot.

[narciso]

In her defense, her specialty was more about Russian maneuvers in the Warsaw
Pact (Czechoslovakia). Michael Scheur,
the great Bin Laden expert, dissertation
was on some obscure Canadian diplomat.
Considering that the vaunted Aug. 6 PDB
was even less specific than the December
1998 one, which seems to be based on the debrief of Ali Mohammed, that the Gorelick rules, made it prohibitive for the CIA to contact the FBI about the whereabouts of Almidhar & Al Hamzi. There really wasn't much she could do

[sbw]

Hegel was on NPR yesterday. Flunked every question.

[Rick Ballard]

"What dreadfully managed war?"

I think it might be the one against the horrific scourge of Anthropogenic Global Warming, Bill. We weren't even able to get off a significant shot. Had we just thrown a few trillion at the problem, the earth might be cooling already.

[clarice]

Listen, I am unaccountably depressed today and I'm warning you, the very thought of Hegel on the McCain ticket is enough to make me consider a permanent exit from this vale of tears.

Just saying..

[Neo]

US: Saddam paid for lawmakers' Iraq trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California.

[glasater]

I just don't think that McCain can take bunch of conservative (well you know what I mean regarding Graham) senators out of commission where they are needed--and that's in the US Senate.

Michael Steele would be a very good choice. But the main thing McCain needs is money and Romney--despite hard feelings from the campaign--can certainly be an advantage in the finances department.

[Rick Ballard]

"Hegel was on NPR yesterday. Flunked every question."

Well, he has been dead since 1831. Not that he got much right while alive.

/tiny poke

[SteveMG]

Stop that. He's not picking Hagel.

No, no, no.

He does that, I'm writing in Tom's name.

Lousy president; great press releases.

[PeterUK]

"Listen, I am unaccountably depressed today and I'm warning you, the very thought of Hegel on the McCain ticket is enough to make me consider a permanent exit from this vale of tears."

Retail therapy - Florida - antiques - Bahamas - sunshine.

[Bill in AZ]

"Had we just thrown a few trillion at the problem, the earth might be cooling already."

and without spending hardly a dime - well, 'cept for what socialist republik of Kalifornia foolishly insists on spending - we're cooling anyway...

[dualdiagnosis]

First choice- Sarah Palin- Mother, Alaskan Gov.,hunter,conservative, strong winning choice. (and she's hot)

2- Condi
3- Michael Steele
4- Chris Cox

[GMax]

Hagel might be a good choice for Obama. Balance out the ticket, A looney lefty and a backstabber. Seems the perfect compliment.

[hit and run]

Soylent:
Steele or JC Watts for VP. Condi, I don't think, really wants it. I know she isn't interested in the Presidency, and we need to be setting up our next shot.

I think this is an important point. I love love love Cheney -- and perhaps this time it is beneficial that someone not in the administration is heading the ticket. But the vp should help groom for the future.

Cheney is the exception to the rule.

Hey, how about Cheney?

[clarice]

***Well HEgel on the ticket would be something. Of course I meant HAgel** Never mind.

[Bill in AZ]

I suspect Hegel would make both McCain and Thompson look young... fortunately, he ain't around anymore, though Hagel seems to have picked up his torch.

Just trying to cheer you up clarice... No?

Well, maybe some sane thinking will. Perhaps this is the Rice they're talking about as a potential running mate.

[reliapundit@msn.com]

demint

[Sara]

Palin just announced she is pregnant, I doubt she is looking to be a VP candidate or the campaigning later this year.

[ben]

"Palin just announced she is pregnant, I doubt she is looking to be a VP candidate or the campaigning later this year."

Well a pregnant VP candidate would just about dominate the entire newscycle until the election....which could be good or bad depending what other news is out there...

[GMax]

Apparently ten of Hill's top donors have written a letter to Pelosi telling her to shut up about the pledged delegate count and superdelegates or find the donations spigot turned off for the DCCC. Now that is some hardball. Amazing that the letter has surfaced, so either the writers or the receiver obviously wanted it to be known. Question is which and why? Isnt this whole thing just like midafternoon soap operas?

[GMax]

In other potential bad news for democrats Mike Gravel became a Libertarian today. If he ends up their nominee, it will give disgruntled Democrat of which ever of the two remaining liars loses out, another Democrat on the ballot to vote for as a protest vote. Ralph Nader and Mike Gravel. Bet they dont get 1/2 million votes between them but as we have seen a few hundred votes in a single state could make a big electoral college difference.

[Ranger]

Don Clintonlione: Nancy, that's a really nice majority you have there in the house. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.

[Jim in Chicago]

Does TM really believe the "dreadfully mismanaged war" schtick? Thought he was too intelligent for that.

Heck, we're not even in a war. We won that handily. A counter-insurgency is a different animal entirely, and it's not at all clear that that was mismanaged. One can argue that the Rumsfeld hands-off policy gave AlQ just enough rope to hang itself in Iraq.

I'm not even sure about the unpopular President meme either. Someone help me out, but there was a poll a week or so ago and even though Bush was at 30% or whatever, he was over 50% on many of the important policy questions, as well as on whether he was liked personally by the respondants.

