1. Anonymous says:

    That therapy session caught my eye as well, and confirmed Nancy Pelosi’s good judgment in dumping Jane Harman from the Intel Committee.

    Bush and his cadre of Iraq dead-enders have some very powerful supporters, but on the other side are probably over 70% of the people now and most of the non-neocon GOP, who see their fortunes going down the toilet for the foreseeable future. Nothing is going to marginalize McCain more than a call for more troops, more war, let’s attack Iran.

    As Josh Marshall pointed out today, there is very little evidence that the Maliki Government wants the same things in Iraq as we want. They want a Shia-dominated, Islamic-oriented, Iran-backed Iraq. Not our goal. So why are we helping them?

    The pressure is going to build on Bush and Cheney, and the press is going to become less timid now. It is going to take time, but we are coming out, sooner if our death toll continues on its present pace.

    I expect that Bush’s speech is going to be a huge dud and that when Congress comes back in January, they will pass some sort of resolution before he gets to deliver the State of the Union. Then the budget will hit the fan in early February. Then it will be hand-to-hand and urban warfare in DC until the troops start coming out by June or maybe even earlier.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Yeah, that’s the big thing no one will mention.

    The best way to avoid a regional war is for the Shiites to be able to assert authority over Iraq. But if they do, it will be with the active participation of Iran. Calls to â€negotiate†with Iran are, as Iran is making increasingly clear, reflect a fairly naive sense of which side is negotiating from a position of strength.

  3. Anonymous says:

    That therapy session caught my eye as well, and confirmed Nancy Pelosi’s good judgment in dumping Jane Harman from the Intel Committee.

    Oh indeed.

  4. Anonymous says:

    I suspect it was a strategy session.

    Bush is looking at nothing but bad news from now on into the distant future. Yesterday when the Senate Dem’s first reacted to the report — Biden mentioned as of mid January he plans about eight weeks of hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — which he is jointly planning with Lugar and Hagel. He announced some members of the ISG will be early witnesses. So probably four days a week for two months this group will be pumping out Foreign Policy matters — while Levin also plans a series of hearings — subjects not yet finalized. On the House side, Ike Skelton plans to recreate the special investigating subcommittee in Armed Services, which he is calling the â€new Truman Commission†by the way — and they will be going after waste, fraud and abuse in DOD’s budget. Waxman plans something similar, though on a broader range of departments. Bush is just beginning to understand what Merry Christmas and Happy New Year means when the greetings are delivered by a set of fairly aggressive Democrats. I suspect Lieberman and Harmon dropped by to see what they could cook up to protect some small part of Bush’s war, but then with Gordon Smith making his speech today — we get confirmation in a way of the group of perhaps 15-20 Senate Republicans who are cutting and running from Bush, so even Lieberman can’t protect GWB and his war. But I think they will try. For Bush, socializing with Harmon and Lieberman is the â€meaning†of being bi-partisian, even though in the end it is just a coalition of the looney losers.