THAT SCREECHING SOUND?...

Always nice to hear some good news:

President Bush said today that the United States was trying diplomacy "one more time" to disarm Saddam Hussein "peacefully" and suggested that if the Iraqi leader complied with every United Nations mandate it would "signal the regime has changed."

I like the semi-intentional wordplay with the stated US policy of "regime change". Reminds me of those car commercials where the guy "changes" his vehicle from an SUV to a pickup.

But as I've noted before (the 'cynical coda' in the 2nd article), this may all have been part of the plan from the onset.

With that in mind, perhaps there's a hypothesis to be made about the congressional Dem's cave-in on the war resolution: Gephardt, Daschle & co. rushed through an otherwise-inevitable-anyway vote as quickly as possible, for two reasons...
1) They were betting that all this Iraq-talk was just a Rove dog-wagging ploy, and
2) They wanted to get the war resolution rubber-stamped as quickly as possible so there could be at least some time before the election where public focus would be on the economy and other domestic issues, where Republicans are seen as most vulnerable in November

In TFM's opinion, if #1 is the case, then the Dem's are really playing with fire (though I hope they're right), and if #2 is the case, then they need to get out there and not just attack the Republicans (and Smirk by proxy) but also to promote their own agenda on the economy, which is much stronger and better for America than the GOP's.

This, of course, leads us to the hideous misconception being perpetuated in the media that the Dem's don't have a significant economic plan of their own. Luckily, The Horse is back from vacation, and has a handy guide up for you to check out.