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Sovereignty (n) -- government free from external control
Is Iraq a truly sovereign state, or is the Maliki government a puppet of America? We may know the answer to this crucial question in a very short time. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki could show independence from American interests in many ways, some of them decidedly not to President Bush's liking.
While most attention paid to Iraq by the American media is centered on Baghdad (and, post-"surge," al-Anbar province), there are two developing situations which bear closely watching over the next few months. The first is at the northern edge of Iraq, where the Kurdish areas of both Iraq and Turkey overlap. The second is the south, especially the city of Basra and the surrounding oil fields.
I've written about the Turkish situation before. Turkey is determined not to let the Iraqi Kurds declare their own country ("Kurdistan"), because it believes a Kurdish section of Turkey would want to join them (and by doing so, secede from Turkey). There are Turkish Kurds ("rebels" or "terrorists," depending on who you talk to) already fighting a low-level guerrilla war against Turkey, and Turkey is inching closer to directly attacking their bases in Iraq.
A few months ago, the chattering classes were all a-tizzy over the prospect of a Michael Bloomberg third-party bid for the White House. Nothing much came of it, but we all had fun pontificating about the possibility (yours truly included -- 7/11/07). Since it was such an enjoyable exercise, I'd like to be the first to roll out another third-party scenario to provide fodder for the punditocracy (in case this turns out to be a slow news week).
After taking several recent announcements into consideration, I have gazed into my crystal ball and foreseen Ron Paul as the nominee of the Libertarian Party for 2008. Paul will be supported by droves of "family values" voters and will actually gain a respectable percentage of the popular vote. The Democratic nominee then waltzes into the White House, spikes the ball, and does an end-zone dance in the Oval Office.
[Welcome back to the weekly Friday Democratic Talking Points column (I'm still looking for a snappier title, by the way). This week, I've decided to start numbering these columns, so I can keep track of them easier. Previous columns will be numbered [ 1 ] (9/14/07), [ 2 ] (9/21/07), and [ 3 ] (9/28/07) for future reference. OK, enough of that, here we go...]
I think I'm going to have to introduce a feature for this column of "Most Disappointing Democrat of the Week." I really wish I didn't have to do this, and sincerely look forward to a week where there are just no candidates for such an award. Until that happens, we're going to have to shine a spotlight of shame on the most embarrassing cave-in of the week.
This is too funny for words. I'm having trouble typing this because I'm laughing too hard.
The Republicans today unveiled their logo for their 2008 convention, to be held in Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota. Here is what they chose:
I thought at first it was a hoax, but then I checked the GOP's national website, and there it was! This is not a hoax, this really is the logo they chose.
As I said, words just fail me. So I leave it up to you to comment on what exactly that elephant is doing.
-- Chris Weigant
The San Jose Mercury News ran a front-page article yesterday which was kind of interesting, as it posed the question: "Should illegal immigrants count in the census for determining how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives?"
While at first glance, this seems like an easy question to answer, it really isn't. Historically, up until now, they have counted -- ever since the Fourteenth Amendment was passed.
I have to say that Democrats are acting awfully un-Democrat-like in their political handling of the SCHIP debate. I say this, because they're winning. Big time.
I have to split today's observations into two groups, though: strategic and tactical. Strategy (for those unfamiliar with precise military terms) is all about the Big Picture -- the main goals you want to achieve. Tactics are smaller -- how you're going to go about achieving your objectives on a very small scale. Politically (for instance), your strategy might be to end the Iraq war. Your tactics are which bills you support in Congress, and how you present your case to the American people -- what is the best possible way to achieve your strategic goal, in other words.
There's a raging debate within the Bush administration, the punditocracy, and the blogosphere about whether or not it is time to bomb Iran. While this conversation scares small children (and other sane people), most of the focus has been on (1) whether President... oh, excuse me... Vice President Cheney truly is moonbat-crazy enough to do so, and (2) whether anyone else in America (including the military) would go along with the idea. But not enough attention is being paid to what happens after we rain death from the skies down on Iran. Which is a shame, because that's what we ignored during the ramp-up to war with Iraq. And we all know how that turned out.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the United States actually does go ahead and bomb Iran. There are a lot of different scenarios which could lead to this point, of course -- a "false flag" operation (think: Gulf of Tonkin Incident); Iranian military captives the United States swears were killing Americans in Iraq being paraded before the television cameras; provoking the Iranian Navy and swearing we were in international waters and not Iranian waters -- there are many ways to make the case for war before the eyes of the world, so it's not very productive to worry about which method it may take. But let's assume George Bush presents some sort of a casus belli to the world, which is immediately followed by the United States military dropping bombs and cruise missiles on Iran.
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