Iraq

What's more unpopular: the Iraq War or the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Debt Bill?

I'm shocked to see this comparison.  I thought - indeed, I was told - that no decent human being would ever consider doing so.

In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 123 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.

According to the Defense Department, 65 soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq. About the same number were killed in Afghanistan over that same period.

Shocked, I tell you.

UPDATE:  Instapundit beat me to it.

"The powers that are granted to the President by the Constitution are
borrowed from the people, all others must be stolen from them."

It's rather amazing how little has been said in the media about the recent Congressional Hearings on Congressional Limits to Executive Power. 

The entire 6-hour video is archived on CSPAN here

Bruce Fein makes some profound remarks in this short excerpt:

Vincent Bugliosi makes some equally interesting statements. (more available on YouTube)

Obama-style:

Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

GOP rival John McCain zinged Obama as a flip-flopper. "The major point here is that Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong," said McCain, adding that Obama "refuses to acknowledge that it [the surge] is succeeding."

Just Another Politician™, indeed.  I almost feel sorry for the people who once believed in him.

(For more, here's a timeline of Obama's statements in which he claims the surge would make no difference in the security situation on the ground.  Hat tip: Campaign Spot, again)

A NOW PBS special (Hat Tip: VA Watchdog.org) discussing a long standing problem with recent military personnel being misdiagnosed with Personality Disorder and other pre-existing conditions that often result in denied benefits, both by the military and the Veterans Affairs system after they're discharged:

Of the thousands of U.S. troops getting discharged from the Army each year, many who are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries aren't getting the vital care they need. The Army claims these soldiers have pre-existing mental illnesses or are guilty of misconduct. But advocates say this is a way for the Army to get rid of "problem" soldiers quickly, without giving them the treatment and benefits to which they're entitled.

Here's one of the soldier's personal accounts of the problem (Click to see the 6 minute video):

It's still happening. In spite of the outrage last year over it. And may be getting even worse as now government employees are getting caught sending "suggestions" like this down the chain.

This is beyond infuriating. Not just because it is happening... but because it appears that nothing has been done to effectively stop it.

I believe I may have linked this story before, but this article points it out again and it bears repeating:

Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town's neck and his ears stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness, memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he was no longer combat-ready.

 

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange: They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder." Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.

 

Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

A reasonable person may be inclined to ask, "Why the hell would they do such a horrible thing to our veterans?"

Easy answer: $$$

In the Army's separations manual it's called Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13: "Separation Because of Personality Disorder." It's an alluring choice for a cash-strapped military because enacting it is quick and cheap. The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't have to provide medical care to soldiers dismissed with personality disorder. That's because under Chapter 5-13, personality disorder is a pre-existing condition. The VA is only required to treat wounds sustained during service.

 

Soldiers discharged under 5-13 can't collect disability pay either. To receive those benefits, a soldier must be evaluated by a medical board, which must confirm that he is wounded and that his wounds stem from combat. The process takes several months, in contrast with a 5-13 discharge, which can be wrapped up in a few days.

...

One military official says doctors at his base are doing more than withholding this information from wounded soldiers; they're actually telling them the opposite: that if they go along with a 5-13, they'll get to keep their bonus and receive disability and medical benefits. The official, who demanded anonymity, handles discharge papers at a prominent Army facility. He says the soldiers he works with know they don't have a personality disorder. "But the doctors are telling them, this will get you out quicker, and the VA will take care of you. To stay out of Iraq, a soldier will take that in a heartbeat. What they don't realize is, those things are lies. The soldiers, they don't read the fine print," he says. "They don't know to ask for a med board. They're taking the word of the doctors. Then they sit down with me and find out what a 5-13 really means--they're shocked."

I can't tell you how sick I am of hearing that same story from completely different people. I don't have the words for this kind of bureaucratic nonsense that does so much harm to save a buck, and is such a Milgram-esque clusterfuck of a mess with no hands knowing, or at least not being responsible for, what the other hand is doing... making it nearly impossible to know how much of this crap is going on with pre-existing conditions in general, not just Personality Disorder that was being looked at by congress.

Sadly, it's still going on. And doesn't appear to be stopping any time soon.

