Is it November yet?

For me, one of the most interesting -- if completely unscientific -- methods of guaging public opinions after a significant event is to check the most emailed stories on Yahoo! News.

This morning, I expected the number one slot to belong to some thoughtful commentary on September 11th; its meaning and impact on our national life, etc.

But the most popular story this AM isn't a tribute to the fallen, or memories of that fateful day - it's a commentary by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann taking George Bush to task for, well, just about everything.

Here's Olbermann:

[Post 9/11/2001] Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Hear, hear!

Where can I get one of these?

In the movie Raising Arizona, "Glen" responds to an obvious question by positing: "Does the Pope wear a funny hat?"

Well, you tell me...



The hat is called a Capello Romano (lit: Roman Hat) or Saturno (because the brim is said to remind one of the rings of Saturn. I don't see it...)

Pope Benedict has made a habit (pardon the pun) of telegraphing his conservative orientation by dressing in more traditional papal duds than his immediate predecessor. Here's a portrait of his namesake, Benedict XV (who reigned during WWI) in his saturno.

I don't know why the pope's wardrobe fascinates me but it does. In any case, I have to have one of these hats...

And, yeah, I definitely need a hobby.

My friend Bob

I have a friend named.. well, let's just call him Bob. Most people think Bob is a nice, intelligent, easy-going guy. I think he's a glutton who drinks too much but, hey, he has a pool so I try to stay in his good graces.

In addition to his social vices (see above) Bob is a communist. (The guy has a Ned Lamont sign on his front lawn and he's serious about it!)

Anyway, last Sunday -- while shamelessly partaking of his hospitality -- he laced into me for "throwing my vote away". (He was in full purple rage, spit, food particles and alcohol flying from his mouth... It was ugly)

His irrational rage was sparked by my voting plans this November. I hate the Democratic party but, for the first time in my life, I'm planning to vote a straight Democrat ticket. I want:

1) To give the Dems control of at least one of the houses of Congress and subject the Bush administration to subpoena power in the hands of the opposition.

2) To lodge a protest over a failed GOP Congress (no executive oversight, failed wars, profligate spending, big brother encroachments, etc.)

3) To end one party rule in DC.

To my mind, all worthy and legitimate reasons for supporting a party I would not otherwise (even under pain of death) support.

Bob disagrees. He says that I should only vote Democrat if I truly believe in what the Dems stand for - any other motive is illegitimate.

As I assume that I won't be the only Independent supporting the Dems this Fall, I wonder if anyone else agrees with Bob's booze addled thinking?

_______________
Worth a read:

- From Republic to Empire? America under Bush by Ronald Bailey in Reason Online.

- Fascists... "The last 25 years have seen a 1,300% increase in the number of paramilitary raids on American homes. The vast majority of these are to serve routine drug warrants, including for offenses as trivial as marijuana." Read the rest (.pdf) - from Radley Balko at the Cato Institute.

John Kerry on the Brain...

It's been a John Kerry kind of day. I think I'm in mental communication with the man.

Has that ever happened to you?

First, in a comment on James' post here, I mentioned the immortal John Kerry line; "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Then, a few hours later, I was reading through news reports of the Emperor's latest Iraq propaganda. In a speech to the Military Officers Association of America, Bush played the long-forgotten Osama card:

WASHINGTON - Quoting repeatedly from Osama bin Laden, President Bush said Tuesday that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq would fulfill the terrorist leader's wishes and propel him into a more powerful global threat in the mold of Adolf Hitler.

[snip]

"History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake," the president said. "Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"

So my first though was, "Yeah? Then why didn't you capture the sonofabitch when you had the chance and why does every neocon pundit tell us that Osama "isn't important" if, according to you, he could be a threat on par with freakin' Hitler?!"

Then, reading deeper into the article, Senator Kerry popped up:

"If President Bush had unleashed the American military to do the job at Tora Bora four years ago and killed Osama bin Laden, he wouldn't have to quote this barbarian's words today," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "Because President Bush lost focus on the killers who attacked us and instead launched a disastrous war in Iraq, today Osama bin Laden and his henchmen still find sanctuary in the no man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they still plot attacks against America."