And given that he's outpolling congress by 10% or so, maybe the problem is people fed up with politicians . . . or pollsters.

[Other Tom]

GMax, where did you see that letter? That is potentially a very substantial biggie, I should think.

Condi would be a terrible choice no matter who the Dem is. If Hillary is the Dem, Steele as VP would secure a landslide; if it's Obama, I think he doesn't help.

Cox is my former partner and I like him a lot, both personally and politically. I doubt his presence on the ticket would carry California, even though he's an SC Trojan good old boy. He's young, conservative, smart and good-looking, and I'd be astonished if he has any baggage at all.

I'm going to consider that all the discussion of Hagel is jocular--I wouldn't be able to bear it. I know McCain is kind of friendly with him, but he also knows very well that he needs his base and Hagel is as toxic to that base as any Republican since the frighteningly corpulent Lowell Weicker.

[SteveMG]

Does TM really believe the "dreadfully mismanaged war" schtick?

Sorry, we lost 1-2 years messing around not securing large areas of the country. State and Defense were pointing fingers at one another while the country was falling (further) apart.

Al-qaeda was able to sneak back and use the territory to conduct operations against us and the Iraqis.

And yes, I think securing captured territory is part of the war.

[clarice]

GMax--any cites? A Brit paper (the Times I think) compared the Dem nomination fight to Dynasty

[Peder]

How about Bob Barr?

[hit and run]

GMax:
Apparently ten of Hill's top donors have written a letter to Pelosi telling her to shut up about the pledged delegate count and superdelegates or find the donations spigot turned off for the DCCC.

And you saw this from Althouse...

Althouse's son, who was selected as a Hillary delegate on primary night in TX received a mailing from Obama saying he should support him at his county convention.

Flip for Obama!

[hit and run]

Here's the love letter to Pelosi

via hotair

[clarice]

Thanks, Hit. I found an AP article which cedited TPM as breaking the story. Of course, John Marshall is very close to Hill hatchetman Sidney Blumenthal.
Oh were, did TPM get the memo?
And why was it given to him? (To set an example for the others.)

[clarice]

**Oh wHere did TPM***

[hit and run]

For the record, it was Greg Sargent that wrote that post...

[Sara]

Saddam paid for 2002 Congressional junket to Baghdad

[clarice]

Yes, but tpm is Marshall's n'est pas?

[clarice]

My point is, it is important to know who released this--and it clearly was Hill. From that you can figure out WHY it was made public--it's a shot across the bow from Camp Clinton warning those who might go for Obama that they may have big financial consequences.

[Rick Ballard]

Ranger hit it on the head - it's a message from Don Bubba.

[RichatUF]

Neo-

This is good background...dots...

[clarice]

Unfortunately for Don Bubba, Nancy is from the real thing (not Godfather imitations) and if anyone knows how to respond to finding a bloody horse head in her bed, it is she....

[Porchlight]

Other Tom, I've been wondering what you thought of Cox. He seems to be a winner - perhaps not Mr. Exciting when measured by the Gender/Color criteria of the Dems, but so what. The more I read about him the more I like him.

[RichatUF]

clarice-

Wha? I must be jumping into the middle of a conversation. That trip was known to be funded in part by an Oil-for-Food beneficiary, Shakir al-Khafaji [more] when the al-Mada list was published. Muthanna Al-Hanooti links to him through a web of 501(c)3's and his place and foundation were searched in 06. I have forgotten most of the details on this point but a couple of years ago I could drone on-and-on about Oil-for-Food. I'd be a bit stunned the RW would want to bring up the Office of the Iraqi Programme seeing as how it was created during Bubba's watch and ended because of a war that McCain supported...

[syn]

"Does TM really believe the "dreadfully mismanaged war" schtick? Thought he was too intelligent for that."

I agree, historically speaking this war is quite successful however since we are not allowed to compare ourselves to the past as we must only concentrate only on the moment, we are left with stuck on stupid stuff the TV people tell us.

[SteveMG]

this war is quite successful however

Sigh.

Balloon Juice, I'm pretty sure.

Never sure whether to respond to these efforts or whether to just ignore them.

[clarice]

Yes, Rich, it was--now it turns out that the same trip and its financing came up in the unsealing of the indictment against another Iraqi agent in Detroit..but the entire press seems to have forgotten we already knew there was Iraqi money paying for this trip.

[RichatUF]

Disregard my last comment, didn't see that there was a letter from the Red Witch about cutting funding from the DCCC. I had a few too many tonight so sorry for the confusion

[syn]

Balloon Juice?

You're unreal SteveMG

[syn]

Next you'll attempt to convince me McCain is brilliant for advocating America sign the Kyoto agreement.

[syn]

No need to respond to my comment SteveMG, your low opinion of our military is quite enough.

[Marco]

Small joke: I asked a friend of mine which one of JC Watts, Michael Steele, and Colin Powell that McCain should pick as running mate.

Deadpan, he said, "The black one."

