open thread friday- the 13th

i can only think that this is an omen- for john mccain. you think imus has had a rough week- the slow slide of a once proud war hero is almost like rubbernecking at a car crash. once the maverick outsider driver of 'the straight talk express,' mccain has gone from standing by what he believes to pandering to the likes of bush and falwell. he has inexplicably tied his cart to the iraq war horse and it is proving to be the straw that broke the camel's back- uh so to speak. mccain had the reputation of bucking his fellow rethugs and reaching across the aisle in the interests of what was best for america and his arizona constituents. since the famous 2004 hug with the bushling, mccain has seemingly lost the will to live. how else can one explain the wreck of the straight talk express? the latest debacle was his claiming to be able to walk the streets of baghdad safely without worry. he was pounced on immediately by folks who actually live there and i have a feeling that this is going to be one of the final nails in the coffin for the mccain dream of ruling america. in his world, he probably wins.

unfortunately for the iraqis, we have the wrong people in charge of foreign policy right now. these folks have no clue or desire to figure out what the right course of action is. they look at this as a 'save face' operation for america. what they don't get is- it is too late for that. the genie of pre-emptive war, occupation, torture and rendition is already out of the bottle. we will have to bear this reputation for a long, long time. we are going to have to actually PROVE ourselves to the world for the first time in a couple of hundred years. we could start by REALLY brokering a peace settlement between the palestinians and israelis AND the sunni and shia in iraq. we could do that by, oh i don't know, learning the difference between the two and not simply lumping them all together as 'brown muslim people.' maybe- in 2009.