Iraq Rx: What Would Bummer Do?

Update: The leaked Rumsfeld memo (don't get me started as to why that is somehow "OK") seems to be compatible with Bummer's Rx. Oops, gotta run, the red "Langley" phone is ringing....)

1. As pointed out here at S&C, since invasion time, a post-war unified Iraq was a "Nice if you can get it" item, but it was not central to the Wolfowitz Plan.

2. The existence of a viable, democratic zone in and about the Iraq theatre, protected by the US military for the long haul, is central to the Wolfowitz Plan.

3. Bummer's Rx: The US should pick several areas in Iraq for the establishment of large US-protected zones. Preferably, these zone(s) would have the following features:

a. Remote from centers of sectarian war. That is, not Baghdad.
b. Suitable for long-term demographic growth.
c. Tactically situated for military and civilian flight operations.
d. Specifically selected for total control of the ingress/egress. That is, behind the walls, sits all that the West has to offer. Safety, prosperity, life/liberty/pursuit, etc. No spoilers or suicide bombers are allowed through the gates.
e. Let these towns grow over the next few decades. They become the cairn - the lighthouse - for a region in chaos. Like Western Europe as the beacon to those behind the Iron Curtain, the lighthouse refutes (over a generation or two) the Big Lie(s) propagated by despotic regimes.


4. Perhaps one in Kurdland (they'd like it), several in the western desert and southern deserts- i.e., at H3 - and, the most tricky, one or two in the south (at the Gulf) and east (bordering Iran).

5. Keep the troops deployed in Iraq for another year or so (or less, if appropriate), until these stronghold bases are established. Then, withdraw into the bases. Iraq will further slip into chaos. So be it:

There are two strategically satisfactory outcomes in Iraq that are so politically incorrect that they cannot even be hinted at in public, but they may get fleshed now as pragmatism seeps into the debate. The first non-PC yet satisfactory outcome centers around the reality that, A Unified Iraq Is Not a Primary Goal:

"So if we’re going to get all practical, let’s be practical. A unified Iraq is a four-run homer, accelerating the Mideast peace process by years. But a one-run homer is all we need, and perhaps all we can afford. To wit: A balkanized Iraq with two working democratic zones, territories or countries (Kurdistan; Shia’stan) satisfies the basic strategic objectives of the [Wolfowitz] Plan."

The second non-PC yet satisfactory outcome recognizes this: Regional Mideast civil wars, involving democracy movements, are an improvement over the status quo and a likely step in the generational struggle that awaits the Mideast. (Hey, the US, European, Central and South American democracy movements were all marked by generations of rebellion and civil war; why should we somehow expect the Mideast be exempt?)

Of course, Bush didn't detail the ugly realities of war in his casus belli - no Western leader ever does. Roosevelt didn't; Lincoln didn't; Churchill didn't.

******

S. Ct. Rejects Thug's Immunity Claim

Spot the differences among A, B and C:

A. A lookout calls his drug factory accomplices and warns them to start flushing the evidence, as the police are 4 blocks away.

B. An enemy agent obtains secret invasion plans from a traitor, and reveals the plans to an enemy general, just in time for the enemy to move its troops.

C. A person who knows of a secret, classified impending police raid on an Islamic terror money laundering cell, calls that target and asks if the target would like to "comment" upon the impending raid.

Yep. You got it. Same same.

Which is why the Supreme Court - again - lets it be known that no one is above the law. The First Amendment is not a blank check immunity card.

And, the elite thugs of the legacy press, are NOT happy about losing. Again.

Justices reject N.Y. Times in leak case

U.S. prosecutors can now review reporters' phone records.
Los Angeles Times
November 28, 2006


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Monday to shield the New York Times and two of its reporters from a prosecutor's probe into who leaked word of planned raids on two Muslim charities five years ago.

The decision clears the way for federal prosecutors to review the phone records of the two reporters for several weeks in the fall of 2001. The prosecutor, U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald in Chicago, says the records will help point to the source of the leak.

The New York Times maintains it has a 1st Amendment right to protect the confidentiality of its sources. Floyd Abrams, the newspaper's lawyer, said, "There has been no claim of wrongdoing against the Times reporters. The only thing at issue here is a leak investigation in which the government seeks to obtain information on who spoke to the journalists."

