We're not gonna get those goddamn polygamy queens off welfare until we get a good, God-fearin' Christian heading the HHS. Too bad Bush's nominee ain't the guy.

I'm with Matt on the Iraqi elections, a day that will go down in history but be forgotten the morning after. Like the June 30th handover, this is a largely symbolic event whose success -- given the constraints of Sunni non-participation -- will be forgotten by nightfall. At the moment, the streets seems blissfully clear of shrapnel and gore, and I think they'll probably remain so. The insurgents realize that, with or without attacks, tomorrow's elections will produce a government. So why expose themselves to the elevated risk promised by the day's enhanced security? They can lay low for a day, or even a few, waiting for the heads of government to shift (or, if Allawi wins, emerge codified) and the new leaders will find themselves no more protected than the old. After all, an Iraqi-led government has been "ruling" for months now, what do the insurgents care which Shi'ite is at its helm? Americans, for our part, will spend the morning watching CNN say the same thing a thousand ways. We'...

Continuing his historical habit of accumulating surprise endorsements, Dean got the nod from Harold Ickes this morning. Ickes, of course, is cleaved to the Clintons, and his emergence at Dean's side effectively ends all speculation that Hillary is standing athwart his candidacy yelling "Stop!". Here's the money quote or, more to the point, the money leak: Ickes, who heads the political action committee of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said the endorsement was his alone and "does not reflect Sen. Clinton's opinion." While Ickes would not comment on the Clintons' preferences, he is a close ally and would not be endorsing Dean against their strong objections. No one was immediately available in Sen. Clinton's office to comment. Italics, of course, are mine. The appearance of such a speculative paragraph in an AP article, of course, is Clinton's. And without their opposition, I just don't see Frost mounting a strong enough challenge to topple the governor. The funny thing is that...

Clinton has some wise words on Iran: He called Iran a far more formidable foe than Saddam Hussein's Iraq and a "perplexing" country split between "two governments": a hard-core minority that controls security forces and a reformist, pro-Western majority. A hasty and bloody military strike might alienate that majority , he said. "We ought not to do any [military action] until we have exhausted all reasonable diplomatic efforts," Clinton said, describing the main danger of a nuclear Iran as the potential transfer of nuclear materials to terrorists. "Deterrence still works, just like it did between us and the Soviet Union. So if Iran had a nuclear weapon, the main thing it would do is cast a pall over the Middle East. But they'd have to think a long time before they used it, because they'd be toast if they used it." Sadly, we've already alienated that majority, and most others, with a hasty and bloody military strike in Iraq. But Bill's right, we'd be better off not doing it twice.

Jerome Corsi, coauthor of the SwiftVets book, is moving to Massachusetts to challenge Kerry in 2008. And I can't imagine how sweet it will feel for Kerry when he electorally crushes this lying carpetbagger.

I agree with Justin that Israel's brinksmanship towards Iran has some US backing behind it. We're a bit tied up at the moment, so they're providing the promise of force that our people, and resources, won't allow. But the Bush Administration is making the same mistake with Iran that they've made everywhere else. Bush himself, by turning himself into a hated figure, has sabotaged our foreign policy by making it popular to oppose him. Thus, when we've got an unpopular priority it makes domestic sense for other countries to deny us our wish. Using Israel to threaten Iran creates the same scenario. Nothing does more for an unpopular Middle East autocracy's approval numbers than standing up to Israel, it's political viagra. Not only that, bringing a verbal aggressor into the picture weakens the EU's hand; suddenly, their calming tone is undercut by Iran's sworn enemy, who's now hopping around in the corner and providing proof for Iran's paranoid weapons rationale. I forgot where I saw it (...