As happens with every good thing, this blog has run its course. We had a great run, the lot of us. Left, right...in between? We tried to bring you insight from every angle in a format that allowed expression of opinion, interplay between reader and writer and a bit of humor. I think we largely succeeded.

We all appreciated those who read our words regardless if you agreed or not. I for one drew immensely differing opinions. The written word, whether written by me or the exquisite Peggy Noonan is an absolute expression of the one who wrote such words, just as the comments were.

I find it refreshing that this medium has as much of an impact as it does. I'm not sure if blogs and public opinion are changing the world, yet one would hope that we have some small effect, whether it be a change in a Senate vote or a change in one single opinion. Politics have changed because we--and I mean you the reader as well as me the commentator--have paid attention and every single news story is a chance for us to comment and call those we elect on the carpet.

I've been writing online for nearly five years and I've posted things that were erroneous. At the very second I was proven wrong, I posted a retraction and let my story stand because that is the way of the citizen journalist. I wish that the pros would do the same. Perhaps with our persuasion they will.

Anyway, thank you for your loyalty and thank you to all the great writers assembled here. Thank you to Kathleen, David and Chris for holding this thing together and turning out a great product. Honestly, being highly skewed to the GOP end, I thought I would be highly edited. No way, my opinions were exactly like I wrote them and I believe every other writer enjoyed that same freedom. That's what made this blog roll along day in and day out.

Mostly though, I wish to thank our readers without whom we would have stopped in December. You were hard-core and read us, commented to us and picked off every single written mistake we've made. That's how it should be. I enjoyed the debate and hope to keep it going elsewhere. We are at a major crossroads in our great nation and debate is exactly what is needed. Personally, I got down and dirty with Manny, Veg and others and enjoyed the perspective you brought even though I couldn't agree any less. Thanks to all the guys and girls out there who took the time to tell me I'm an idiot--until now it was only my beautiful wife who thought that was the case. Please visit my other blog and continue the debate.

Finally, let me say that AOL tried something a bit bold here--a group blog with numerous opinions and numerous takes on daily events. That had not really been done previously and I applaud them for taking the risk and assembling an eclectic mix of bloggers. I was once asked via a commenter why the right-wing was so well represented. That's easy, we're Republicans and any chance of making money was not to be ignored so we wrote every day so we didn't miss out on the paycheck.

Thank you all and I will truly miss you all. Almost a year of my life was spent doing this and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Respectfully.

Scott

The always excellent Marc Abinder brings us a preview of the October fundraising numbers. This of course will have tremendous implications for the direction of the GOP primary.

Romney has loaned himself nearly $9M, which, when subtracted from his $12M cash-on-hand, would suggest that receipts in have not kept pace with disbursements, generally, which have totaled more than $32M. Romney donors said that they had been told that Romney was prepared to spend another $5M to keep his campaign's budget intact. They give a range of $10M to $12M for individual contributions in the third quarter.

John McCain will raise between $4 and $5M; Fred Thompson will probably raise around $6M.

If this is true that Fred Thompson is barely ahead of John McCain in the fundraising department, it certainly does not bode well for Team Thompson. Even considering that Thompson has not revved up the engine throughout the third quarter, he should have been able to reach out and tap the primary network of contributors for a big initial flush of cash. Either his network isn't very big, or the enthusiasm with which his campaign has been received will receive a cold shower.

Seems like everyone's following the lead of our flip-flopping 2008 presidential candidates -- from Columbia University president Lee Bollinger reversing course and bad-mouthing his guest, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Verizon changing direction and allowing NARAL to send pro-abortion text messages to its (Verizon's) customers after all. Is a national trend forming? Susannah and Bob discuss in the latest "Running Gags"!


Merci to my muse for mentioning both news stories.

Earlier this week, I posted an article that explains what is now conventional wisdom: Hillary cannot be stopped. This week, in protest to that popular meme, several bloggers argued that it was still way too early in the process. This post by Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics is typical:

Again, to Jay's point, the polls right now dictate the chatter, but they hardly give any indication about where we're headed. Let's take a quick look back at the trajectory of the '04 race in Iowa. In late October 2003 - still another four weeks from where we are in this year's race - Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt were running neck and neck, with John Kerry a distant third and John Edwards a very distant fourth. The race remained frozen in that position through the beginning of January as shown by an Iowa Poll taken just two weeks before the caucuses. Another Iowa poll taken just days before the vote picks up on the significant movement occurring as people focused on the race. And we all know how the final results looked...