[RichatUF]

syn-

Next you'll attempt to convince me McCain is brilliant for advocating America sign the Kyoto agreement.

Nope that is a bridge too far. Not enough liquor in the cabinet for me to even suggest it.

Maybe I should re-read the front post and the comments...

[SteveMG]

You're unreal SteveMG

Sorry, you say: historically speaking this war is quite successful and I'm unreal?

For nearly two years the Administration was paralyzed by divisions between the State and Defense Departments. During that time, al-Qaeda was able to secure key positions inside Iraq from which they were able to foment sectarian strife and destabilize the government.

By any historic standards, that paralysis was a disaster for the country.

Thankfully, we've been able to turn things around. But that two year window where we failed to act aggressively has been an absolute disaster for us.

To claim that this was was "quite successful" is just not, in my opinion, a fair judgment of the action.

[SteveMG]

your low opinion of our military is quite enough.

I, of course, never said such a thing at all.

Nothing even close to it.

[ben]

"The fact is, the Democratic Party today is no longer the party of FDR. It is a party that continues to sustain war, the military-industrial complex and imperialism — all of which I find anathema to my views.

By and large, I have been repeatedly marginalized in both national debates and in media exposure by the Democratic leadership, which works in tandem with the corporate interests that control what we read and hear in the media.

I look forward to advancing my presidential candidacy within the Libertarian Party, which is considerably closer to my values, my foreign policy views and my domestic views."
MIKE GRAVEL

This is good news, Gravel switches from Dem to Libertarian, another leftwing kooky candidate running and giving disenchanted Democrats one more option....now if we can only get Kucinich in the race we could have Obama, Nader, Gravel and Kucinich against McCain.

[boris]

The Iraq war has always been "we stay = we win ... you quit = you lose".

The quibbling over strategery has always been finding an excuse to quit or an I told you so for never shoulda gone in. If Al Qaeda had bailed on Iraq like they did in Afghanistan it would have been much easier but they didn't. It's not that nobody expected them to make a stand, but adapting to the stand they nmade, how Iraqis would respond, how to reconstruct the economy, was always going to be a learning experience. The enemy put up a fight.

The current success is every bit as much about the Sunnis changing sides as any thing else. How do you work that into your "plan" ???

[Hotep of Gaul]

Well one of the two Palin parents really likes them babies; four kids already with the eldest recently inducted into the army.

I guess living in a state with difficult weather means you need...diversions.

[boris]

failed to act aggressively

There you are. Act Agressively !!!

Works every frakken time doesn't it. Hindsight blindness.

[SteveMG]

Boris:
If Al Qaeda had bailed on Iraq like they did in Afghanistan it would have been much easier but they didn't.

Yes, but the reason they didn't bail out was because we had abandoned large parts of Iraq. The thinking, as I understand it, was that the Iraqi people would fill the vacuum left by the defeat of the Baathist regime.

Fortunately, because of Petraeus's brilliance and the resourcefulness of the men and women in uniform, we were able to change that around.

I guess we can debate whether there would have been an "awakening" among the Sunnis had we initially secure the territory.

But it's clear to my reading that the internal split between Powell and Rumsfeld essentially paralyzed us for about 2 years. That period enabled al-Qaeda to setup shop and cause sectarian dissension as well as kill a bunch of our folks.

Not good.

[Pinto and the Beaners (every Friday at Rooster's Bar and Grill)]

now if we can only get Kucinich in the race

WHAT? And watch the all-important extraterrestrial vote slip away? You are a madman.

[Soylent Red]

Boris:

Incorporating the Sunnis from the get-go should have been part of the plan.

While things weren't botched, we certainly went in with too much optimism about the ease of fixing the place.

As for Gravel...

How do you go from the party of cradle-to-grave statism to the party of anti-statism? Shouldn't he burst into flames upon signing the change in party paperwork?

That's just crazy.

[ben]

"How do you go from the party of cradle-to-grave statism to the party of anti-statism? "

You are expecting a leftwing crackpot like Gravel to be hindered by logic? No looking at gift horses in the mouth....

[ben]

Re-Kucinich
"WHAT? And watch the all-important extraterrestrial vote slip away? You are a madman."

Does McCain have that vote cornered? If so, I will be happy to withdraw Kucinich's candidacy.

[reliapundit@msn.com]

******UPDATE:

IF OBAMA WINS THE NOMINATION...

THEN MCCAIN CAN PICK...

HILLARY!

Heh.

[Other Tom]

Just saw at WSJ a new poll that includes McCain v. Dem head-to-heads. He leads Clinton by two; I forget re Obama but think it's roughly a dead heat.

How to account for the substantial difference between this new NBC/WSJ and the simultaneous Rasmussen, which shows McCain up by nine over Hillary and seven over Obama. (My numbers may be off--I'm going from memory--but I don't think by much.)

[Tina]

" Because sometimes it's easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That's America. So the challenge for us is are we ready for change?"

Guess who said it?

Hint: The wife of the man whose middle name must not be spoken.