Um, yeah... Kind of makes me wish I'd voted for the man. (No it doesn't)

In any case, I've found myself saying. "John Kerry was right" far too often lately. I think it's cause for grave concern...

More sensitivity...

...from the diversity crowd:

[click image to enlarge]

Standing firmly on the free speech ideals of its illustrious founder (Thomas Jefferson), the University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily thinks portraying the Virgin Mary with a sexually transmitted disease is high comedy.

Alas, Mohammed with a bomb in his turban didn't seem to pass the editors' tickle test.

I guess, some sacred persons are just funnier than others...

__________________
Worth a read:

- Fascists Under the Bed Pat Buchanan in the American Conservative.

- Preaching, Pondering and Predicting Col. Karen Kwiatkowski on Rumsfeld's American Legion speech.

- Another Connecticut Marine dies in Iraq... Lance Cpl. Philip A. Johnson († 9/2/06), 19 of Enfield, is the second native of this tiny state to die in Iraq during the past two weeks.

[The full list of Joe Lieberman's constituents who have been killed in Mr. Bush's war can be found here.]

The difference between us

When Michael Ledeen (a man with the finest of neocon pedigrees) isn't hyping up a case for an American attack on Iran, he's reminding people like me why we began to hate neoconservatism in the first place.

To illustrate, here's a line or two from his latest column:

In any event, the first time I encountered the notion that Syria is really our friend was in the mid-Eighties, when I was working on counterterrorism. The synagogue in Vienna had been savagely attacked by terrorists carrying hand grenades and a machine gun. We had learned that the terrorists had gone to Damascus, and then directly from Damascus to Vienna. They had not stopped between the Vienna airport and the synagogue.

I suggested that we might contemplate doing something mean to Syria.

Ok, so the obvious question here is: WHY should WE do something mean to Syria in response to an attack on a synagogue in Vienna? Isn't that, properly, the responsibility of the Austrians?! (Or the Israelis, for that matter.)

The United States Government should have condemned the attack and shared whatever intel it had with the Austrian authorities. Period. End of story. Time to move on.

It was, by the way, exactly what the Reagan administration did. (The above incident occured over twenty years ago.) But for Ledeen, it seems, American restraint in a matter that didn't involve us in the least was, naturally, [get ready for it!] appeasement.

These are the people who are in charge of our foreign policy, folks. For the love of God, vote Democrat in November...

(WHO said that???!!!)

Consider Adolph Hitler

I never thought I'd write those words but what he said during his rise to power is informative and perhaps a bit prescient in our current circumstances.

When Hitler said, "The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category", he may have been writing a page in this administration's playbook.

Happily for us, we don't have a "leader of genius" (Faaaaaaaar from it) but keep Hitler's words in mind when you read a few selected quotes from Bush's speech to the American Legion yesterday in Salt Lake City.

It makes you wonder who the fascists really are:

"When terrorists murder at the World Trade Center, or car bombers strike in Baghdad, or hijackers plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic, or terrorist militias shoot rockets at Israeli towns, they are all pursuing the same objective -- to turn back the advance of freedom, and impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world."

[snip]

"Despite their differences, these groups from -- form the outlines of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology. And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam."

[snip]

"On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation -- the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism -- the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They're successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century."

So there you have it... Whether you fly planes into buildings; resist Israeli occupation; resist AMERICAN occupation, or just want to be left alone you're a terrorist.

There is such a thing as terrorism and it should be condemned. But the men who flew planes into the WTC are not the same as the Iraqis who have picked up guns to resist opposition and/or occupation. Neither is the Palestinian who shoots an Israeli soldier in Gaza the same as the monster who blows up children in a Tel Aviv restaurant.

But it's politically expedient for a failed president to use the fascist tactics of "common enemies" and "perpetual fear" to blithely defend the indefensible.