That certainly is true, in 2004 things did shift enormously, at least two times on the Democratic side. We had the collapse and rebirth of John Kerry, we had the collapse of Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt.

But my argument is not based on the idea that Hillary is unassailable because she is so far ahead. Rather she is so far ahead because her challengers are fatally flawed candidates. In other words. She's unstoppable because there is no one running who can stop her.

Both Edwards and Obama have a huge experience gap with the potential Republican nominee. They both have gotten where they are through good messaging and hard work. I don't want to shortchange that, but it can only get you so far. Earlier this year I speculated that Richardson might rally the anti-Hillary vote. But he is just too goofy, to put it nicely. Whatever it is that defines being "presidential" Richardson does not have, not even an ounce. Which is too bad for the Democrats, but that's another story.

John Edwards got himself in some hot water yesterday, although I'd be shocked if you read it in tomorrow's paper:

"We cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating - pretty soon we're not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They're all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two."

Now imagine if Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney had said something akin to that.

NRO makes it clear that the African-American community is not all Bloods/Crips, Kanye West/50-Cent and Glock/Mac-10 but is a community that is sending their children to college and making great inroads. Of course we have inner city violence and that is more of a cultural issue hat must be addressed but Edwards made a huge mistake here, even more than the mistake the prominent GOP candidates made by not attending the debate last night.

Edwards sounds a bit Dixiecratish. For those who think the GOP is the party of racists, do yourself a favor and read of current Senator Robert Byrd's KKK Kleagle days or the fact that Al Gore's father was anti-civil rights. Educate yourself on where the parties history on racism lies.

Every so often, a Democrat actually proposes a bill that shows exactly how they would act if they were given a clear majority in both houses and the presidency. Rep. John Dingell is doing that now:

Dealing with global warming will be painful, says one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. To back up his claim he is proposing a recipe many people won't like - a 50-cent gasoline tax, a carbon tax and scaling back tax breaks for some home owners.

"I'm trying to have everybody understand that this is going to cost and that it's going to have a measure of pain that you're not going to like," Rep. John Dingell, who is marking his 52nd year in Congress, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

First off, 52 years in Congress? If that isn't a reason to propose term limits, what is?

Dingell wants gas constantly over $3-4 per gallon and he'll use the money to fight "global warming," a crisis that scientists can't even agree on, right? Well, not exactly:

Some of the revenue would be used to reduce payroll taxes, but most would go elsewhere including for highway construction, mass transit, paying for Social Security and health programs and to help the poor pay energy bills.

If that is not a Democratic plan, nothing is. The esteemed Representative wants to raise taxes under the guise of fighting global warming and will instead use the money to pay for social programs created by Democrats that have grown to large for the government to support. This show exquisitely that every single program the Dems enact needs a huge tax burden to support: Welfare, Social Security, Medicare, etc. The list goes on. The fact is, this is all a drop in the bucket if socialized medicine ever passes.

With the last three days of the Major League Baseball season upon us, I've thought of how a baseball season is akin to a political race. Being it's a Friday and everything should be lighter on a Friday, let's look at this more closely.

A campaign, like the 162-game major league season is a marathon, not a sprint, a bad day in a campaign can be overcome the next day or week by a good showing and a mistake today could back and haunt a candidate in the crucial final weeks. Some candidates go out to an early lead and cruise winning two out of three games every series while some teams lead for the entire race and all of a sudden find themselves tied with one series left and momentum going against them.

In a dramatic turnaround from statements that he made a few months ago, former Senator John Edwards has now decided to accept public funding for his Presidential campaign.

John Edwards' decision to accept public matching funds to finance his campaign is a political blow but it's probably also the only lifeline he has to stay in the race. The simple fact is that Edwards was never going to keep pace with the Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, or the upstart campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

This represents the end for Edwards' campaign for the Presidency, since Edwards won't be able to match the media spending by Clinton or Obama next year. But it does enable him to stay in the race through the primaries, something that the other non-front running Democratic Presidential aspirants might not be able to do.