[boris]

we certainly went in with too much optimism about the ease of fixing the place

Who is "we" ??? I did not and did not see that from W, Cheney, or Rumsfeld in any of the run up. My brother was in Tikrit when the Marines were called back from going into Fallujah right after the contractor murders there. His emails from that time reflected a lot of frustration but also political realities. Simply put Monday morning quarterbacking is too easy to get wrong and impossible to get right.

[ben]

I think Rasmussen is a tracking poll, different dynamics than the NBC/WSJ poll which incidentally always seems to have an inordinate sampling of Democrats. Also the NBC/WSJ has more undecideds since everyone is in the mid to low 40's so maybe Rasmussen is including more leaners.

[narciso]

I hate to seem callous, but it takes time for an effective counter-insurgency strategy
to start.There were limited examples with
Maj. Mirabile in Ramadi, Lt. Col. McMaster
in Tal Afar, Capt Ayers and Sgt. Cole else
where, as well as Lt. Col. Nagl. Of those McMaster & Nagl went onto the staff of Gen.
Petraeus, who learned his craft in Mosul;
one of the most treacherous environments in
the region.Petraeus relied on their experiences to craft 'the surge'; as well as Col. Meese, not timeservers like Zinni, McPeak, McCaffrey, et al. Or sadly Gen. Baptiste, who chose the easy root, (joining MoveOn's VoteVets affiliate)only to recon-sider too late, to have done any good. For their successful efforts, McMasters, Nagl, & Peter Faroor, who been practically been blocked from promotion to higher ranks and driven into academia. On the one hand, it's good that we'd have some academics with military experience; on the other we will need their expertise in the upper ranks of the Army. With McMaster the fact that he skewered the Vietnam era general staff in "Dereliction of Duty" probably didn't bode well for his promotional record. One didn't think that the media would actually buy the "Fallujah massacre" story so thoroughly; making the salvaging of the city later that fall. Ironically, it took the bitter pill of actually living with the Salafi/Wahhabists in Anbar/Dulaimi province for our message of support to actually take hold. It's a bitter lessons the Pashtuns of the FATA of Pakistan are beginning to learn, lo these many years. To Secretary Rice's credit, she was in favor of the PRT, which are the unsung part of the surge (her request for further State Department
personnel,to staff those positions, provoked that shameful temper tantrum last year) Of course it took forever for the
'traditional' media to get it; about the surge; Aparism 'Bobby' Ghosh of Time, went to far as to give an attaboy to a young 'wet behind the ears' IED maker; whose job was to butcher the same troops he'd cry crocodile tears for the following week. This kind of profile, was usually sandwiched with stories of how the surge was pointless, we couldn't find the terrorists (Ghosh ,Bennett,Ware, along with
Beganpisheh, Nordland,Caryl, Yousafsai et al always seem to have them on speed dial either in Baghdad or Kandahar) Caryl's last
Iraq peace was about how the war, was creating an generation of anti-American
jihadi killers; he was premature to say the least. No apologies moving on to the Tokyo
post. Ghosh appeared in Islamabad just short of the bomb blast that claimed Bhutto. My own fishwrap the Miami Herald
went so far as to buy the Salafi propaganda that the Pakistani govt was behind the hit; Scotland Yard said otherwise.

[Elliott]

I love love love Cheney

Mud wrestle!Uh, yeah it's too bad Cheney's popularity is such he can't be on the ticket. As I contemplate wistfully this state of affairs, it occurs to me that McCain can indeed form a unity ticket of a sort and bring an end to some of the division and bitterness of recent years.

While Hit and Run may have thought he has proposed the most outlandish ticket possible, has he considered "McCain-Rumsfeld '08"?

[Cecil Turner]

Hey, look at the reaction from the DKos/Obots to the recent letter from the Clinton backers:

Ok so someone start digging up all the information on these donors, and their specific interest in influencing this campaign and supporting Clinton.

This is gettin' good! Go long popcorn!

[Cecil Turner]

Palin just announced she is pregnant . . .

She's due to deliver in mid-May (and nobody knew she was pregnant until she told 'em) . . . which doesn't appear to me to be a major problem. Besides, she's old school on the subject:

As for her recent news that she is pregnant with her fifth child, Palin said: "I'm very confident that a pregnant woman should not and doesn't have to be prohibited from doing anything, including running for vice president." [emphasis added]

[Soylent Red]

Who is "we" ?

Uh I should have been more clear.

The "we" I was referring to was the civilian side, specifically from state, who de-Baathified a lot of competent public workers into the arms of AQ, simply because we changed upper management and were caught up in our own "just like Nazi Germany" metaphor.

Also, the "we" refers to those in Defense who saw no need to bolster civil/military liaison prior to invasion, and little need to utilize what we had in that respect in the wake of the race north.

Narciso is right. COIN is like Chinese math, and up until very recently a thankless job. LTC Nagl probably gave up his bird for it.

But mistakes were made. Predictable mistakes borne of miscalculation, over-optimism, hubris, whatever. You pick the cause that fits best in your mind.

Identifying those predictable mistakes and saying, "Oops, we screwed up there, and there, and there" is hardly Monday morning quarterbacking. It's conducting an AAR.