His latest round of cheerleading for a war already soundly rejected by the American people will only be effective if we allow him to scare us into submission. Or, as Hitler said, "How fortunate for leaders that men do not think."
__________

The above quotes from Mr. Bush's speech in Salt Lake City are a small sampling of the persistent propagandizing and fear mongering that appeared throughout the text. Space and, quite frankly, limited attention span forced me to limit the number of quotes I included in this post. To read the entire speech, go here

Lawyers....

Apparently aren't the brightest bulbs on the tree. To wit:

Boulder, Colorado District Attorney Mary Lacy on her decision to fly a lunatic from Thailand to Boulder (via California) when exculpatory evidence could have been gathered in Bangkok -- thus saving Colorado taxpayers thousands upon thousands of dollars:

DA defends decision to arrest Karr

"We felt we could not ignore this. We had to follow it," she said. "There was a real public safety concern here directed at a particular child" in Thailand, and a forensic psychologist said Karr "was dangerous, this person was escalating."

That's great but, typical power trips of American elected officials notwithstanding, her authority does not extend to Thailand. She's the Boulder, Colorado DA for pity's sake! His behavior in Thailand is the responsibility of Thai authorities. Period.

By all means, share whatever info Boulder has with the Bangkok police, but... awwww, forget it. She should be removed from office, but she'll probably win the compassion vote and remain DA until she grows old and dies.
_____

And then there's the email I found waiting for me this morning... It was a collection of ethnic jokes (everyone was bashed: Blacks, Mexicans, Irish, Italians, Blonde women, all men, and, of course, Southerners). It had been forwarded (and forwarded again) at least half a dozen times. The thing is, it orginated at a very prominent local law firm. No one had enough brain cells to strip the original headers before forwarding it...

Should I send eight lawyers to the unemplyment line?

Why the losses?

I think Andrew J. Bacevich (professor of history and international relations at Boston University) hits the nail on the head in The Islamic Way of War.

Bacevich writes: Muslims have stopped fighting on Western terms—and have started winning:

What are we to make of this? How is it that the seemingly weak and primitive are able to frustrate modern armies only recently viewed as all but invincible? What do the parallel tribulations—and embarrassments—of the United States and Israel have to tell us about war and politics in the 21st century? In short, what’s going on here?

The answer to that question is dismayingly simple: the sun has set on the age of unquestioned Western military dominance. Bluntly, the East has solved the riddle of the Western Way of War. In Baghdad and in Anbar Province as at various points on Israel’s troubled perimeter, the message is clear: methods that once could be counted on to deliver swift decision no longer work.

Defeatist? Well, maybe Hannity would say so but it's a point-of-view rarely discussed in the media. Is it possible that we'll be fighting endless wars of attrition against an enemy who cannot (and will not) be beat?

It's likely if we don't get at those "root causes" that we're never allowed to mention.

A terrible coincidence

On the very day (August 25th) that I blogged that Cpl. Stephen Bixler was Connecticut's most recent fatal casualty in Iraq († May 2006), Marine Cpl. Jordan C. Pierson of Milford was KIA in Anbar Province.

Cpl. Pierson (pictured at left, below)...



...was 21 year old.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Putting a face on it

"Stay the course" sounds appealing in the abstract because, let's face it, nobody likes a quitter and most people desperately want their country to succeed. But when you get behind the political rhetoric and focus on the human toll of Bush's Iraq policy, the slogans seem barren and not a little repulsive. I'm a big fan of critical analysis (at least in others) and I tend to eschew emotional arguments but I don't think you can examine a war policy from a completely detached position.

This young man, who doesn't even look old enough to shave, is Marine Cpl. Stephen Bixler. He is, sadly, Connecticut's most recent casualty of the Iraq war. He was killed May 4, 2006 while on foot patrol in the province of Fallujah.

The Hartford Courant wrote: "Bixler leaves behind his parents, Richard and Linda; a twin sister, Sandra; and dozens of people who knew him as intelligent and athletic, and as a quiet but strong leader, whether it was in the Boy Scouts or on the high school cross-country team."

The only reason I'm writing about this is because I saw a Chris Matthews interview with Van Taylor, an Iraq war veteran who is running for Congress in the district that includes Mr. Bush's Crawford ranch. He's a Republican and he favors "seeing Iraq through" to victory.