Two years ago, lawyers for the newspaper went before a federal judge in New York and won an order that barred the prosecutor from examining the phone records.

But in August, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that order in a 2-1 decision. The prosecutor has a "compelling interest" in learning who tipped off the reporters to the planned raids, thereby "endangering federal agents" and permitting the "targets to spirit away incriminating information," said Judge Ralph K. Winter in the appeals court opinion.

"We see no danger to the free press in so holding," he added. "Learning of imminent law enforcement asset freezes or searches and informing targets of them is not an activity essential … to journalism."

The Supreme Court has never squarely ruled that the news media has a 1st Amendment right to protect its confidential sources. On Monday, the justices turned down an emergency plea from the Times in a one-line order.

This is the second time in two years that the Times and its former reporter Judith Miller have been on the losing end of a legal battle with Fitzgerald. Besides being the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Fitzgerald is the special prosecutor who was named to look into who leaked to the media the name of former CIA agent Valerie Plame.

In that case, Fitzgerald sought the cooperation of several reporters who spoke with top officials of the Bush White House, but Miller refused, citing the 1st Amendment.

Fitzgerald went to court to compel Miller's cooperation, and the Supreme Court refused the Times' request to intervene. Miller spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to talk to Fitzgerald.

The probe of the two Muslim charities — the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation — intensified after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Officials believed the two groups might be funding terrorists in the Mideast, and they moved to freeze their assets.

On Dec. 4, 2001, the FBI raided the offices of the Holy Land Foundation. The day before, Miller had called one of its officials asking for comment on the government's plans to move against it. She wrote in one story that she had been tipped off by "confidential sources."

A similar sequence of events happened a few days later. On Dec. 13, 2001, Times reporter Philip Shenon contacted the Global Relief Foundation seeking comment on the government's plan to freeze its assets. The foundation's office was raided the next day, and FBI agents reported that charity officials had removed many items.

Fitzgerald then began a probe into who in the government spoke to the reporters.

Robert Kennedy: On the Mindless Menace of Violence

Below is the text of Robert F. Kennedy's speech, which is prominently integrated into the film "Bobby." RFK's speech was in reaction to the assassination of Martin Luther King the day before.

On the Mindless Menace of Violence

City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio
April 5, 1968

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

71%: Dems Have No Plan for our Biggest Problem

Perhaps shocking to most, but not the B23, here is polling data that 71% of the public knows or suspects that the Dems have no plan for Iraq.

If you believe the election was largely "about Iraq," and wonder whether the 'Pubs shot themselves in the foot, it's almost impossible to argue that the 'Pubs didn't blow this election, all by themselves:

"57 percent of all adults in the AP-Ipsos poll said Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq; 29 percent said they do.

"That finding strikes at the heart of a Democratic dilemma. The party has been of one voice in criticizing President Bush's strategy for the war but has been more equivocal on how to move in a different direction."

Actually, the AP spun this data a bit. 71% said the Dems either did not have a plan for Iraq, or the respondent was "not sure" if the Dems had a plan. Note, the respondents were 34% Dem, 28% Republican.

And, if the sample size had been more like the actual 37%/36% party affiliation split (that is, had the sample NOT been overweighted, again, with Dems), you would have had 15%-20% more Republicans in the survey. How would Republicans, versus "Dems," "independents" or "other," have answered the question? Methinks the poll would have shown about 5% +/- more "no plan" responses.

A correctly weighted poll (matching the actual partisan affiliation of the country) would have been more like 76% "No Plan/Not Sure", vs. 24% "Have a Plan".

Note: One week after a national election, wherein hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on media, how do you interpret the 14% who are "not sure" whether the Dems have a plan for Iraq?

As is often said, there is a permanent 15% class... .

Heat It Up and Serve It Again, 40 Years Later

This leftist prescription, disguised as a "study," takes Bummer back to 1970's/1980's radical professors.

Or, to the great Repo Man quote: "I blame society -- society made me what I am."

***

WASHINGTON - Flawed government policies and negative stereotyping of minority men have limited their economic opportunities, a new study says. It urges improved health care and education for minorities and less media consolidation.

The study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research and policy group that focuses on issues that affect minorities, examined the impact of U.S. policies on men of black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American descent.

