OK, I'm late to the punch, but I have to admit the Libby/Plame case never made sense to me. Discredit an opponent who says he has back door channels to national secrets by revealing that his wife works for the CIA? Are you using the same definition of discredit that I am?

Wilson: President Bush says that British Intelligence believes Saddam tried to buy uranium from a West African country. The CIA thought the same thing, and had me check it out, and I concluded that Saddam didn't actually get any uranium.

Bush: Oh, no, what should we say now?

Voice of reason: Point out that the CIA is not British Intelligence, and point out that trying to get uranium is not the same as getting uranium. In fact, declassify the part of Wilson's report that says even though Saddam did not get uranium he did try to. Then ask if Saddam will always be that unlucky.

Evil mastermind: No, no, no. Lets just say "how would he know, his wife works for the CIA!"

Bush: I think I'll go with the evil mastermind on this one.

Fitzgerald then investigates, determines Armitage is the leaker after two or three days, but can't close the investigation there because Armitage didn't commit any crime (he didn't intend to leak the name, that was just an honest mistake). So, instead, Fitzgerald waits around to see if anyone's covering up something that's not worth covering up. He sends reporters to jail, and promises he's no longer interested in the leak by Armitage, but rather the possibility that Libby is covering it up (that story was written before the public knew Armitage was the leaker, but literally years after Fitzgerald knew, so why else was he centering the investigation around Libby, especially since his news conference on the matter was "I have no evidence Libby leaked the name, but I think he's covering it up"?).

I really need to read the transcripts from Libby's criminal case. He's obviously appealed, but I have no clue what his chances are on that. I don't expect Bush to pardon Libby (but a future Republican may).

I am having a hard time trusting a jury that, after spending ten days deliberating, asked the judge what Libby was charged with (and then asked if Fitzgerald could win even if he didn't prove Libby's story was absolutely impossible), and decided he was guilty three hours later. Something's just not right.

Ever since I started following politics I've been greatly disappointed. I had heard stories about the great politicians who were able to either work behind the scenes unnoticed, or able to drum up enough public support that nobody would dare oppose them (or, like Churchill, Goldwater and Reagan, waited for country to change its mind about what was reasonable and what was insane). Most of my disappointment with politics right now has to do with watching blundering fools who think they are cold and calculating. Seriously, most of the schemes coming out of Congress are as tactful as a five-year-old closing his eyes and thinking nobody can see him.

Did Congress really just pass a non-binding bill opposed to holding land that the military captures so that the enemy doesn't recapture it? And were the key players actually surprised that everyone -- both their supporters and their opponents -- everyone responded with a yawn?

Since that didn't work, the big "shut down the war" strategy now turns on attaching conditions to spending bills. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid believe they have President Bush in a catch-22. He needs money to run the war, and Congress won't give it to him unless he agrees to take with strings attached. If he vetoes their spending bills, he'll run out of cash and American soldiers will die, and he'll get blamed for it. If he signs their spending bills, he'll get the money along with a timeline.

It's painful to watch "savvy" politicians fall for their own traps. When a President gets a bill, he can sign it, he can veto it, or he can not sign it. If he doesn't sign the bill, if Congress is in session ten days later, it becomes law. Otherwise it dies (Article I, section 7, second paragraph, near the end). In this case, President Bush can refuse to sign the bill, get the money, and state that (1) he never agreed to the strings that Pelosi and Reid attached, and (2) those strings are Unconstitutional. Sorry, no catch-22.

I once wrote that the conservative Democrats combined with Republicans probably make the largest and most solid voting block in Congress today. However, Reid and Pelosi decide what gets voted on, so that voting block is somewhat limited in what it can do. Specifically, it can't propose spending bills with no strings attached unless Reid and Pelosi sign off on it. But what happens when Reid and Pelosi upset enough politicians representing informed moderate voters? A Lieberman switch in the Senate would have Republicans setting the agenda there, and a handful of switches in the House would turn Pelosi into no more than a footnote (along the lines of "the first woman Speaker, and the shortest serving Speaker"). No catch-22, and a possibility of throwing themselves out of office. I really can't believe I'm seeing this.

If they can't be honest about their own conditions, why trust them when they talk about the country's conditions?

Paige and I just finished watching Man of the Year. It's an interesting movie, but I had a hard time buying into it because a major premise of the plot is that Congress gives a contract to run the Presidential election to a single balloting company. The problem with that idea is that there is no federal election in the country. There are fifty state (well, state and commonwealth) elections, that are run entirely by the states with some federal influence.

Oh, and everyone attached to companies is evil, and everyone attached to Hollywood is clean and pure. It's a movie to rent, but don't bother purchasing it.