I don't know about the Marines (actually I do but I won't presume to tell anyone), but AARs on the Army side can be (and should be) brutally honest at times.

I'm not disputing Boris or Narciso. But I don't buy into the theory that we did everything right and the media/DNC/peacenik axis made everything up.

Among us generally like-minded people up here, we should not feel the need to be dishonest about the negatives of OIF to protect the President or our party.

Like I said, mistakes were made. The truest measure of personal and party leadership is if we can be honest with ourselves about what those mistakes were and how we correct them.

/thread hijack

[Soylent Red]

yeah it's too bad Cheney's popularity is such he can't be on the ticket.

I would have said the same thing about Cheney ten years ago. Now, he's just too old to be a good follow on candidate at the end of 4 or 8.

Need new young blood in there at VP, get them seasoned on the job and be ready to go for 2016.

Race or gender added in would be desirable in my book (if only to be the true party of progress), but not necessary.

[Sara]

Other Tom:

Talk Left has this:

NBC/WSJ Poll: Oversampling

The new NBC/WSJ poll (pdf) out today has Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 45%. The margin of error is 3.7%. The poll was of all registered voters, not just Democrats. Both Hillary and Obama's unfavorability ratings increased somewhat from two weeks ago. Combining the "somehat "and "very negative" categories, Obama was at 28% unfavorable two weeks ago and is at 32% now. Hillary was at 43% and is now at 48%.

Given that these numbers include Republicans, I'm not surprised. What did surprise me is that the poll says it oversampled African Americans.

[narciso]

Look there's a lot we didn't know about Iraq. Heck the media still keeps saying
it's an artificial country, which is true
only if you ignore the boundary lines of the
three vilayets going back to 1538 if not earlier. We didn't know that Salafism had penetrated so much of the society, The rape
of the oil for food program, one small part
was the trip from the tweedledum trio; was
one example. We still don't rightly know where the stockpiles of WMD's actually ended up. We know now, thanks to the translations of IIS records through the Harmony program; that Saddam had contacts not only with Zawahiri's group, but with
Hekmatyar's; one of those from which AQ
drew it's cadres. We certainly should have
followed through with Fallujah back in April 2004 if not sooner, clipped Muqtada's
wings as the late Hume Horan advised us to.
Should we have left de-Baathification off the table, let the Iraqi Army, Mukharabat,
Amn As, & Republican Guards stay at their
post as if nothing had happened. Would it
really have been a good idea, to shoot all
the looters, would it have earned us gratitude? I seriously wonder.

[Other Tom]

Thanks for the info about the polls. Now I've got a new off-topic question:

Does the maximum for individual contributions per person apply for an entire campaign cycle, or can one contribute the limit during the primaries and then again after the conventions?

[Elliott]

can one contribute the limit during the primaries and then again after the conventions?

Yes, and the contribution for the general election can be made before the primaries are over, the candidate just can't touch the money. Getting contributors to max out on both was how Hillary was, at first, trying to stay ahead of Obama in fundraising.

If someone can convince his/her spouse to donate, the overall amount of money that can be contributed is, in effect, 4 times the number that is bandied about (c. $2300).

[DavidH]

How about Tom Ridge? It might put Pennsylvania in play.

[DSw]

plame map

http://www.muckety.com/Valerie-Plame-Wilson/4408.muckety

[DubiousD]

McCain needs a conservative on the ticket. My choice?

George Allen.

After the Jeremiah Wright debacle, just let Obama try to make hay over "macaca".

[kim]

That's quite an interesting site you have there at muckety.
====================================

[M. Simon]

Could this be a political move?

i.e. trolling to get the Dems to react negatively to Condi for campaign sound bites?

[kim]

Probably no one useful will bite, Simon, but the comments under the link are instructive. Those against her are rabid, those for her are eloquent.
===============================

[M. Simon]

Also, the "we" refers to those in Defense who saw no need to bolster civil/military liaison prior to invasion, and little need to utilize what we had in that respect in the wake of the race north.

Things never go according to plan.

The liquefaction of the Iraqi Army was unexpected. All the Iraqis working for the ministries going home was unplanned.

You have to remember that there are always 100 predictions of ways things go wrong for every one that materializes. So you ignore most predictions of error.

De-Baathification was a good thing. It cleared the government of people with bad attitudes.

We had the same problem in Germany. You can't let bad actors back in the government without vetting. Which caused chaos in Germany. Patton was roasted for not waiting for de-Nazification. No one wanted to be Patton this time around.

In the long run (which is now) we actually made a profit from our mistakes. The Iraqi people are now immunized against Islamic radicals. Good. They are willing to tolerate a much less than perfect government because the alternatives - no government, radical Islamic government are worse.

So all the errors built stability into the system. Good.

[M. Simon]

I covered the donation thing back on 15 March - which seems like an eternity ago:

Money Back If Not Satisfied

The version posted at Classical Values got picked up by Insty.

[M. Simon]

Black Liberation Theology from
From: The American Thinker. It focuses on James Cone. Don't miss it.