It said the media and entertainment industries overrepresent minorities as criminals and whites as victims and law enforcers. Blacks are twice as likely as white defendants to be subject to negative pretrial publicity, it said. For Hispanics, three times as likely.

Meanwhile, federal laws such as the No Child Left Behind Act have hurt minorities by driving good teachers away from high-poverty schools to better-funded ones where whites are more highly represented, the report contends.

"We have a duty to stop now and reverse course," says the report, which was commissioned by a group led by Oakland Mayor-elect Ron Dellums.

It comes as Democrats seek to plot a legislative agenda after regaining control of Congress in last week's elections for the first time since 1994.

Democratic congressional leaders have pledged to raise the minimum wage and step up oversight of government agencies.

On another subject the report addresses, the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing the hotly disputed issue of whether to ease government rules to allow for more media consolidation.

Two FCC members, both Democrats, have criticized the idea of consolidation under fewer owners as a threat to minority and niche programming.

The Dellums commission is opposing FCC proposals that would allow media conglomerates to own more broadcasting stations.

Dellums, a Democratic former congressman, said government leaders should be mindful of the plight of lower-income people after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina exposed racial and class divides.

"If you look at this election, not only Iraq but Katrina was on the minds of many voters," said Dellums in a telephone interview. "Katrina exposed the stark reality of the vulnerability of urban life."

"We will have to address the question of the plight of young men of color as the crime rate rises, as the school dropout rate continues to rise, as the poverty rate continues to rise," he added.

According to the report:

_Minorities generally receive inferior health care because they can't afford medical insurance and health facilities are either subpar or nonexistent in their communities.

_White families are more than twice as likely as black families to be upwardly mobile; black families are more than twice as likely to be downwardly mobile. The report attributes higher unemployment rates for minorities in part to poor schooling, discrimination and a mismatch between where they live and where jobs are.

_Minority youth, who make up 23 percent of all Americans aged 10-17, comprise 52 percent of the prison youth population.

The commission recommends that Congress make it a top priority to establish universal health coverage — and that all states extend health coverage to all uninsured children through the age of 18 who are not covered by state Medicaid or other insurance programs.

The report calls on the government to increase the minimum wage and the availability of student loans, and to re-examine sentencing requirements that imprison nonviolent offenders for long periods.

Labor groups such as the AFL-CIO also are committing to help, with plans to offer job training, create distance learning centers and provide mentoring by role models including former NFL players. The program will begin in New Orleans — which bore the brunt of devastation from Katrina — and then be expanded to other major cities.

"The AFL-CIO recognizes the bleak employment prospects for the young men documented by the Dellums Commission," said Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. "The labor movement embraces the report's recommendations and is committed to taking decisive action to improve the environment for them."

Rubbers and Fences

Over the years, the Vatican took the position that condoms were a sin. That thin latex barrier between one side and another, was immoral. It kept the "idea thing" of little Catholics from being born (conception is now the gleam in the eye?), and promoted the idea that sex might be for a purpose other than creation.

Like its anti-condom stance of yore, the Vatican now attacks another "inhuman" barrier:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A senior Vatican cardinal on Tuesday condemned the building of walls between countries to keep out immigrants and said Washington's plan to build a fence on the U.S.-Mexican border was part of an "inhuman program".

Cardinal Renato Martino [said] .... "Speaking of borders, I must unfortunately say that in a world that greeted the fall of the Berlin Wall with joy, new walls are being built between neighborhood and neighborhood, city and city, nation and nation," said Martino, head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace. Asked if the U.S.-Mexican fence was the wrong thing to do, Martino said: "Yes, that's exactly what it is." Martino praised Mexican and U.S. bishops for opposing what he called "an inhuman program, which is what the construction of that wall and all others is".

Al-Reuters cannot help tossing in a little dig at Israel:

"Israel is building a barrier comprised of concrete and razor-topped steel fences along and inside the occupied West Bank. It says the barrier, which is about half-finished, stops suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a land grab that will deny them the viable state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza."

That Election Thingy

It's too early for Bummer to accurately process - as in, smart guy analysis - the 2006 midterm elections. Suffice for now, some thoughts, which are more emotional reactions, than analysis. Since the emotions will fade, best to record them, accurate or not:

- I'm happy the Dems took one house of Congress.

- I'm (surprisingly) neutral that the Dems took both houses.