He supports the president, he supports the continuation of the war and, despite being a Congressional candidate, he cannot tell us why we invaded Iraq:

MATTHEWS: So why did we attack Iraq then? Why did we attack Iraq then?

TAYLOR: Regardless of why we may have started fighting, and I served as a marine ...

MATTHEWS: I‘m asking the question, why did we attack Iraq? Why did we go into Iraq?

TAYLOR: That‘s not the question that we need answered.

MATTHEWS: It‘s mine.

TAYLOR: It‘s what do we do now?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: What‘s wrong with me asking the question? We are in a war.

Pearl Harbor started World War II.

TAYLOR: That‘s a question you can ask ...

MATTHEWS: What start it? Why did we go into Iraq?

TAYLOR: That is a question you can ask historians, but today we need to send people to Washington who understand the war on terror. There is not a single member of the United States Congress that has served in the war on terror, and there are only two dozen combat veterans. I will be the very first. We need to send people like me in Washington. [Full transcript here]

In three months we will have been in Iraq as long as we were in WWII and the supporters of this war still can't tell us why we're there. (During Vietnam -- before this blogger's living memory --- they couldn't tell us how we'd get out, but at least they told us why we were there!)

As Election Day approaches, Americans -- foremost among them people like the Bixler family -- have an absolute right to have that question answered.

American Exceptionalism

Is a subject that fascinates me.

In political debates I've always ascribed Evangelical views of America as the "New Zion" to a warped, if exclusive, interpretation of exceptionalism. (America as promised land; favored by God, etc.) In any case, I've always thought of it as a philosophy with religious -- or, at least, quasi-religious -- overtones.

Enter Scott McLemee at Inside Higher Education and my position is found to be lacking. (I really hate when that happens...)

In The Global Exception, McLamee touches on the right-wing religious brand of American Exceptionalism, but he also writes of the liberal, or left-wing, component:

The other form of American exceptionalism has a more left-wing genealogy. It emerged from debates over the peculiarities of the United States compared to other highly industrialized nation-states — especially the lack of a labor party or a mass-based socialist movement of the kind that became standard elsewhere in the world.

[snip]

In either version, the United States stands as a nation apart — somehow the product of forces cutting it off from the rest of the world’s history.

That last sentence is played out daily in Mr. Bush's foreign policy. Have a look at the article, it's a very good read.

Maybe it was the Cold War...

...I don't know but something managed to turn a free, proud people into a nation of cowering police bootlickers.

On Monday I was driving back from Rhode Island and as soon as I crossed the Connecticut line highway signs informed me that I would be fined for littering, fined for using a cell phone without a hands-free device, ticketed for driving without a seat belt, and arrested for speeding and/or drunk driving. Welcome to Connecticut, the "Land of Steady Habits".

Huge, electronic signs above the highway read, "Over the limit; under arrest!", and as I made way home -- listening to a rare Red Sox day game on the radio -- a public service announcement (opening with the sound of a jail cell door slamming)proudly announced that I'd experience that sound in person if I dared to well, I guess, have a drink with dinner some night.

I blame the Democrats, of course (in this state there's no one else TO blame)but, ultimately, it's the people who have gone soft. They've allowed government to assume the role of parent - confronting us constantly with "thou shalt nots" and "you're going to be in trouble if". Government has gone from nanny state to strict father; from overprotective mother to nagging wife.

I'm against drunk driving as much as the next guy but this is waaay over the top.(I went to Catholic school and the Sisters of Mercy weren't this bad!) They should have just put up a sign that read, "Welcome to East Berlin"

Ultimately, a tiny fraction of us drive drunk - just as a miniscule percentage of us murder, rape, rob, run over dogs for fun, etc. Why are a free people assaulted by government threats on their daily commutes? We all know that murder is illegal, but do we have to be reminded of it every twenty minutes?

I miss America...

The Party's Over

Ok, it's official, all that remains is tax policy. (Can Republicans even call this guy a "conservative" without smirking?)

