Fast Exit

Two things, quickly; I had a little computer glitch and it's getting late. The "fast exit" is mine. One, how did the "Joe Lieberman for Def Sec" thing become chatter fodder? It's another wingnut wet dream. Remember "Cheney will step down and Condimelda will run/ be appointed in his place?" Or substitute McCain. Or substitute Rudy. They're either convinced that at some point they'll find a label for New Coke that'll suddenly make people drink it, or they've become an army of John Deloreans looking to score enough nose candy to refloat the franchise. Okay, that's what they do, even in the best of times, but why is Keith Olbermann devoting time to it?

Lieberman has nothing in his resumé to suggest he's the man for the job, beyond his toadying for Bush, getting deferments in his own day, and his willingness to sacrifice American lives for Israel. Haven't we had enough disaster yet?

On a related note, I've enjoyed the "rumors" that "we might withdraw some troops" after the election. The CBO said two years ago that after December 2005 we'd have 64,000 troops available for Iraq. We haven't changed anything since then. We shuffled some deployments--40,000 is the number that sticks in my head--but that was mostly to keep domestic requirements up. At best I think we can assume that come January anything over 105,000 is running on bald tires, spavined shocks, and bankrupt brakes, and hasn't slept in 37 hours.

That's the sort of reality that's very likely behind John Murtha going public, and the sort of reality that disappeared from public view when the personal attacks followed. We're out of gas. Bush's hot-button vocabulary can't change it. Rumsfeld trying to re-float the "there are more auto accident deaths in Colorado than combat deaths in Iraq" bullshit won't change it. And Cheney is...Cheney.