- Perhaps I'm not paying enough attention, but I don't identify or bond with a single Congressional or Senate 'Pub. No leader inspires me. Zip. Leaderless.

- I'm looking forward to the circus show of some Democrat antics.

- I'm looking forward to a leftist house leadership - Pelosi - trying to keep control over the far-left foilhat committee chairmen. Oh boy.

- Ditto, the Senate.

- I'm worried that I've come to appreciate the Congress as a monkey house. I used to work there. I used to take it seriously. Now, I'm more interested in it, as a monkey show.

- Sorry, B23, but I place a healthy blame for my monkey house attitude on the 'Pubs. They've controlled the show for a dozen years, half of it with Bush in office. I can't blame the NYTimes for all of it.

- "Absolute power corrupted, absolutely."

- I cannot believe that the Mexican border still sits open, and 15 million or so illegal immigrants remain on spring break here, and that the 'Pubs did ... nothing. There is rumor that the border fence was a chimera - that a trick was employed to make it appear to be approved, but rather, it wasn't funded, in fact. It will never be built. This fraud, alone, is a microcosm of my disgust over the Pubs. "Absolute power corrupts, absolutely." Don't let the door slam your rump on the way out. Sure, the wrong guys -- the House Pubs - got punished, I get it, I was learned real good in skool, but ... who else could be punished?

- Congress will skid to gridlock. In a system paralyzed by inertia, Big Ideas emerge. Witness, Reagan. That same Petri dish now exists. Thesis; Antithesis; Synthesis.

- I liked Rumsfeld. A good man. His pre-9.11 plans toreorganize the Pentagon clashed with the military-industrial complex. He made enemies, quick. Those ememies have leaked and tweaked him ever since 9.11. I support him. Iraq is a mess, but ... call me crazy, I like Rumsfeld, and I support him.

- A little word to the B23 - thanks for stopping by here and there.

Missouri Libertarians Hand The Senate to the Dems

So Bummer goes to the neighbor's garage yesterday and votes. Only races really up for grabs here in California were the tax-and-spend ballot initiatives.

So what did Bummer do? He voted against almost all of them. A spiteful little move. And then, he voted Libertarian for every office. Not that he knew any Libertarian candidate. Not that he knew, or agreed with, any platform. Bummer's vote was meaningless (the Dems alway run the table here, except Arnold won in a cakewalk over some dweeb), so Bummer got to act out a little stage play, right in the garage.

And Bummer wanted to throw a hissy fit and say, "I vote 'No Confidence' in all, y'awl."

Now, the 'Pubs lost the House, and the Senate. Control of the Senate - the committee chairmanships, nominations, and of Congress generally - came down to Missouri. (Senator Talent led early, then lost in the wee hours, thereby throwing the Senate to the Dems.)

Bummer's comment is this:

U.S. Senator Precincts Reporting 3678 of 3746

Talent, Jim REP 986,007 47.4%
McCaskull, Claire DEM 1,028,375 49.5%
Gilmour, Frank LIB 46,977 2.3%

Add the 46,977 Libertarian votes to Talent's total, and he'd have 1,032,984. 1,032,984 beats 1,028,375.

The Libertarian protest vote swung the Senate, and history.

What a different world we'd have awakened too, today, if those pissed off Bummerites in Missouri hadn't thrown their own version of a temper tantrum in those garages back in Kansas City.

Bummer doesn't know why those Missourites voted Libertarian, in such a close race. But the Republicans earned this fist to the chin, all by themselves. It's not like the Dems had any compelling message to vote for.

MSM Thug General Gets Benched

Dean Baquet, Editor of the left-leaning L.A. Times, has been canned.

I thought there would be a significant editorial moderation with the recent changes of the publisher and the editorial page editor. But other than the 86'ing of right-leaning cartoonist and a Bush-bashing leftist columnist, nothing changed.

The L.A Times changed its font and format a few weeks ago. Perhaps coincidental to the November elections, I've notice that the front page coverage (mainly, choice of headlines, photos, placement, etc.) seemed to me to veer left again...and it was already left-leaning. Perhaps I was just more attuned to the bias, given the election cycle.

Anyway, let's see if a new editor fixes the perenniel left-bent problems with the front page of the L.A. Times.

More likely, a purchase will be announced shortly, and the buyer (velvet mafia don David Geffen) wanted all the dirty work done, pre-acquistion.

