With friends like Pakistan's dictator...

we really don't need enemies, do we?

Pakistan is playing out as an all-too-typical example of US foreign policy. Back a military dictator who ousted the elected leaders because they aren't tough enough. Let him clear out those who believe in democracy; they're easy. Push the whole country to side with the true crazies willing to hide in the mountains or the jungles or wherever.

For a while it looks good, then it all turns ugly. This is just happening more quickly than Central America or Iran.

And we even invited Bhutto to return and get killed, which, you know, you could have predicted. She did. Bush and Condi, who came up with the invite? They aren't so bright.

Whether our friend the general did it himself or just let the radicals do it -- say, in exchange for another few years of safety for the Taliban and Osama in the wilds of Pakistan -- matters little. Once again, we mucked about in another country's business, got in bad with a bad guy, and we'll be paying for it for years.

At least, we only pay theoretically. Pakistanis pay with their lives.

BTW, an addendum to Michael's Huckabee post. Woody Guthrie wrote a great song, 'Jesus Christ for President,' recorded by Billy Bragg. All that's new today is the lack of subtlety.

The Reason For the Season

So Mike "Screw this Separation of Church and State Crap" Huckabee was surprised to find that someone would criticize his campaign ad saying that the mythological Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. I'm sure he knows there are other cultures that have non-Christian mythologies that explain why they are celebrating the pagan-started Winter Solstice season. But there aren't as many of those people in the swing voting states as there are Christians. And bashing a minority group is an excellent way of shoring up support in the majority (see "illegal aliens, trotting them out when you're in political trouble" entry in Wikipedia).

Here's the problem: It's YOUR reason for the season, Mikey, not OUR reason for the season.

His world view presents Christian mythology as fact, not faith, and categorizes non-Christians as wrong. I have a real problem with a political leader who can't distinguish between faith and fact. Instead of aspiring to lead a multi-cultural country, he positions himself as the leader for the biggest voting bloc - and screw the rest of them. Well, I guess it works in some Middle East countries, it's good enough for the Midwest.

It's a coward's campaign that places personal status over the long-term good of the nation. A leader stands up for the rights of the minority in the face of the majority. A politician counts electoral votes and does whatever it takes to win 50 percent plus one - regardless of the damage it does to the nation.

A Giftmas Card Tale

So gift cards get a bad rap; they're the easy way out, they show no thought, etc., etc. Sit down, boys and girls, and let me tell you a tale.

For those of us who live without credit cards, December can be a bit tight. School's out, so the income slows down a bit; there's gifts, licenses for next year's race program, etc. My wife said a few days ago, "You know, I'm passing by Starbucks nowadays, because when I want to drop in and buy something, I keep thinking about what I could do with that couple of dollars, and I just drive by."

So this morning, when she opened her gifts, among them was a gift card for Starbucks. I said, "We may not be rich, I promise you we'll never be so poor that you can't afford coffee."

The tears streaming down her face were all the confirmation I needed that the gift card was exactly the right gift.

Happy Holidays.

The Case Against The Primary

It's time to do away with the primary election.

Note the rise of Mike "Screw This Separation of Church and State Crap" Huckabee, who now leads national polls in the race for the Republican nomination. (I mean, really, can you even say 'President Huckabee' without laughing?) Rasmussen Reports notes that Huckabee's rise is because of the party's conservative wing - among the GOP's self-proclaimed moderates and liberals, he's not even on the podium.

Once again, thanks to the primary system, the nation will set itself up for a choice between two candidates who have succeeded in doing one thing better than anyone else - advancing their party's line furthest from the mainstream.

And they wonder why the moderates stay home on Election Day.

The argument against intelligence

More on Iran: The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today castigating Bush for even acknowledging the intelligence community's finding that Iran has no nuclear weapons authority.

