ABSENT: Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mitt Romney

PRESENT: Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Alan Keyes

What were they thinking? They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the four empty chairs on the podium of the Republicans' recent debate on Thursday, September 27th at Morgan State University spoke volumes. Regardless of the spin or the rationale (reported "scheduling conflicts" for each of them), those candidates obviously did not think it was worth their while to show up and there is no way to interpret that except that they didn't think it was important to reach out to these blocs of voters -- which is interesting, since the over 60, white male, southern voter is probably going to vote for one of them anyway and is a shrinking population. I'm not sure a candidate can win the national election anymore with over 60, while male, southern voters.

Mike Huckabee said he was "embarrassed for our party and I'm embarrassed for those who didn't come."

Sam Brownback said, "I think this is a disgrace that they are not here...a disgrace to our country...bad for our party...I don't think it's good for our future."

The general consensus is that after the primary, whoever the Republicans select will start moving towards the center and reaching out to these other voters. Good luck with that strategy. There are a lot of us around who will remind people of who was important, or not, to the candidate in September 2007.

For all of you who have followed along with us....I didn't write these, don't know who did, but I think they're wonderful. If we can't laugh at ourselves, then life is just no fun! Enjoy...

Some guy bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: "Free to good home. You want it, you take it". For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were too un-trusting of this deal. It looked to good to be true, so he changed the sign to read: "Fridge for sale $50". The next day someone stole it.

Caution! . . . . . These people vote.

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While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was North because, he explained, he didn't want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, "Does the sun rise in the North?"
When my brother explained that the sun rises in the East, (and ha s for sometime), she shook her head and said, "Oh, I don't keep up with that stuff"

I originally wrote about Blackwater back in April, "Outsourcing the War: Blackwater USA". Based on the comments I received at the time, no one seemed to have a big problem with these mercenaries (versus loyal Americans willing to fight for $30,000 a month) operating below the horizon in Iraq (and New Orleans, post-Katrina) . Fast forward five months....

Blackwater is now being investigated by just about everybody for this, that and the other thing. Little things like selling arms to terrorists (as in our weapons, traced through serial numbers, ending up in the hands of terrorists in the Middle East).

One could make a good argument that they were simply doing their job when they killed the 11 (or 20) Iraqi terrorists (or civilians) after the State Department convoy they were guarding (under their lucrative 3/4 billion dollar contract with the U.S. State Department) was attacked. I've heard people say that by definition, our volunteer army is, in fact, a mercenary army. I know or know of many military people, those who have chosen to devote their careers to serving their country, like my brother, and those who volunteered to serve after 9/11 out of patriotism, the sons and daughters and husbands and wives of people I know. Not one of them is in it for the money.

The Iraqi government has said as many as 20 civilians were killed by gunfire from Blackwater USA contractors who were guarding a U.S. diplomatic convoy. Iraqi officials dispute the U.S. claim that the guards were responding to an attack. The Blackwater employees involved in the incident are still in Iraq, but those who fired weapons -- about a third of the guards -- were "standing down," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Outside experts may be brought in to help review the "protective service details" in Baghdad, McCormack said. Such details usually have 15 to 20 guards. The "full, complete review" would look at rules of engagement and overall operations, with consultation with lawyers over what authority contractors operate under, he said.

Sunday's shooting has created new tension between the U.S. and Iraqi governments. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed regret about the incident in a phone call to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and promised an open and transparent probe into what happened.

The problem with outsourcing government services is that private firms are in business to make money, not serve the greater good. When billions of dollars are being loosely thrown at no-bid contracts (those would be our tax dollars at work, thank you) that will be administered by private firms whose only purpose in life is to make a profit, contracts awarded without competitive bidding, without any oversight afterward or accountability by or to the American people, the end result is pretty much predictable.

As an aside, one could also make a comment about how safe conditions have become in Iraq since the surge was implemented. Just a stroll in an Indiana open marketplace. Not only were Blackwater operations suspended after this incident, but all non-military personnel were forbidden to leave the so-called "safe" Green Zone. As of Saturday, all Blackwater "services" have been resumed, so it is now okay for our congressional delegations to venture out so they can return home to tell us how wonderful everything is over there.

In a campaign season where the emphasis will hopefully be, at least in part, on integrity and honesty, strength of character, etc, etc., what does it say about a candidate who rewrites his own press releases to delete someone that turned out to be an embarrassment to him? Senator Larry Craig was Mitt Romney's Senate liaison up until a few days ago, at which time his relationship with Mr. Romney was severed for reasons that make all kinds of sense. However, all references to Senator Craig have now been removed from previously published press releases -- check out his Web site.