I'm not sure what Edwards goal is. I don't think he's a viable Vice-Presidential candidate for either Hillary or Obama. Post 2004 election analysis was pretty definitive in showing that Edwards didn't really bring much to the Kerry campaign. The Kerry-Edwards ticket even lost Edwards' home state of North Carolina in 2004, 56% - 44%.

Edwards for President 2012, anyone?

The 2008 Defense Budget is an integral part of the wars we are now fighting, in addition to being essential for preparing for conflicts to come. It's the base funding for the entire Defense Department - our military. This bill in particular takes care of some issues that have been in the news recently - increased military pay, increased benefits and care for soldiers that have been wounded fighting our wars, and more armored vehicles - to name just a few. These are all things that the Democrats have been screaming about for months. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once promised that the bill would go through clean, with no unrelated extraneous amendments added to muddy it up.

So why are the Democrats now jeopardizing the passage of the bill by adding, at the last minute, a Ted Kennedy authored homosexual hate crimes amendment, having nothing to do with the Defense Department, to the spending measure? The Army Times reminds us that the House passed the 2008 Defense Budget in May. Since then, the Senate has spent alot of time attempting to attach anti-Iraq War amendments to their version of the bill, but each one failed. So they throw one last minute unrelated liberal social agenda amendment onto the bill, in effect challenging Bush to veto the entire measure. It's almost as if the Dems did this out of spite.

The Kennedy amendment is a transparent attempt to get back into the good graces of the Left after the Democrats failed to do what they had promised (actually guaranteed) their base that they would do - get the US out of Iraq. The amendment passed, gaining 60 votes, but that's not enough to override a Presidential veto. Let's say the 2008 Defense Budget passes, and gets to conference committee with the House. There's a good chance that this amendment won't be in the final version sent to the President. But let's say it survives.

More details are emerging from the investigation into Blackwater's role in the deaths of over 20 civilians in Iraq on September 16. According to the New York Times, American investigators have learned that the incident began when a bomb went off near a meeting of U.S. officials. What followed was a chaotic, poorly managed evacuation, in which Blackwater employees fired upon anything in their path. That included a woman and her infant, who were among those killed.

As many commentators have noted, one disturbing thing about farming out security in a war is the lack of accountability that private companies face. Witness the follow-through on recent threats by the Iraqi government to kick Blackwater out of Iraq. Outsourcing war, while filling in troop gaps, has disturbing consequences.

On the surface, it would seem that the firms and the U.S. military would be working toward the same end: to secure the country. Yet, as we've seen with Halliburton, these private companies are not beyond overcharging and fraud. And, as Robert Gates pointed out earlier this week, we have big problem with losing highly trained soldiers to companies like Blackwater. Why? Money.

Yes, the war is a huge windfall to select group of private companies. When it comes to loyalty, our military is a direct representation of the United States government, yet private security firms work for the highest bidder. That may mean a Sunni sheik one day, and a resurgent Shia politician the next. By every Pentagon calculation, the longer the war drags on, the fewer troops we'll be able to rotate into the country. Therefore, we will become increasingly reliant on contractors like Blackwater in the coming year. That means, of course, that those companies stand to make a lot more money from a protracted war. What was that Doobie Brothers refrain? "Old black water, keep on rollin."

Harry Reid pulled the plug on an effort to get the DREAM act passed in the defense authorization bill:

"We will move to proceed to this matter before we leave here. I"m going to do my utmost to do it by November 16," Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said last night.

The proposal faced strong opposition from Republicans who objected to mixing immigration with the defense bill and who vowed to filibuster to defeat the measure if Democrats insisted on bringing it up now.

The atmosphere around any kind of immigration reform is extremely poisonous. The flaw of this bill is in the proof of residency, as this Heritage report tells us:

There is no upper age limit. Any illegal alien can walk into a U.S. Customs and Immigration Ser­vices office and declare that he is eligible. For example, a 45 year old can claim that he illegally entered the United States 30 years ago at the age of 15. There is no requirement that the alien prove that he entered the United States at the claimed time by providing particular documents. The DREAM Act's Section 4(a) merely requires him to "demonstrate" that he is eligible-which in practice could mean simply making a sworn statement to that effect. Thus, it is an invitation for just about every illegal alien to fraudulently claim the amnesty.