Following up on other posts:

Shhh...afting Veterans: VA employee caught red handed suggesting that her staff misdiagnose PTSD patience in order to save money.

What's More Disgraceful?: New stories of the military misdiagnosing service connected ailments as a pre-existing Personality Disorder, and the denial of benefits that result.

Psychological "Friendly" Fire: Veterans struggling with the VA claims backlog and bureaucracy and how the misconceptions and deceptions pushed by the Pentagon are making it even harder for returning veterans to deal with the VA bureaucracy.

Pentagon Disorder: The Personality Disorder Scam. The DoD takes service connected disabled vets and says they have pre-existing mental problems that get the government off the hook for paying for benefits for their war time and service connected disabilities. A real travesty.

More Vet Funding But...: Some good improvements on Vet funding, but still no movement on the Personality Disorder scam being used to deny benefits to veterans.

So, in the aftermath of my somewhat controversial comparison of violence in Iraq and violence in Chicago, does anyone want to take a stab at comparing the security situations in Iraq compared to the policies now being implemented in Washington, DC?

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.’s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her “All Hands on Deck” weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.

Of course, I would never dream of comparing the two situations.  Wouldn't be politically correct.

Aside:  Good thing that DC has a gun ban, otherwise things would be much, much worse!

The continuing expensive, brutal, illegal and seemingly interminable war in Iraq was the defining issue in the 2006 and portends to be so in 2008 election, as one cause of the fracture of among conservatives, departure of GOP membership in droves, and the cause of the impending November trainwreck.  There is another reason for Americans and particularly young people to be concerned.  This is not a push-button war fought with unmanned drones and electromechanical technology.  This version of Neocon Playstation X demands bodies for its meatgrinder.  Do you feel a draft?

It has been pointed out in this forum that neoconservative warmongering is definitely not part of the conservative Republican tradition, and both McCainoids and Obamites scoff and laugh at this notion.  There is a a new book supporting this concept.  Bill Kauffman, onetime Senate staffer and think tank editor turned essayist and author, who lives in upstate New York has written - Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism.  This book is the subject of an excellent review by Doug Bandow.  Doug Bandow is a Washington-based political writer and policy analyst and Robert A. Taft Fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance. He served as a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and as a senior policy analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign.  Some excerpts from the book and review follow.

*

"[T]here is a long and honorable (if largely hidden) tradition of antiwar thought and action among the American Right. It stretches from ruffle-shirted Federalists who opposed the War of 1812 and civic-minded mugwump critics of the Spanish-American War on up through the Midwestern isolationists who formed the backbone of the pre-World War II America First Committee and the conservative Republicans who voted against U.S. involvement in NATO, the Korean conflict, and Vietnam. And although they are barely audible amid the belligerent clamor of today's shock-and-awe Right, libertarians and old-fashioned traditionalist conservatives are among the sharpest critics of the Iraq War and the imperial project of the Bush Republicans."

..."In pre-imperial America, conservatives objected to war and empire out of jealous regard for personal liberties, a balanced budget, the free enterprise system, and federalism," explains Kauffman. To them, dissent was "a patriotic imperative." But another commonality was being vilified and worse. He adds: "As the American Firsters discovered, protesting war is a lousy career move. Dissenters are at best calumniated, at worst thrown in jail for standing against foreign wars and the drive thereto."

If today the Right seems a wholly-owned subsidiary of the War Party, the American people are less enthused. Naturally, this worries the elites who believe their role is to initiate wars for other Americans to fight. Observes Kauffman, "Bush Republicans and pro-war Democrats have fretted mightily over recent surveys from the Council on Foreign Relations showing that the American people are reverting to – horrors! – isolationism, which the CFR defines invidiously as a hostility toward foreigners but which I see as a wholesome, pacific, and very American reluctance to intervene in the political and military quarrels of other nations."

Indeed, the essence of nonintervention, however labeled, is that it is not the American purpose to engage in global social engineering. Whether the genesis of that belief is fear of or respect for foreigners really doesn't matter. This reluctance to intervene is the highest form of internationalism. That is, noninterventionists respect other peoples enough to believe that Americans do not have the unilateral right to roam the world killing, maiming, and injuring whoever happens to be Washington's declared enemy of the moment in pursuit of whatever happens to be Washington's declared objective of the moment.