It's one thing to sever a relationship when someone you hired turns out not to be the one with whom you want to be associated -- seems to be happening a lot these days. However, to pretend the relationship never existed is something else again. Nations have been known to rewrite history to serve their own ends -- even our own history textbooks gloss over much of what might be considered unpleasant aspects of our history. Of course, it doesn't change history, just attempts to mislead people.

Mr. Romney has shown a convenient propensity to change his views on controversial issues in order to better appeal to certain constituencies now that he is running for president. I guess he also has a propensity to change (or hire people who will change) the facts to suit his purposes as well. You would think that in this day of the Internet and instant video replays that these people would get it. You can't hide this stuff.

Addendum: I thought the above opinion was clear, but after reading many of the comments below, apparently it was not. I have absolutely NO problem with Mr. Romney immediately severing his association with Senator Craig. It is what any politician with a brain in his or her head would have done and should have done. I think the Senator's behavior was sleazy and pathetic. What made it doubly so, in my opinion, was the hypocrisy that it represented given his dogmatic stance against gays, gay rights, etc., etc. (me thinks thou doth protest too much).

What bothered me about what Romney's campaign did was that by changing an already published press release to delete all references to Senator Craig's former position with the campaign, they were, in fact, rewriting history. I think we have had enough of an administration in the last six years that has played loose with the truth and assumed that Americans were gullible or naive enough that they could "change" the truth and that would make it so. All Mr. Romney had to do was to announce that he was severing the relationship with Senator Craig because in light of current events, it was obvious that he did not represent the values in which Mr. Romney believes. End of story. This sort of behavior strikes me as a knee-jerk reaction to a situation without thinking through the ramifications -- not something that gives me warm fuzzies about his potential administration.

Tucked inside an article in the Los Angeles Times today was a little bombshell of information that is going to shake up a lot of people. It turns out that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker's report will actually be written by the White House. So much for any credibility that report will have -- and so much for all the Republican politicians and some Democrats who have been saying, "Wait for the Petraeus report in September, let's give him a chance."

It wasn't too long ago when a group of Republican congressional office holders met "secretly" with the president and one of their key messages was that the only one with any credibility, the only one whom people would trust to tell them the truth, was General Petraeus. NOT THE WHITE HOUSE OR PRESIDENT BUSH.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

Why am I not surprised?

Oops... the politicos left town, and left a general unleashed. Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the president's so-called War Czar (whom we will never hear from again), points out the obvious -- that reinstating the military draft has always been on the table. Maybe on the lowest shelf, but on the table nonetheless. Just what the Bush administration needs -- another boost to help the Democrats win in 2008.

One of the unending challenges for politicians has been how to mobilize the under-30 voters and actually get them to the polls. It's the one demographic where apathy runs rampant. One can only imagine how those potential voters would act if the prospect of being drafted to serve in this increasingly unpopular war were actually on the table.

Unfortunately, given the track record for honesty and candor in this administration, just saying it would never happen doesn't mean it would never happen. The military is stretched very thin by all accounts. What would happen if another major front opened up where we needed warriors?? Most everyone says it would take a year to fully redeploy our troops out of Iraq as it is -- where would the new soldiers come from? Do we choose not to defend ourselves?

Talk about a bad Monday....

According to the Associated Press, five more ministers announced a boycott of Cabinet meetings, leaving the prime minister's unity government without unity, i.e. no Sunni members -- just as U.S. military officials start expressing cautious optimism with respect to progress on security and strides against insurgents.

A suicide bomber killed at least 28 people in a northern Shiite city, including 19 children.

Our military announced the deaths of five U.S. soldiers, four in a combat explosion in Diyala province and one in fighting in eastern Baghdad.

On the plus side, our Ambassador to Iraq is meeting with his counterpart in Iran (yes, IRAN), described as "frank and serious".

It is really hard to figure out what is going on these days given the amount of double-speak and spin coming out of Washington, but I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that regardless of what happens "on the ground" between now and September, that there is not a chance in hell that Bush would admit things weren't going according to plan and that we would begin redeploying troops out of Iraq to other hot spots where they are needed. Republican candidates are just going to have to deal with that reality as the American people become more and more angry.

The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter, had given Attorney General Alberto Gonzales until noon today to provide the committee with a plausible explanation that could be made public which would explain the discrepancies between his testimony and the testimony of his FBI Director, Robert Mueller, under oath before Congress. Well, the answer came from the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, not from Gonzales, and not by noon. I guess it's the best they could come up with:

The reason for the difference in recollections was that at the time, the Warrantless Surveillance Program wasn't officially called the Terrorist Surveillance Program...so they were really talking about the same thing.

