It's like LC Kilgore said, "Someday this war's gonna end..."

At some point, there will be enough votes. Probably now September, when "the surge" proves ineffective. That seems to be the date many have cited. And Bush will then say we need until January, and at that point there will probably be more ship-jumping, with enough votes to impose a timetable and stop payment on this Presidential blank check.

So now, what this last vote has done is turn the tables: it's now Congress waiting out Bush's surge, instead of Bush waiting out Congress.

How many more deaths in the next four months?

The "breathing room" for a political solution in Iraq that the Ponies!!! crowd believes the surge will provide will not happen. Nothing in Iraq will change while we occupy their country.

Democrats, seeing how their strategy of fighting the White House and the Republicans on the field of "funding the troops" only resulted in another blank check, should perhaps start talking about Iraq as an occupation.

In the last Democratic debate, the word "Iraq" was spoken 40 times. The word "occupation"? Once. (Kucinich.)

Try it. What's to lose? More blank checks?

I know people here are too sophisticated for this stuff, but, dammit, I'm not!

After tonight, I gain two hours back a week. On Idol, we cheer on Jordin as she wins America's Most Coveted Title. And on LOST, hopefully they'll tell us *something* about what the hell's happening on that island.

Two hours...I guess I can start watching all those movies I keep saying I'm going to watch.

Dear Mr. Kerrey,

Saddam didn't comply with the U.N. because he didn't want Iran to know he had no weapons. Bluff, I believe it's called.

And, if Saddam was not a risk to us before 9/11, and he had nothing to do with 9/11, then, using logic, he could not have been more of a risk to us after 9/11.

And, "the terrorists" are a very small part of what's going on in Iraq. It is a civil war.

Thank you for your time.

What's with the preponderance of Daddy Issues on TV these days? On 24, Jack's Dad, Philip Bauer, is the Bad Guy. On Lost, there's been a rash of Daddy killings, including Locke and Ben this season, in addition to the conflicts we already knew (Jack, Kate...).

Of course, Father issues have long been part of story-telling, from Oedipus to Darth Vader. And, also of course, in real-life, we have a President who may be playing out his Daddy issues on a global scale.

I just wonder if this is the normal ebb-and-flow of TV story-telling, or is there something the teevee is telling us here?

Steve, over at TPM, wonders why Gingrich claims there is an anti-religious bias in this country.

Seems clear to me: Last December, someone removed Christmas trees from the Seattle airport. Around the same time, a school changed the lyrics to Silent Night.

Next time around, I'm actually not sure if they can pull Christmas off. It clearly hangs by a thread...

Actually, this claim is all about who's in and not in the reality-based community. Just like Suskind's unnamed White House Aid, the talk about America being anti-religion is Gingrich creating his own version of reality.

This is "say it enough times and it's true" politics at its best.