[J. Lefler]

Only one name.....NEWT!

[Dennis D]

NEWT is the best and brightest.
Huckabee is a great speaker
Romney may become a real conservative soon
Rudy for US Attorney General

[boris]

the theory that we did everything right and the media/DNC/peacenik axis made everything up

No, that's not my theory either. The mistakes are what make Moday morning quarterbacking so attractive. One problem is removing the mistakes obvious in hindsight imagines other ones won't replace them.

My theory is (1) learn from mistakes (2) until the mixture is soup it doesn't matter all that much which direction it gets stirred. Of course there will be apparent paralysis and bickering while the situation develops until what you have learned from mistakes can be successfully applied.

[boris]

Should have mentioned my brother was in Tikrit with the Army Corps of Engineers at the time. He was a Marine in Nam though.

He did 2 tours there with ACOE and what he noticed was the economic development between the 1st and 2nd tour. IMO that is one of the main factors that was changing over time. Once that reaches a point where prosperity is the alternative to civil war, it provides incentive to cooperate rather than kill people and break things.

[Soylent Red]

IMO that is one of the main factors that was changing over time. Once that reaches a point where prosperity is the alternative to civil war, it provides incentive to cooperate rather than kill people and break things.

We can agree on that.

[clarice]

NRO publishes a list of foreign contributors to US colleges and universities--heading the list by a lot two big gifts by SA King Fahd to Arkansas colleges in 1995.

HEH
___________________________(From AT):
WaPo: Hillary was wrong to believe us
In a funny aside to Hill's Bosnia fantasy, the Washington Post says Clinton shouldn't have relied on one of its articles about travel by First Ladies because the information was factually incorrect:

The Clinton campaign has cited newspaper accounts, including one in The Washington Post, to bolster the senator's claim that her now-famous March 1996 trip to Bosnia was the first visit to a "war zone" by a first lady since World War II. She is overlooking a trip to Saigon by Pat Nixon at the height of the Vietnam War as well as a trip by Barbara Bush to Saudi Arabia two months before the Persian Gulf War began.

THE FACTS

Just because something has appeared in a newspaper does not mean that is entirely accurate. [Emphasis Supplied.] The Clinton camp has circulated a March 26, 1996, quote from a Post article describing Clinton's Bosnia trip as "the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone." The article went on to say that "other first ladies have visited troops abroad but never in front-line positions," citing the examples of Bush and Nixon.

How these factoids got into the Post story is unclear, but they offer a somewhat misleading picture of the relative risks being run by the three first ladies. By almost any measure, the Nixon trip to Saigon in July 1969 should surely count as the most dangerous of the three visits. Unlike Bosnia in March 1996 and Saudi Arabia in November 1990, South Vietnam was an actual, not "potential," war zone in the aftermath of the 1968 Tet offensive, according to retired Army Lt. Col. Gene Boyer, the Nixons' chief helicopter pilot.

"This was a combat mission," Boyer said yesterday, noting that more than 2,000 U.S. helicopter pilots were shot down and killed in Vietnam. "There were no front lines. Everything outside of Saigon was a war zone

[Other Tom]

You could get yourself shot right in Saigon, too. I only spent a total of four or five days there, but one of them was a brief trip up from Binh Thuy with a SEAL platoon leader. As we walked by the heavily guarded and fortified US embassy he said, "with twenty men I could take that place." Three weeks later, during the opening days of the Tet offensive, about two dozen Viet Cong got inside the compound, and a couple of them got inside the building, before all were finally killed. If they'd been anywhere near as good as SEALS, they'd have seized the place.

Administratively, anybody who flew over from, say, Subic for a day got a little star to pin on his Vietnam service ribbon to show that he'd been in the combat zone during that particuar "phase" of the conflict. And he drew combat pay for that month.

[bio mom]

If we had had that northern front through Turkey, the entire history of the Iraq war would be dramatically better.

[M. Simon]

OT,

I was with the Enterprise TG (Subic was home port while we were in the area) and we had to be in the zone for 5 days to get combat pay.

Ever drop in to Nina's Papagayo? My favorite bar was up the street. A classy place where officers hung out. It was more expensive but the girls were nicer.

[PrestoPundit]

Juan Hernandez

[Other Tom]

M. Simon: Went to Papagayo often. Hung out a lot at Pauline's, too. They had a sign out front that you had to check your guns at the door.

A minor footnote for any who might be interested: in order to get into the town of Olongapo from the base at Subic, you had to cross a little bridge over the foulest-smelling little creek on planet earth. Newcomers used to be regaled with the apocryphal story of how once a dead body was spotted floating in the creek. John Kerry told the story as though he had personally seen such dead bodies.

I can tell you that the stench of that creek is seared--seared!--in my memory.

[Other Tom]

The comments of Radarman Second Class Carter, who had been Kerry's shipmate in USS Gridley, on a passage in Tour of Duty:

"Later on page 87 Kerry talks about Olongapo in the Philippines. He talks about bloated corpses floating in the river and starving women with babies dying of malnutrition. Now Olongapo was a wild and wooly town that existed solely for the entertainment of the US Navy, but in over three years of calling there, I never saw a single instance of either thing happening. Kerry uncovered this in his first visit. If this was from his letters home then he was certainly writing for dramatic effect. Balderdash."