There might be a good law waiting to be made around the idea of a pass to illegal aliens who broke the law through the actions of their parents and not on their own accord. But this isn't it.

Reid and the other Democrats may give this another go, but without key Republicans and the White House on board, it's probably a lost cause for them.

67-29 which is a veto sustaining majority in the Senate. President Bush has already declared an intention to veto, with some extremely masterful language:

Today, the Senate passed a State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill that fails to focus on poor children, and instead creates a new entitlement program for higher income households. In fact, the bill specifically eliminates the requirement that states enroll 95% of children in households under 200% of the federal poverty level.

The President will veto this bill because it directs scarce funding to higher incomes at the expense of poor families.

We encourage Congress to send the President a continuing resolution extending SCHIP so coverage for the children who rely on the program will not be threatened. We should take this time to arrive at a more rational, bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization bill that focuses on children in poor families who don't currently have insurance, rather than raising taxes to cover people who already have private insurance.

When the bill passed the House, it did not do so with enough votes to sustain a veto in that body. I would expect that the Democrats would want to put it up for another vote, just to increase the pressure "for the children." This issue is just too easy to demagogue, they won't give up that opportunity.

On the merits of the bill, I'm with the president completely. If the politicians want to do something to help working class families around health care, how about full tax credits for health care? How about coming up with a comprehensive solution to the portability problem? In my opinion this is all about fixing a problem that largely does not exist for the opportunity to beat your political opponent about the head and neck.

Pass SCHIP as it was last year and move on to a real issue.

He'll be the savior of the conservative movement, I tell ya.

Please Newt, don't do it. Sure, you may get the Conservative Christian vote, but that's not even the majority of the GOP vote and you'll get exactly zero of the Independent and Democrat vote unless some little old ladies have trouble with their butterfly ballots again. Keep you day job as commentator on various news shows as your time has passed and to be honest, you're not all that appealing. Here's the scoop:

Matt Towery, a former senior aide to Newt Gingrich, had dinner with the former House Speaker and notes "it is clear that the presidency is now very much" on his mind "and that he remains convinced that none of the candidates in the current field has captured the imagination of the party."

And Newt will? This is an excuse for Newt, he sees a traffic jam and he's going to ride in and steal votes from Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. All that will happen is he'll take some of the social conservative vote from Rudy, some of the Southern vote from Fred and plod along in the 8-11% range where Romney's currently residing and get crushed in the primaries.

You know what Newt? On second thought, run and take some of the heat off the candidates that really matter. It will be like a two-week vacation for Giuliani and Thompson so throw your hat in.

It's hard to quibble with the Clinton's assertion. Still, even though he is right, the MoveOn ad was lame. Decide for yourself.

The chances of soon-to-be former Senator Larry Craig overturning his conviction are slim to none, unless the ruling judge is a closet Democrat who is really enjoying this. Craig's decision to plead guilty was not coerced in the 15 minutes he had between the time he was arrested and his court hearing -- he had more than eight weeks to review his options, including hiring an attorney to represent him and choosing to fight the charges. He chose not to -- and chose to plead guilty. In fact, Craig seemed quite happy with his guilty plea, until the story became public. The judge hearing the Senator's attempt to throw out his plea said he will rule on this sometime next week, so Craig has decided not to resign on Sunday, as he had 'promised':

After arguments were heard in court today in Minneapolis, in which lawyers for Senator Larry Craig sought to undo his guilty plea in the airport restroom case, Mr. Craig issued a brief statement that was posted on his Senate Web site: "Today was a major step in the legal effort to clear my name. The court has not issued a ruling on my motion to withdraw my guilty plea. For now, I will continue my work in the United States Senate for Idaho." Mr. Craig, a longtime Republican senator from Idaho, had earlier announced that he would resign his Senate seat on Sept. 30 - just four days from now. But he also later emphasized, through aides and a bizarrely misrouted voicemail that became public, that he was only announcing his "intention" to resign. And that he wanted to fight to reverse the misdemeanor conviction.

I don't know if Craig has any other recourse, such as taking this to a higher court, if the judge rules against him. If the Senator does, I'm sure he'll take advantage of that and try to stay in office until those are heard as well.

There is only one certainty in this whole affair. Every day this is prolonged, Larry Craig is becoming a bigger and bigger national laughingstock.