Kevin Drum has the breaking news from the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the date by which all remaining U.S. troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter.

...."The talking is done," one U.S. official said late Wednesday night. "Now the decision makers choose whether to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down."

....U.S. President George W. Bush is almost certain to accept the agreement, according to U.S. officials. The administration believes that the deal doesn't require congressional approval and won't present it to U.S. lawmakers.

New Orleans is all better!

McCain: "I know war. I can win wars.  There will be more wars. It's okay with me if we stay in Iraq for 100 years." Yes, with McCain as president there would be lots more wars and he's just shown us how. Even David Ignatius criticizes Dangerous McCain quips about Georgia!

Poland signed onto a US missile system today that included US Patriot Missiles in the fine print. Shield deal for Poland/neocons  The Georgia/Russia fight helped change public opinion to make this deal possible. Bush admired Saakashvili's dancing so Poland signed on for a missile shield.

NATO will not fight with Russia. Period.

The announcement today that the United States will deploy up to 15,000 more troops to Afghanistan is just the latest signal of the Pentagon's seeming support for Barack Obama's strategy to fight Al Qaeda in the region.  Following by just weeks Obama's latest call to send at least two more brigades of American troops there, the request by U.S. commanders again confirmed Obama's assertion, one denied by John McCain, that Iraq represents a "zero sum game" for scarce American military resources.

There are only a few PB afficianados on this site, and by afficianados I mean people who are willing to hold their noses past the neo-con stink to get at the traditional conservative perspective. Certainly Buchanan has crossed the line too many times. But often, and especially with regard to foreign policy, Buchanan makes sense, like yesterday's article "Who Started Cold War II?"

This story has been covered already by a few blogs, but not here, and none seems to have presented the graphic shown below.

Jowie Chen, a doctoral student in political science at Stanford, obtained the records of 2.6 million applications for FEMA disaster assistance in Florida in 2004.  (This happened not because the Bush administration made them available voluntarily, but because four Florida newspapers won a Freedom of Information Act suit.)  Chen then mapped these applications and the subsequent FEMA grants into counties and precincts, added data on actual weather conditions in these locations, their demographic characteristics, and finally local voting patterns in recent Federal elections.  The paper can be found here.  The following map shows part of his results.

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Post partisan my ass! That MIGHT be a good theme as a campaign strategy. It MIGHT appeal to an electorate tired of the incompetent,  ineffectual and just plain stupid brand of government they have been getting for the last ten years....you know, since the incredibly partisan impeachment of Bill Clinton by the Republican Congress....

It might sound ... nice ...and evenhanded and reasonable and mature and responsible and all that. But it ignores the simple and undeniable fact that since the Republicans lied, cheated and smeared (including smearing their current champion when he was running against Bush) their way into having full unfettered dominance of the government.....just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and the country is in sad, sorry shape.

Because of the Republicans.

Everything the Republicans has touched in the last decade has turned to crap. From the micro (life saving stem cell research) to the macro (Climate Crisis) the Republicans have had full power to implement their vision, programs and policies....and have gotten it wrong every single time.

Eight years ago, then Governor George W. Bush revealingly joked about his backers at the 2000 Al Smith Dinner.  "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores," Bush said, adding, "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."  With his own quip Saturday night that "$5 million" is his definition of "rich," John McCain made no mistake that he is Bush's natural heir.

When: January 20, 2009

What: A twilight of relevancy

WTF: There’s no shortage of memorabilia celebrating Dubya’s final 24 hours of power, by which I mean someone of extreme prescience has trademarked the date itself. Well you can stop looking forward to the third Sunday of the first month right now, my friends, because that’s exactly when the worst shit comes to pass and hits the fan in the process and the resultant shit fallout seeps into your drinking water.

Crusty, curmudgeonly commentator Jack Cafferty of CNN has tossed a spanner in the works of the MSM. In his most recent commentary piece, McCain's many shortcomings as commander in chief are laid bare:

http://www.cnn.com/...

How do we get Jack to run for POTUS???  He definitely DOES NOT beat around the bush:

Read his commentary here:  

http://www.cnn.com/...

It's been quite a while since I crunched some political numbers, so I thought I'd check back in with a series of diaries.  Today, the latest edition of the Bush approval map.

Click to enlarge.

My, that's pretty!

Memo to Democrats:  this is an anvil for the falling Republicans.  Please use it.

On Friday August 15 the Bush administration sent Condoleezza Rice to meet with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as a "show of U.S. support."  Yikes.  They sent Condi?  Talk about giving somebody the goodbye look.  If this were a Marty Scorsese movie, Saakashvili would have been sleeping with the fishes come Saturday morning.  You'd think Keystone Kondi would have lent sufficient slapstick to the Georgian situation, but no.  Adding to the antics, John McCain announced on Friday August 15 that he would send along as his personal representatives Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, the Bea Arthur and Betty White of neoconservatism.  Then, to cap things off, McCain himself dropped the atomic punchline: "In the twenty-first century, nations don't invade other nations."

You could hear irony clawing at its coffin lid.  

It is evident that John McCain will be the next president because Americans are too scared of the world and the things that they do not understand. Republicans have deceived the public into believing that the world is a dangerous place, and it can only be understood by them.

Maybe I missed something, there is a major conflict with Russia and a key US ally and Bush went on yet another vacation.

Am I the only one who has a problem with our president once again being missing during a time of a major emergency?

This is Republican leadership!

Bush whines about Congress going on vacation without dealing with the offshore drilling issue, then he not only does not end his vacation playing tourist in China for 5 days, but then decides to go on vacation as Russia marches across Georgia, and the Georgian President is begging for help.

So what does the press focus on? The blatant pandering of McCain rejecting all of his past political views to embrace the Bush platform and Religious Conservatives.

Where is the outrage!
Where is the press!
Where is BUSH!@

President Bush and his minions vowed to continue to pummel Russia with strong words and harsh rhetoric over that country's continued occupation of Georgia. "It worked against them Democratics down in Congress, so I reckon it'll work against ol' Putie," the President said to a confused group of scouts visiting the White House.

1915 - Hurricane strikes Galveston, TX (275 killed)

1988 - Republicans nominate George H. W. Bush for president

COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!

Quote:
"No kingdom has ever had as many deadly civil wars as the kingdom of Christ."
-- Montesquieu, 1721

From the Church of Ineffable Stupidity:

What was the outcome of the Saddleback "experiment" last night?  Was John McCain the "strong, decisive leader" America needs?  Was Barack Obama the "wandering, philosophical, 'not-so-sure' pretend leader" America must avoid?  What lessons do we take from last night?