Kauffman appropriately begins with the nation's founders, men whose views on war are dismissed as quaint by most politicians today. For instance, George Mason told the 1788 Virginia convention debating ratification of the U.S. Constitution: "I abominate and detest the idea of a government, where there is a standing army." Notes Kauffman, "His view was not anomalous; militarism was."  Imagine that, national politicians opposed to war. But a wariness of military entanglements was a constant of early America. There is, Kauffman observes, George Washington's Farewell Address, which is "as close to an expression of early American political omnifariousness as one might find," a veritable "sacred text among conservative critics of empire." American children typically read it, or parts of it, but how many learn that, as Kauffman writes, "Washington's valedictory amounts to a repudiation of U.S. foreign policy from 1917 to the present"?

Then there was the Mexican-American War (which Thoreau vigourously condemned - r.k.) , a shameless spasm of imperialist war-mongering growing out of a border incident created by the U.S....Kauffman's lauds an obscure Whig politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln who exposed the lies that brought America into the Mexican-American War, as well as a Congregationalist minister, Samuel J. May, who denounced the war from his pulpit....The Spanish-American War and, even worse, the brutal suppression of Filipino freedom fighters – who resisted American imperial rule just like they resisted Spanish imperial rule – moved a step beyond previous conflicts. An estimated 200,000 Filipinos, most of them civilians, died. Kauffman cites Felix Morley: "The deeper result was to make Washington for the first time classifiable as a world capital, governing millions of people overseas as subjects rather than as citizens. The private enslavement of Negroes was ended. The control of alien populations had begun."

....If Woodrow Wilson was liberal, his liberalism was symbolized by the jackboot...

Support for nation-building has come to dominate much of the Right. Even liberal Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) receives right-wing accolades because he supports visiting death and destruction along the Euphrates. But Kauffman points to other conservatives – the traditionalist icon Russell Kirk, for instance, who denounced proponents of "American hegemony." ...Current political heroes include Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), the sole antiwar voice in the Republican presidential race, and Rep. John "Jimmy" Duncan (R-Tenn.), an old line conservative who told Kauffman: "I've become convinced that most of these wars have been brought about because of a desire for money and power and prestige." Duncan, ever gracious to those around him, "is a throwback, a Taft Republican in search of a party of peace and frugality," as well as "a glorious anachronism as a representative of a place and a people," enthuses Kauffman.

Most disastrously, writes Kauffman, "the Republicans in the age of George W. Bush have become a War Party, nothing less and certainly nothing more. Dissident GOP voices are rare and unwelcome echoes." Even more tragic is the fact that the so-called Religious Right has joined the War Party. Notes the waggish Kauffman: "The Christian conservatives who have supplied Bush with an indispensable, almost blasphemously enthusiastic following might consider alternative Christian political traditions," such as that of William Jennings Bryan, "Or, if I am not being too much of an originalist, a biblical fundamentalist, that of Jesus Christ."

Conservatism once was an honorable term, associated with "decentralism, liberty, economy in government, religious faith, family-centeredness, parochialism, smallness," notes Kauffman. But he thunders: "The cockeyed militarism of the Bush administration, and the historical ignorance and cowardice of the subsidized Right that has cheered him on, have poisoned the word conservative. For years, if not wars, to come." Today, he complains, the word conservative "reeks of manslaughter and militarism."

Ain't My America is deeply moving, with its eloquent retelling of the largely lost American tradition of conservatives against war. The loss of that tradition has cost Americans much blood and treasure. In closing this fine volume Kauffman echoes George McGovern, calling us all to rediscover our better nature,: "Come home, America. Reject the empire."

You may recall the name of Garrett Anderson, a local Iraqi war veteran.  The News-Gazette has featured him a number of articles over the last couple years regarding both his support for the war and his various struggles with his injuries.  I'd link to them, but, ....well, you know the story there.

Now he's in an ad by Vets for Freedom criticizing Barack Obama and juxtaposing his willingness to meet with various dictators while eschewing a meeting with our commander in Iraq.

