Prairie Weather

The Baker Hamilton Segway

Michael Hirsh, writing in Newsweek, draws a nice parallel between the buildup to the Iraq Study Group's report and the hoopla preceding the arrival of [yawn] the Segway.  That seems about right.  Another Segway that's only going to make Bush look sillier.   The Democrats will bypass the prematurely antique Baker-Hamilton vehicle.

Prominent Democrats like Sens. Carl Levin, Jack Reed and Joseph Biden will begin to dismiss it and reintroduce their own plans. Biden, for example, plans to hold six weeks of hearings in January, after he takes over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that will quickly turn Baker-Hamilton into a relic of that long-ago autumn of 2006...

...The biggest reason why Baker-Hamilton will bust big time, however, is that while the diplomatic Baker cautiously forges consensus, the fast-moving events in Iraq are making him look as if he's standing still.

Is secretly renditioning Bush/Cheney still an option?

Remember those Saudis who were allowed to fly out through the no-fly zone created after 9/11?  They're probably wishing now they'd taken Bush/Cheney along --  "renditioned" those two felons and dumped them... wherever.

We have now drawn Saudi Arabia into a potential collision that could destabilize that nation and seriously harm our access to vital oil and natural gas supplies.

Baker will be the end of Bush

That's a good point, made by Tom Oliphant just now.   Bush is about to lose his remaining support.

Conservatives have been drifting away from Bush in droves lately except with respect to the Iraq war.   Up until now they've had no central point to coalesce around with respect to the Middle East FUBAR. 

Now they do.  James Baker.   Conservatives want a way out. Baker is respected.  Baker offers a way out. Bush today clearly separated himself from Baker.  Bush let it be known in today's news conference that he doesn't intend to take that way out.  Thus, Baker will syphon off the last diehards supporting Bush.

Have we ever had a lamer duck in office?

Finally, nirvana for Democrats? Or maybe...?

The midterm elections of 2006 may be among the most momentous in two generations -- if their trends carry through the 2008 presidential election and beyond. These changes include a Democratic Congress that reflects a more politically cohesive national majority than any previous one; shifts of crucial constituencies that may represent a decisive repudiation of the Republican Party in its current incarnation; and the emergence of a younger generation that is overwhelmingly Democratic.

In retrospect, it is conceivable that the 2006 results will be revealed to be just one movement of a rapidly swinging pendulum whose internal mechanism is a fickle electorate of no discernible loyalties or commitments but propelled by constant and uncontrollable moods of discontent. Or it may be that the long conservative ascendancy has merely encountered a slight stumbling block that will soon be overcome once the difficulties associated with Iraq are neatly squared away. Or it may be that the Democrats are as incorrigibly self-destructive as they were when the Republican era began. Or it may that the newly elected Democrats are really conservative Republicans operating under another party label. But these possibilities are not foretold by the 2006 results.

I go with:

In retrospect, it is conceivable that the 2006 results will be revealed to be just one movement of a rapidly swinging pendulum whose internal mechanism is a fickle electorate of no discernible loyalties or commitments but propelled by constant and uncontrollable moods of discontent.

Because I think the new young "Democrats" are at heart progressives who will soon discover the Democratic Party is not.

A very different president from Bush

Here are two presidents, as depicted this afternoon on the New York Times website:

Bush Backs Maliki and Rejects Idea of Iraq Pullback
The comments came a day after a White House memo doubting the Iraqi leader emerged, and hours after a pullback proposal from the Iraq Study group was reported.

Clinton’s Foundation Brokers AIDS Deal
Two labs agreed to make 19 different anti-retroviral drugs designed for children available at an average price of 16 cents a day, or $60 a year.

But the Republican candidate has all but moved into his new office

Dill, an electronic-voting expert, found that 5,304 people whose ballots showed no selection in the congressional race voted a straight Democratic ticket on the five statewide races. He found that 3,290 voted straight Republican. [Republican Vern Buchanan won the official tally by fewer than 400 votes.]

"Something's going on there," Dill said. "But I'm not sure what yet."