Really. Kind of ranks right up there with "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is". Not sure this will satisfy the senators. Also, relations between the Justice Department and the FBI are reportedly pretty icy at the moment. No surprise there.

I suppose that Democrats hope President Bush continues to stand by his attorney general and I guess that he is becoming a gross embarrassment to the Republicans, who probably wish he would just go away.

Per Merriam-Webster, "perjury" is defined as:

The voluntary violation of an oath or vow, either by swearing to what is untrue or by omission to do what has been promised under oath: false swearing.

It appears that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the top law enforcement officer in the nation, our top cop if you will, has repeatedly been lying, obfuscating, evading the truth, not remembering the facts and circumstances under oath -- call it what you will. New documents from the administration itself surfaced yesterday that directly contradict Mr. Gonzales' latest testimony with respect to the late night visit to former A.G. John Ashcroft's hospital room in order to talk him into approving a program that he had already refused to approve.

While many Bush supporters insist that Congress is not doing the people's business by trying to get to the truth of the numerous issues that have surfaced and will continue to surface with respect to integrity and credibility, I would suggest that there is almost nothing more important to the underpinnings of our government than the rule of law. When the nation's top cop displays utmost disrespect to the other branches of government, lies under oath to Congress and otherwise demonstrates what, at best, is gross incompetence and abdication of his responsibilities to White House politicos -- I would suggest that this issue is at the very heart of the people's business.

Bush Quotes on Iraq:

Thursday: (fill in the blank)

Tuesday: "I strongly believe that we will prevail."

January 10, 2007: "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."

November 2005: "Iraqis are making inspiring progress."

October 2005: "Iraq has made incredible political progress."

April 2005: "We're making good progress in Iraq."

September 2004: "Iraq is making steady progress."

October 2003: "We're making really good progress."

Since the start of the so-called surge, we have lost 600 additional American lives in Iraq and 3,000 of our soldiers have been injured. We are spending a little over $250,000 per minute in Iraq this fiscal year. The cost of posting a single U.S. soldier in Iraq has risen to $390,000 per year. 69 percent of Iraqis think that our presence in their country is making security worse (as of a poll this spring). 22 percent of Iraqis support the presence of coalition troops in Iraq, down from 32 percent in 2005.

Yesterday, Homeland Defense Secretary, Michael Chertoff, told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune that he had a "gut feeling" about a new period of increased risk from al-Qaida. He reportedly based his "assessment" on earlier patterns of terrorists in Europe and intelligence "he would not disclose".

Summertime seems to be appealing to them....We worry that they are rebuilding their activities.

Even I know that Osama bin Laden and his people are (probably) actively at work along the Afghan-Pakistani border and that since 9/11 the group has splintered and has active cells around the world. I also know that our resources have been mostly tied up in Iraq. I know that one of the primary reasons that we are targeted (hated) to a fanatical degree by Islamic militants/terrorists is due to our presence in the Middle East. Since 9/11, we have taken down two Middle East governments and it would be safe to say that our presence in the Middle East is more significant than before and expected to remain so for the foreseeable future. We live in a world of increasing risk -- it is the world that we and our children and grandchildren can expect to live in.

It is my opinion that for the secretary of Homeland Defense to throw out this comment the way he did was not particularly helpful and, in fact, could reasonably lead to increased anxiety on the part of his fellow Americans. So why say it? If one looks at the pattern of such pronouncements, clearly designed to remind us that we should be afraid, they are usually made when there are other unpleasant issues in the news that are grabbing press attention (Iraq, Gonzales, etc.). If there are specific threats that he is aware of and that should not be shared publicly, perhaps his time would be better spent doing his job.

A warning to start: I first heard this on Tucker Carlon's show on MSNBC today. Time.com also posted a story asking legal questions. And it all originated with a series in the Boston Globe. If true, it is really an awful statement about the man. If it's not, I will say right up front that I will post an apology -- because I think it is that awful. Even Tucker stated, more than once, that he probably wouldn't be able to vote for Mitt Romney now.

So here's the story: Reportedly, on a family vacation in 1983, i.e. when his kids were young, Romney strapped the family dog in a carrier to the top of their car for a long automobile trip. Here's more from TIME:

The incident: dog excrement found on the roof and windows of the Romney station wagon. How it got there: Romney strapped a dog carrier - with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it - to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus's rather visceral protest.

The Globe has the full account, including the fact that Romney used a makeshift windshield for the dog. Interestingly, this incident was apparently put forth by the Romney campaign as an example of the candidate's emotion-free problem-solving skills, or some such nonsense -- something to do with how he handled cleaning up the mess the dog made that ran all over the car (probably because it was scared to death.)