HT: KLo at the Corner

Obama's current policy on Iraq (as of today, it changes around a lot) is to withdraw our forces to nearby bases outside of the country and run missions into Iraq to aid the Iraqi forces when violence escalates.

As much as the DNC and his campaign are touting McCain's campaign as running for "Bush's 3rd Term" what kind of change is Obama selling here?

As the NY Times even pointed out:

"A rapid transfer of responsibility to Iraqi forces and withdrawal to large bases was attempted in 2005 and 2006, with disastrous results when the Iraqi units proved incapable of halting major attacks, and sectarian violence worsened."

Obama's policy on Iraq is what even left leaning media sources consider one of the Bush Admin's most disastrous tactics.

Obama's Iraq policy doesn't just include one of the Bush Admin's tactical mistakes... Obama's plan makes those tactical mistakes the entire strategy!

McCain may share some of Bush's policies on Iraq, but he shares the ones that worked. Unlike Obama he isn't pushing the failed policies as a grand new strategy and calling that "change."

You add that to Obama's repeated assertions that we would need UN, and thus Chinese/Russion permission, to take action on humanitarian issues, genocide, and regional conflicts he'd give the green light to China to take Taiwan by force, for the genocide in Sudan to continue, for Iran to renew its nuclear weapons program, etc with absolutely no real pressure or worry about it leading to a possible intervention...

Obama is the "change" that tyrants, oppressors, and America's enemies can believe in!

The City of Champaign Township has placed a few advisory referenda on the ballot for next week:

Voters in the townships that include most of Champaign and all of Urbana will get an opportunity to weigh on some national issues in the Feb. 5 primary.

Additionally, Champaign voters also will be able to vote on whether they agree with the decision last year to cut funding to general assistance recipients in City of Champaign Township, and whether they think the town board should actively pursue "any and all means available to them" to help those residents living in extreme poverty.

The advisory questions, most of which center around the war in Iraq, were placed on the ballot at the annual township board meetings last April. At those meetings, members of the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort, a local activist group, and its supporters jammed the annual town board meetings and voted the questions on the ballot.

Pass or fail, these are non-binding.

A fellow on IRC today attempted to show how evil Bush is by posting a link to the following picture as part of some sort of gut wrenching "...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" joke:

After all what's wrong with a good laugh at the expense of our severely wounded veterans as long as it is intended to bash Bush?

As it turns out this photo was taken while Bush was visiting wounded soldiers at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. I thought it was strange that he'd be awarding that soldier a t-shirt as opposed to medals. Had Bush's press staff allowed him to pose for a photograph that could be used to make fun of this soldier's plight to spite Bush?

The answer is no.

The truth is that the soldier in that photograph was giving Bush the t-shirt.

MSNBC used the picture, in context, and explained what was going on there that day.

That just doesn't convey the evil horrible person that Bush is for some people though. The facts do not fit their reality.

So instead we now have bloggers using various photos of the event to manufacture some of the most despicable propaganda, with absolutely no care or regard, and in some cases outright contempt for those they are using for their depraved humor.

The worst offender I found:

It's hard to comprehend the amount of hate one has to possess to actually name pictures of severely wounded soldiers as "ew_gross.jpg," "dont_make_me_look.jpg," and "nice_acne.jpg."

Hopefully others can use a bit more common sense and find at least some shred of humanity when tempering their criticisms of Bush with at least some sense of decency and respect for others.

Now if you'll have to excuse me, I need to go throw up.

For all you armchair generals out there who think you know something about war and pay lip service to the troops in support of your own political ideology (ahem, without actually doing anything to actually "support" the troops), elements of the Champaign guard unit (B Co 634th BSB) are returning with the rest of the Mattoon unit (A Co 634th) on Saturday.

There will be a welcome-home ceremony at the Mattoon Armory on the 6th. I don't have any hard times for you at this time, but I'm sure the N-G and other local media will be on top of it as time gets closer.

They've been in Iraq for the last year-plus, and they're currently stateside at an active duty post conducting DEMOB ops.

There's a good 20 soldiers (thats a conservative estimate) from the Champaign unit attached to A Co that will be returning to the Champaign unit upon repatriation, so this definately impacts the community.