Seared...

[clarice]

Let me count the ways--Jay Cost on the many ways the credentials committee could add them up--
HEH

[Sara]

M. Simon: Went to Papagayo often. Hung out a lot at Pauline's, too. They had a sign out front that you had to check your guns at the door.

Hmmm, as a Navy wife keeping the home fires burning, those are two names I wish I did not recognize. Did a dollar really go as far as I've heard it did? Don't answer that! :)

[Other Tom]

Sara, I was a bachelor at the time. I have no knowledge of what the married guys were up to.

[M. Simon]

Sara,

Likewise. Although I will say I fell in love with my favorite bar girl, Olympia Mella. I have some on line friends from the Philippines who recently tried to look her up. No luck.

I knew what some of the married guys were up to. Let me just say that I knew one guy who saw way more excitement than I ever did. I was a romantic. Not conducive to casual (30 minute) relationships. My lady friend took me to her home to meet her room mates. Highly unusual unless the lady really, really, liked you. BTW I don't think I even got to kiss her more than a few times. As I said I liked the high class ladies.

All that was a long long time ago and far far away. Clark Air Base is long gone and Subic is a faint memory. All gone. Clark from volcanic ash and Subic from lack of customers.

[thelonereader]

I hate to sound ignorant but could someone tell me what -- heh -- stands for? I see it often but I still can't figure it out-thank you

[thelonereader]

I hate to sound ignorant but could someone tell me what -- heh -- stands for? I see it often but I still can't figure it out-thank you

[M. Simon]

Let me add. If you and your husband still love each other after all these years that is something to be cherished above all else. Let the past be the past. Don't ask, don't tell is a very good policy under many circumstances.

To ask and expect the truth requires way more trust than is usual in human relations. If you couldn't handle a truth you might not want to hear silence is best.

Cherish what you have. Death will come to us all soon enough.

[M. Simon]

Heh is shorthand for a very brief chuckle. It doesn't stand for anything other than the sound of heh.

[centralcal]

Okay, I'm bored. Don't have any fond (or otherwise) memories of Viet Nam.

Have you noticed how many male liberal pundits, journalists, consultants -- lisp? Practically every show I've watched in the last few weeks that had some sort of liberal leaning spokesperson on, that person had a noticeable lisp.

Think Chris Cilliza or E.J. Dionne to get what I mean about the lisping.

Lisping liberal males.

[DebinNC]

To thelonereader per "heh"

Humor hierarchy imo:heh > haha > lol > lmao

Capitalizing and adding !! adds value.

[thelonereader]

Thank you all, that is what I thought at first, but then my mind decided to complicate things, and thought it might be an abbreviation of some kind--I tend to overwork things.

[Sara]

Don't ask, don't tell is a very good policy under many circumstances.

Don't ask, don't tell was the Navy Wives' Creed long before it was the law of the land. :)

[cathyf]

Humor hierarchy imo:heh > haha > lol > lmao

to continue:

lmao < rofl < roflpimp

[clarice]

I especially like roflpimp,cathy. HEH

[Ann]

thelonereader,

Don't feel bad, I just realized how stupid I am, AGAIN. ;( Good Grief, when I think of my other posts I used it as meaning "hold up" or "watch out" or something of that sort. Sheez!

[thelonereader]

There are no stupid questions--so the saying goes, but we all know that is not true.
Funny thing is I would go back and forth about it being a laugh or an abbreviation I just could not figure out, so finally I come out of hiding and ask, but cool I just figured out what roflpimp stands for-heh

[Sara]

Wright is building a 10,340 sq. ft. $1.6 million home in a gated community for his retirement.

Link

[Sara]

Sorry wrong thread.

[ajacksonian]

'“If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, wouldn't it be a Merry Christmas?”' - Don Meredith

For those wanting to criticize the course of the war and ensuing COIN work in Iraq, please cite logistics necessary to carry out the perfect plan, the training done before-hand for it, the acculturation period necessary to gain such insight, describe how the Republican Guard was not a terror organization used to killing Iraqis on whim and how many US forces it would take to oversee such a force (if they could be found at their posts, which multiple individuals on the ground at the time point out is not the case from John F. Burns to Michael Ware going spectrum-wise in reliability downwards), or the fact that by late 2003 the US armed forces had already identified AQI (under its Ansar emblam) as the main insurgent force to be reckoned with.

Please detail that the current US Army and USMC leadership are in accord that all COIN concepts needed to be updated and badly so, and that all US forces and the MNF must be on the same playbook to accomplish that.

Also detail what the expected responses of AQI would be under a McCain-inspired 'go after the Ba'ath first' campaign, which was aimed at the Sunni Triangle and yet would have left most of the rest of Iraq open to AQI due to the lack of long-term personnel to actually do necessary COIN work.