Update: Two billionaires bid to acquire Tribune

Neocons Hit Back at Thug MSM

Vanity Fair - a perfectly named medium celebrating the Hollywood-NYC-Beltway liberal elite delights - publishes a just-before-the-election release callled,

Neo Culpa: Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.

But...

David Frum:

"There has been a lot of talk this season about deceptive campaign ads, but the most dishonest document I have seen is this press release from Vanity Fair ... Vanity Fair added words outside the quote marks to change the plain meaning of quotations...In short, Vanity Fair transformed a Washington debate over "how to correct course and win the war" to advance obsessions all their own. "

Richard Perle:

"Vanity Fair has rushed to publish a few sound bites from a lengthy discussion with David Rose. Concerned that anything I might say could be used to influence the public debate on Iraq just prior to Tuesday’s election, I had been promised that my remarks would not be published before the election.

"I should have known better than to trust the editors at Vanity Fair who lied to me and to others who spoke with Mr. Rose. Moreover, in condensing and characterizing my views for their own partisan political purposes, they have distorted my opinion about the situation in Iraq and what I believe to be in the best interest of our country."

"Get Out"

At least the Iraqi judiciary knows how to handle leftwing nutjob thugs:

During Sunday's hearing, Saddam initially refused the chief judge's order to rise; two bailiffs pulled the ousted ruler to his feet and he remained standing through the sentencing, sometimes wagging his finger at the judge.

Before the session began, one of Saddam's lawyers, former U.S. AttorneyGeneral Ramsey Clark* , was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.

Chief Judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman pointed to Clark and said in English, "Get out."

___
* - President Truman appointed Ramsey Clark's father as Attorney General. "Tom Clark was my biggest mistake... . It's just that he's such a dumb son of a bitch." He later became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Lyndon Johnson despised Associate Justice Tom Clark. There is ample speculation that master politician Johnson knew that by appointing dull stick Ramsey Clark as A.G., his father would be forced to resign from the Supreme Court, as Tm Clark would be forced to recuse himself from every case in which the United States was a party. Ramsey dim-wittedly accepted the appointment, thus forcing his father to resign.

So much for 25-watt bulb Ramsey Clark's ability to look 10 yards down the field.

Electoral Wants vs. Electoral Gets

Bummer isn't following the polls (too busy at work conspiring to make mind poison for mass audiences.)

But Bummer's Big Dumb Insular View:

Nice if it happens: Bummer likes the populist streak of the House. Bummer likes the House Republican attitudes about immigration. Bummer hopes the 'Publicans keep the House, so that the grass roots will (a) continue to challenge Bush and (b) will keep the foilhat leftists from gaining control of all the House committees.

Bummer wouldn't mind the Senate going Dem. This would be a decent -- but non Jacobian - check and balance upon the 'Publican control of the White House, the House, the Judiciary and the Bureaucracy...

What will happen: Bummer has a sneaky, uninformed, downright delusional hunch that the 'Pubs will retain effective control over both houses of Congress. The Kerry anti-soldier quip greatly helps Republican get-out-the-vote efforts, because it GREATLY pissed off the 'Pub base, who otherwise were threatening to sit at home in protest of Bush (none of which "pissed off and I want to show it" attitude will show up in week-old "likely voter" polling).

And ..... let's not forget this little Saddam publicity matter, 36 hours before the polls open. A death sentence for Saddam ... I can't imagine the Leftists spinning that to their benefit. It would help burnish the emotional feeling that, things are not for naught, in Iraq. That helps Republicans, meaning that the Republican base will actually go vote, proudly, not intimidated or swayed by the MSM's 24/7 message that Iraq is a disaster.

Of course, many or most who have looked at data (Bummer has not) believe - based upon polls - that the Dems will take both houses. Such polls (a) are based upon predictions of likely voters, which with the Dems always involve iffy math, and (b) don't capture the gestalt of the waning days of the campaigns -- that is, when people actually decide whether to go jogging, go to Starbucks or go vote, and what affects those decisions on micro and macro levels.

Bummer thinks the last-minute Kerry and Saddam developments will have some marginal effect upon those decisions, at a micro level, and that the macro effect simply will not be reflected in stale polling from the last week.

For certain: We'll know in a few days!