If you have the time and inclination, I'm sure the Champaign troops would love to see a big showing from the community down there on Saturday to welcome them home.

I guess when I post something like this, I should get ready for a deluge of comments about how blindly partisan and out-of-touch I am.

Ever since the Sept. 10 testimony of Gen. David Petraeus, we've heard less and less from the mainstream media about the war in Iraq. The old adage "no news is good news" has never been truer.

That the media are no longer much interested in Iraq is a sure sign things are going well there. Instead, they're talking about the presidential campaign, or Burma, or global warming, or . . . whatever.

Why? Simply put, the news from Iraq has been quite positive, as Petraeus related in his report to Congress.

Understand that I've been completely withdrawn from current events for the past week or so, but it sure feels like we haven't been hearing much about Iraq lately.  And the Democrats in the Senate just voted (very quietly) to fund the War for a while longer, while all of the major Democratic Presidential candidates (including Sen. Barack Obama) conveniently deciding to skip the vote.

So what do you think is going on over there, anyway?  And why do you think we're hearing less about it?  Or am I crazy for thinking that we are?

If you're interested in welcoming home an area soldier from Iraq:

Lt. William Lyke will be in his Mama's (And his Daddy's) home tonight, having just returned from Iraq. WhooHoo.

The Patriot Guard will be escorting him home from the airport. This organization usually escorts fallen soldiers home, and shields the mourners from interruptions from protestors. When his mother, Chris, protested their offer for an escort home from the airport, they told her, "we also like to ride in celebration, for those that come home safely."

They will be coming down Prospect Avenue, and turning West on Church, somewhere around 6:30-6:45.

From Urbanagora, a question that has been percolating around the blogosphere for the past week or so:

Forget everything else, the Democratic contenders are going to hit Iraq long and hard during the upcoming elections. Built on their mandate (which was hardly a mandate when you consider they have a one seat majority in the Senate after two incredibly tight races where the Democrats squeaked out a victory), the Democrats believe that Iraq will lead the way. We are in a war that cannot be won and are driving away our allies.

But, consider the inconsiderable: what happens if Iraq turns around?

Say what you will on the surge. No, literally, say what you will say. I cannot honestly assess how well the surge is working as I am (a) not on the ground and (b) depending on the news source, it is either going unimaginably well or absolutely horrible. But it has to be doing at least all right, because in the past week, leading Democrats (Reid, Clinton, etc.) started hedging their statements with the equivalent of “the surge is producing measurable results, but too late.” That sounds to me like the surge is doing more than being just another drop in the bucket, if Democrats have to admit improvement.

If the surge works, what are the political implications?  Why is the Washington Post already running headlines ("Democratic Rivals Caution Against Swift Iraq Pullout") that were unimaginable 90 days ago?

Pardon me for posting this with a bit of a smirk on my face:

Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized the anti-war movement, said Sunday that she plans to seek House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's congressional seat unless she introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks.

Sheehan said she will run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 as an independent if Pelosi does not seek by July 23 to impeach Bush. That's when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting next week from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.

Schadenfreude is such a guilty pleasure.

If you look at the websites of the three leading Democratic Presidential candidates, you’ll see plenty about ending the war in Iraq.  But nestled in those policy statements about ending the war are statements about continuing the war on terror in Iraq. 

Hillary Clinton
She believes we may need a vastly reduced residual force to train Iraqi troops, provide logistical support, and conduct counterterrorism operations.

John Edwards
"After withdrawal, the U.S. should retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillover of the civil war, and prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven."

Barack Obama
The plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces.

Every day it seems that we hear about more Al Qaeda deaths in Iraq at the hands of American soldiers.  Further, the recent UK bombing incidents had al Qaeda in Iraq ties, demonstrating that they are spreading their efforts beyond Iraq.  In this post, I don’t care to debatre the issue as to why they are there and what policy decisions increased their presence.  Let’s instead look to the future.  Just how many American troops will we need in Iraq to implement the Clinton/Obama/Edwards mission?  I have yet to find anything from these candidates telling us just how many troops they intend to leave in Iraq.  Isn’t it about time that they let the American people know?

That seems to be what Richard Cohen is saying, and runs counter to the conventional wisdom that Iraq will be an albatross around the necks of Republican candidates in 2008.