Correctly the US State Dept. is most hit with inability to muster forces, but the need for rebuilding went far and away above what USACE could do with USAID and other organizations, and when additional federal areas were asked to get on the program, such as Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Transportation, they not only fielded a lackluster response, they often fielded no response. Each of these has been involved in long-term, large scale projects in each of those sectors and the problems of State and DoD do not even begin to touch the entire abysmal response of the rest of the federal government. The bickering between State and DoD at least showed they understood the problem, the silence from the rest of the government was deafening.

Of course, given the inability of those same departments and agencies to actually figure out things in their own areas in other venues, like the lack of coordination between Treasury and Commerce on the Bank of NY/Clearstream/al Mahdi/al Taqwa/Menatap money laundering/fraud system, one can understand their trepidation in describing something simple like how to get a banking and accountable commerce system set up.

I am all for the 'secure everything, everywhere, all the time, everytime' deal, but I would prefer that to last beyond one shift of personnel to do that in Iraq, so getting that force requires at least one if not two deep forces to continue on that work and make sure it doesn't backslide. Even if we closed down EUCOM and took half the non-deployed reserve from PACOM you are still only at the 'Shinseckian level' for one tour of duty and have next to *no one* to shift in... unless you want to kill troop rotation and morale.

Beyond that describe how the 2005-2006 Iron Curtain/Riverine campaign to root out terror supporting networks and their transportation basis did *not* set up the shift in Anbar province seen in mid-2006 leading to the open dissension of Anbari's with AQI by late 2006. Mind you that was part of 'securing the country' but could only be done once we could figure out who the local actors were and why they were doing what they were doing.

So, in short order: logistics, training, backing, changing training via TRADOC (which is what the good General did, BTW, shift the entire outlook of traditional training via TRADOC, in cased it has been missed), and just what sort of force size would have been necessary to make sure the Ba'athist RG at their 'posts' would NOT return to their authoritarian and terror ways as they did with the Fallujah group....

There are lots and tons of things to carp about in the lead-up and execution of the conflict and subsequent COIN campaign. But remember, it is taking just about as long and in timing as the Philippine-American war for BOTH, and there we lost far more men to malaria and jungle conditions than we have lost to combat with a similar size force against a much smaller opponent.

I talk about those things and not the 'what might have beens' and 'we coulda, shoulda' concept as those don't tell us much about dealing with what we have. Analysis is all well and good to help prevent future problems, but unless anyone is pointing out *criminal negligence* on the part of anyone (and remember that Congress gets to set force size and logistics, and did so throughout the 1990's in a downward manner), then it would be a good idea to get off the soapbox and offer something helpful and not invective. The conscious decision made to get at the force we could field was not made in 2002-2003, it was made in 1992-2000.

There is tons to complain about in that arena, and the non-seriousness of it and no look beyond the combat part of COIN as part of training. You want a perfect force? Point out the flaws in the current one and describe what is necessary to get there. Part of the loss of personnel is that cadre from the 1990's *leaving* because actual combat has come around and it is no longer 'peacekeeping'. That is a huge cultural shift inside the armed forces and neglecting to deal with that also needs to be addressed... if you want to carp on personalities, feel free, of course, but realize that they are the thinnest of all crusts on the organizations they lead and to change those organizations takes years.... which gets you back to the 1990's, of course. But that is a... ummm... 'bipartisan lack of foresight' by all involved.

In case it has been missed, you will not have Bush, Cheney, Rice, & Co. to kick around much longer. Can you offer better ways for institutional insight or is the past and the problems of it your only concern? I, personally, see many, many things that are sailing right on by the politicians of today and the screaming political classes wanting ideology first and actually getting a few things to work as a distant last.

As for Sen. McCain - how should I know what is best for him? He is 'Mr. Maverick' and, as seen, *part of the problem*. He wants to be CinC, not President.... of course his opponents want to be Chief Nanny and Chief Healer, so they do need to at least read the job description. Not that any of those three bothered to read their current ones. An interesting year where one party is looking to splinter along ethnic/racial divides and the other along Progressive/Traditionalist ones, and the current state of affairs puts that into distinct and sharp relief. Neither party stands *for* anything save getting more of your life, your money and your obedience to the control of government as it will set the tune *for you*.

[thelonereader]

Bravo ajacksonian, Bravo, what you say needs to be shouted from the rooftops, and cannot be shouted too often imho, unfortunately I don't think many will return to this thread and absorb what you are saying, please keep spreading the word if another more active thread comes up. In the meantime I am going to save your entire comment and if possible post it elsewhere,(with your permission and credit of course) when appropriate.

[kim]

ajack always impresses, and you're pretty good yourself, lone reader.
========================================

[clarice]

Bravo,ajacksonian.

[Larry]

"And he drew combat pay for that month." Posted by: Other Tom | March 27, 2008 at 10:48 AM USAF desk jockeys flew in on the 30th/31st, flew out on the 1st and got 2 months' combat pay.

[M. Simon]

aj,

Is always good. I tend to write the shorter version but he always provides depth.

I learn something every time he posts.

BTW I have cross posted a few of his pieces at the blogs I have privileges at. Great stuff.