I grew up on a ranch, majored in biology for a time and I am an avid animal lover, so I wouldn't pretend to be objective on this issue. But cruelty to animals (and there really isn't any other way to describe such an act), let alone the cruelty to his children who had to witness the act, certainly is not a quality I would want in a presidential candidate. Whereas his statements about being an avid hunter (for sport not food) were for show and bad enough, think about the mindset of a man that would do such a thing to the family dog. My family dog would have been thrilled to stretch out across the kids in the back seat for the ride.

The Los Angeles Times released its latest Times/Bloomberg Poll today, the results of polling 1,056 registered voters by telephone Thursday through Sunday, with 408 Republican-leaning voters and 449 Democratic-leaning voters. The margin of error was +/- 3 percentage points for all voters and +/- 5 points for voters in each primary.

Barack Obama is the strongest Democrat in hypothetical match-ups with Republicans in the general election, running even or well ahead of the GOP's top contenders, while Hillary Clinton does not fare as well. However, Hillary is still 11 percentage points ahead of Obama among the Democratic primary candidates. Al Gore runs third and John Edwards fourth. Clinton was a heavy favorite among voters who value experience in government and policy making over an ability to bridge partisan divides. However, a majority of Democrats and Independents who plan to vote in the party's nominating contests say that a candidate's ability to bridge those divides is more important -- and those voters favor Obama.

In head-to-head match-ups, Obama would defeat Rudy Giuliani 46% to 41%, defeat John McCain 47% to 35% and beat Mitt Romney by double digits. Since Fred Thompson is not yet officially in the race, that match-up was not polled.

I think that they have nailed the real issue facing Democrats in 2008. If Hillary is nominated, she may well win, but the fight will be bloody and tear the nation even further apart. If Obama is nominated, he won't have the experience or seasoning of Hillary, but he has the potential to bring the country together again.

General Colin Powell was interviewed by Tim Russert on a variety of topics this past Sunday on Meet the Press. He answered any number of questions about the war in Iraq and the lead up to it. He also confirmed that Sen. Barack Obama had come to him for advice and counsel (and that he would be available to any other candidate who came to him as well). He refused to say who he would support in the 2008 presidential elections -- in fact, refused to say that he would support the Republican candidate, just that he would support the best-qualified candidate.

Tucker Carlson had an interesting reaction to that interview today. It went something like, well, you know I highly respect General Powell and I really hope that Obama gets the Democratic nod over Hilary Clinton, but why in the world would Obama go to Powell for advice after he was personally responsible for our going to war in Iraq?

I can't imagine anyone better for Obama to go to for advice and counsel concerning foreign affairs, matters of state and the military. General Powell is a warrior, a man of honor and conviction. Unfortunately, there were people in the administration who took advantage of that honor and, in my opinion, set him up to make that speech at the U.N., knowing that doubters like myself would say, "If General Powell says it's what we need to do, then we need to do it." That is exactly how I felt at the time. Is it any wonder that he still will not trash the administration or man that he served? It is not now and never will be his nature to do so. He is a military man of honor and integrity through and through.

One can only hope that whoever wins the presidency in 2008 will again ask the general to serve his country. He is sorely missed, IMHO.

In a CNN interview this morning, General Petraeus has confirmed that the U.S. is going to be providing some Sunni groups in Iraq with weapons to use against al-Qaida in Iraq. The logic is that weapons are easily available around the world so we might as well arm them. An article in the New York Times today goes into more detail.

I would think the risk of those weapons being used in the civil war against the Shiites and the risk of those weapons being used against U.S. troops (both possibilities acknowledged by the General) would argue against this strategy, but apparently the potential benefits outweigh the risks.

The strategy has been successful in Anbar province, where the local Sunnis got fed up with all the killing of Iraqis by the insurgents. In return for arms, the Sunnis have to agree to use them against al-Qaida and to halt attacks on American units. In some cases, the Sunni groups have agreed to alert American troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.

On the other hand, critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say that it could amount to our arming both sides in a future civil war. With little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against the Shiites and/or against us. The Shiites are not thrilled with this new plan, not unexpectedly.

It's an interesting roll of the dice -- with historically mixed results that have often backfired, such as in the French colonial war in Algeria, the British-led fight against insurgents in Malaya in the early 1950s and in Vietnam. However, even if only partly successful, as one officer said, the strategy could do as much or more to stabilize Iraq as the increase in U.S. troops previously ordered by President Bush ("the surge") -- which may not be saying much in the long run.