Now we come to the current race. The war in Iraq is not -- or not yet -- an issue for Republicans. With the exception of Ron Paul and, more recently, Jim Gilmore, they all more or less support the president. It is among the Democrats that the war is a divisive issue -- John Edwards sniping at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Obama sniping at Edwards and Clinton. Everyone now opposes the war, but the issue is not so much their positions as the intensity of their feelings. Antiwar Democrats in key primary and caucus states, particularly New Hampshire and Iowa, will not vote for a lukewarm antiwar candidate. This explains why Clinton recently reversed herself and voted to end funding for the war. The one Democratic presidential candidate from the Senate who did not was Joseph Biden. He said he opposed the war but saw no choice but to fund the troops.

Precisely right, Joe. But more than right, prescient as well. As if to suggest what an issue this will become, Rudolph Giuliani called Clinton and Obama's vote a "significant flip-flop." Since then the Republicans have mostly trained their fire on each other. You can bet, though, that if either candidate gets the nomination, this vote will be hung around Clinton or Obama's neck, and the hoariest of cliches will be trotted out: weak on defense. It will have added resonance for Clinton because she is a woman.

This is where history raises its ugly head. The GOP is adept at painting Democrats as soft on national security. It is equally adept at saying so in the most scurrilous way. And while most Americans would like the war to end, they do not favor a precipitous withdrawal and neither have they forgotten Sept. 11, 2001 -- the entirety of Giuliani's case for the presidency, after all.

Will history trump the polls? It will if, as in the past, the Democratic Party so wounds itself fighting the war against the war, it nominates a candidate beloved by a minority but mistrusted by a majority. It has happened before.

Plausible, but I still think it's more than likely that the Democrats will win the White House in 2008, and keep both Houses of Congress.  I used to think Sen. Barack Obama was the clear favorite for the Democrat Democratic nomination, but his campaign has fizzled even more quickly than I thought it would.  Now, Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner, and has to be considered the overwhelming favorite to win the Presidency in 2008.  Rush Limbaugh says (I know - huge grain of salt) that there's an 80 percent chance Clinton will be our next President.  At this point, I tend to agree with that prediction.

One of our favorite local bloggers sent out an email update about Toys-For-Troops.com:

The new website, Toys-for-troops.com is up and running. Jeff Facer and Matt Dewey, of Areawide Technologies kindly stepped up to the plate and took over the project for me, at no cost. It's gorgeous, and they didn't even kill me for sending a dozen e-mails with the subject line "one more thing."

For those of you who asked about sponsoring the price of shipping a box to a soldier, PayPal is now available. You can donate as much as little as you wish, and I'll make sure your soldier knows who helped his package get to him or her.

From here on out, the progress of the project will be logged in the TFT blog, and Flickr photos, both of which have links on the website. If you want e-mail updates from me, send me a note back, and I'll add you the TFT mailing list.

A favor, please: If you plan on shipping a package, or have already shipped a package, as I know dozens of you have, I'd like to see you. Send me your picture, or a picture of your beanies, or a picture of your kids and the beanies. I'd love to add a page full of your smiling faces to the website. With their permission, I've been merrily snapping photos of the donors I've already met, and they'll be there too.

It's been 5 days since I circulated the original e-mail, informing everyone of the project. In that time, we have collected 1500 beanies.  That's in Champaign, alone.  Dozens of boxes have already been shipped from around the U.S. Youth groups, Boys and Girls Clubs, and schools are getting involved. I've answered over 200 of your emails, and have plenty more waiting.

Thank you for forwarding that email, and helping me spread the word. This could never have happened without you.

Please support this project  if you can.

I've been emailed this link about two-dozen times over the past ten days, so I'm sure you've all seen this before.

While the video is stunning, the story behind its creation is even more so:

"I felt like there needed to be more support for our troops," said Palmer, who is all of 15 years old. "This video was my contribution."

Palmer first posted the video on YouTube at the end of November 2006. For a couple of months it was like any other video, only tracking a handful of viewers. Then, two months ago, it snowballed.

Created by a fifteen-year-old who saw a void.  Clearly, the era of media gatekeepers has ended.