Bomb Iran?

Either Bush is making a visionary play that will win his redemption in the history books or else he seems destined to be remembered as one of the most spectacular failures of all time.

"...Bush is making a visionary play..."
Um, excuse me, Mr Crawford... you said some words there, but they don't seem to make any sense in that configuration.

The country wants the president challenged and so long as the dems fail in this their numbers will continue to drop.

The real losers, of course, are the republicans.

First, the Congressional approval ratings are in the low 20's. Second, they're trending sharply downward.

But I'm most concerned about the approach to hammering out agreements that we're seeing. There are several differing approaches to forging a compromise. One is the Christmas tree approach: the more tinsel and ornaments that are on the tree, the better it looks. The other is the rabbit approach. How do you carve a sculpture of a rabbit? Start with a piece of stone and then cut away anything that doesn't look like a rabbit.

The problem is that Congress is doing both simultaneously. The stone is completely gone—everything has been cut away and there's no hope of a rabbit sculture. All that's left is a huge pile of tinsel and ornaments. We can't put together decent, minimalist agreements on reforming energy policy, healthcare policy, immigration policy, the structure of our military, or putting our fiscal house in order. We can agree to increase the pay of top-tier government officials, retain the subsidies on mohair and helium, build bridges that don't go anywhere, and interstate highways in places that have no interstate road traffic. It's a minarchist's nightmare: the substantive necessary stuff can't be done but the Congress is able to keep expanding the scope of government anyway.

That's not just silly, it's pathetic.