Mr. Bush has abandoned "traditional conservative" stances on immigration, civil liberties, federal spending, limited government, non-intervention, tariffs and trade, and now, at long last, he's even pitching the pro-lifers overboard

President Bush Approves Over the Counter Early Abortion Pill, Pro-Life Base Decries Move

By John-Henry Westen

WASHINGTON, August 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - For his pro-life supporter base, President George W. Bush stepped into one of the biggest political landmines of his Presidential career today with his approval of over the counter status for the abortion-causing morning after pill Plan B.

Rest easy, Fox Fans, it's entirely possible that White House advisers simply forgot to tell the president what he "believes" this morning. No doubt a timely memo from the RNC will clear it all up...

Moderate Joe II

Yesterday, I averaged out Joe Lieberman's liberal credentials by comparing "score cards" from four of the largest Democratic special interest groups. (See post here).

Just for the hell of it, I decided to check the American Conservative Union's lifetime ratings of several prominent Democratic Senators. Including those who are, doubtlessly, running for President in 2008 -- and those who have run in recent years. For the record, the ACU is the oldest Conservative lobbying group in America.

Lieberman (CT) - 17
Biden (DE) - 14
Nelson (FL) - 41
Bayh (IN) - 21
Reid (NV) - 20
Clinton (NY) - 9
Byrd (WV) - 30
Feingold (WI) - 12

So (Liberal) Joe is a 17/100 on the Conservative scale. (That's 3 points higher than Joe Biden; 8 higher than Hillary; and 3 points lower than Harry Reid)

And for the record, GOP whipping boy (and decorated war hero) Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania had a rating double that of Joe Lieberman's...

Define it...if you can

Kudos to the American Conservative magazine for bringing up a subject that's long overdue for serious discussion. In the August 28th issue the editors ask: "What is Left? What is Right? Does it Matter?"

1. Are the designations “liberal” and “conservative” still useful? Why or why not?

2. Does a binary Left/Right political spectrum describe the full range of ideological options? Is it still applicable?

The charge is taken up by thirty writers/thinkers/editorialists from across the political spectrum and the result is a fascinating collection of essays that may keep you reading well into the night.

Not suprisingly, Pat Buchanan penned my favorite line:

Most of us ... are not really ‘neo-’ anything. We are old church and old right, anti-imperialist and anti-interventionist, disbelievers in Pax Americana. We love the old republic, and when we hear phrases like ‘New World Order,’ we release the safety catches on our revolvers.

Good stuff, read it here.

Moderate Joe

Elsewhere on the web, I've been arguing with New England Republicans about Joe Lieberman's moderate credentials.

One gentleman suggested that compared to Kerry, Kennedy, and Reid, Lieberman is, indeed, a moderate. So I checked the numbers on leading liberal indicators and threw Connecticut's Senior Senator into the mix for comparison's sake.

Here's what I found:

SENATOR	ADA***	NARAL	ACLU	PFAW	AVG
Lieberman	80%	75%	71%	85%	78%
Dodd	100%	75%	60%	77%	78%
Kerry	100%	100%	71%	85%	89%
Kennedy	95%	100%	86%	92%	93%
Reid	100%	100%	57%	77%	84%

So based on the latest available "score cards" from these bright red groups, Senator Dodd (who no Republican would EVER call a moderate) and Senator Lieberman were in a stone cold tie.

Senator Kerry and Senator Kennedy were (respectively) 11 and 15 percentage points higher. (No suprise there.)

And Senator Reid -- the DEMOCRATIC LEADER in the United States Senate -- was a mere 6 points higher than good Ol' Joe. (When was the last time you heard any Republican call Senator Reid a moderate?)

When the desperate Bushies say they support Joe Lieberman because he's a "moderate" or an "Independent" thinker, they're lying. (Because he's neither). They support him because he supports George Bush's war. (And, no doubt, his future war plans in Iran and Syria, as well.)