OpinionJournal, which has little resemblance to the staid though too-safe Journal or any other sane media outlet, says "We reported earlier this week that the authors of this Iran NIE include former State Department officials who have a history of hostility to Mr. Bush's foreign policy. But the ultimate responsibility for this fiasco lies with Mr. Bush. Too often he has appointed, or tolerated, officials who oppose his agenda, and failed to discipline them even when they have worked against his policies."

In short, the right-wing Journal argues he should have rejected the Intelligence and continued a misguided policy.

The rest of us, of course, know Bush has never let intelligence get in the way of his agenda, and likely never will.

When the bombs away, Bush will play

The copout defense for the war on Iraq is this: Bush and the boys really, really believed Saddam had WMDs, so it's OK they took us to war, even though they were dead wrong.

It wasn't that they had all that oil, that expats like Chalabi were going to cut us in when they took it over, or that they tried to kill W.'s daddy. It wasn't like they were determined long before Bush even took office to get 'er done, and 9.11 provided a convenient excuse.

Well, the old deja voodoo is back again.

Sure, after months of dumbeats on the march to war with Iran, the White House did smartly reveal intelligence reports that say the ayatollahs haven't worked on nuclear weapons for years. That kind of stuff can come back to bite you on the ass.

But once those reports were out of the way, Bush and the boys immediately insisted Iran was still a threat, and the right-wing echo chamber picked it up from Fox News to the Wall Street Journal edit page. The 'reform Iran' groups almost immediately jumped on the bandwagon. Like Chalabi and his folks before Iraq, they not only urge war but tell the administration it'll be easy.

The bottom line: Bush wants to invade Iran, wmds or no wmds, just as he did Iraq.

In fact, them not having nukes may just encourage him. After all, he named North Korea, Pakistan and Iraq as members of the Axis of Evil. But he invaded the one without the nukes.

In fact, if I was a wacko despot, I think I'd even now be bidding on centrifuges on eBay.

The Silence of the Scribes

As my esteemed colleague here posits, there are legitimate questions surrounding the "religious issues" race being run by Republican candidates Huckabee and Romney. So why aren't those political reporters, um, you know, ASKING those questions?

Think of them as embedded reporters, much like the syncopants deployed with the troops in the Middle East. If the reporter travelling with Romney starts making Romney look bad, then Romney drops out, and the reporter has to go back to the office and start writing lost-dog and school lunch stories again. In the world of reporterdom, there are few higher-status positions than being on the road with the president-to-be. Asking hard questions is a good way to bite the hand that's feeding your career.

Plus, on a much simpler-to-understand level, if you ask the candidate mean questions, then the candidate doesn't invite you to their press conferences any more. And if it's your job to BE at those press conferences, well, how long are you gonna keep your job?

In other words, reporters today have a vested, personal, economic interest in keeping their lips firmly affixed to a candidate's hind quarters. You'll have to turn to non-traditional news sources for honest, hard-hitting questions to be raised.

Sources like the Ram Files.

Mitt Romney, you're no John Kennedy

The media is filled with praise for Mitt getting up say that America is big enough and great enough not to hold religion against a presidential candidate. Even if that candidate happens to believe a snake-oil salesman was handed golden tablets and magic glasses by an angel to create a religion that allowed men to hold multiple wives.

OK, hey, we are.

But look a little closer. John Kennedy, way back when, said he wouldn't represent the pope because he believed in the separation of church and state. America believed him, enough said.

But Mitt wasn't talking about separation of church and state, except to say we have too much of it. He simply wants ore traditional evangelical Christian to believe he'll represent not Salt Lake City, but Lynchburg or wherever the Christian Right is headquartered these days.

JFK, to whom Mitt was glowingly compared in USA Today, said he wouldn't try to write his religious views into law.

Mitt has been traveling the country to say he'll do exactly that with the Christian Right's views on, oh, choice, abortion, marriage and so much more. If his religion doesn't matter, why is he running on religion's issues?

These are, of course, his views now, though he held different views when he was running for office in a Democratic state. So let the Christian Right question his Mormon beliefs. The rest of us just have to wonder if he has any beliefs of his own at all.