For the sake of consistency, when Senator Dodd runs for re-election, I would expect the RNC to refuse to endorse his GOP rival. After all, by current Republican standards, Senator Dodd is a moderate...
____________

***ADA - Americans for Democratic Action (.pdf)
NARAL - National Abortion Rights Action League
ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
PFAW - People for the American Way (.pdf)

The funniest 14 seconds in animation history

This material may be objectionable to some viewers so..., aww screw 'em!

The Essential Questions

James Wilson, my favorite Libertarian blogger, has an excellent article posted at the Partial Observer this week.

In True Believers, he asks the supporters of "endless war" twenty-five questions that would almost certainly expose the moral and philosophical bankruptcy of the War Party - if any of them were courageous enough to answer the questions honestly.

Here's a sampling:

• 1. You suggest that many critics of Israel, and of U.S. aid to Israel are anti-Semites. But which is more prevalent, anti-Semitism in the anti-war crowd, or anti-French and anti-Arab bigotry in the pro-war crowd?



• 3. How is bombing non-combatants from above via the Air Force not its own form of "terrorism?" Why do uniforms and greater fire power make one side morally superior?



• 4. Why are non-combatant victims of American or Israeli bombs at least partly to blame for the policies of their government, but American and Israeli civilians are always innocent?



• 5. You claim that extremist Muslims hate us for our freedoms, and want to impose Muslim law on us. Do you not hate Muslim cultures just as much? Aren't you just as determined to overthrow their societies to impose your own values on them? Even if not, wouldn't Muslims have a right to perceive this to be true? How do you know that terrorism is a form of aggression, instead of resistance?



• 7. If we are morally justified in "preemptive war" to destroy countries that may threaten our interests several years from now, wouldn't those countries be militarily justified in launching preemptive attacks on us?



• 10. If the United States suffered under persistent bombing and occupation by foreign troops, would you rule out terrorism against the occupiers? Against the aggressor nation's homeland?



• 20. If your family was massacred by foreign soldiers, or killed by bombs from above, would your reaction be, "Ah, collateral damage. What can you do? No hard feelings."

Go here to read the rest.

Would you buy a used car from this man?

While Hannity, Kemp, Limbaugh, and even RNC Chair Ken Mehlman lament Joe Lieberman's loss in last week's primary, the "Conservative" choice and the much adored "Moral Voice of the United States Senate" is revealed as a liberal, a sore loser, and well, quite frankly, a liar.

They could have titled it "Putting the "lie" in Lieberman", or "Say it ain't so, Joe" (I'm big on Baseball references) but, alas, The National Catholic Register has significantly more class than I do. Here's their lead editorial from the August 18th issue The Tragedy of Joe Lieberman:

When he first ran for the Senate, Lieberman had heavy Catholic support. He met with Hartford Archbishop John Whealon in 1988 and handed the archbishop a pro-life pledge.

Father Thomas Berry, who worked for Archbishop Whealon, is quoted in the Washington Times saying Lieberman “expressed himself against abortion, all suicide and euthanasia. His position on that definitely was well received by the archbishop and priests.”

It’s no wonder Catholics were shocked when the senator not only voted again and again in full support of abortion, but even went so far as to protect partial-birth abortion. That’s the procedure in which a doctor punctures the skull of a child who is being born. The doctor removes the child’s brain, then completes what has become a still-birth. [Emphasis mine]

Ok, he never met a tax he didn't love, he revels in spending the public largesse almost as much as the modern GOP does, he's pro-abortion, and he welches on a public promise to the (now deceased) Archbishop of Hartford in a cynical vote grabbing maneuver... But, hey, he loves the war! And given the chance, he'd vote to invade Syria and Iran (And Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan...) Well, ok, you get the point.

Let Joe run as an Independent if he so chooses, but can we at least stop with all the "moral courage" nonsense? The guy's no better than any other self-serving politician. In fact, by cloaking himself in a a false morality by parading his faith -- and using the faith of others -- he's probably a helluva lot worse...
_________

Update: I regret not quoting their closing line. It's a wonderfully crafted verbal bitch slap: "Joe, we both believe in the God who said “Thou shalt not kill.” Let’s make common cause, together, in Him. He always keeps his promises."