i'm not sure if it's a parody

* the hastert/laesch/howie campaign ad is here

* and here's a vote republican in november campaign ad. i'm not sure if it's a parody. those fuckers have even destroyed parody.

* woodward on lehrer:

"BOB WOODWARD: That's right. That's when the insurgency in Iraq had reached the point where there were 1,000 -- I was surprised to get this information -- 1,000 attacks a month. That's 30 a day. That is more than one an hour, that is the level of violence."

this is one quarter of the 'one every 15 mins' story

* woodward on lehrer:

"The postwar period, well, they thought it was going to be easy. And so when Jay Garner, for instance, the general they put in charge of postwar rebuilding, comes to the president -- now this is three weeks before the war -- and says, "You've assigned me these nine tasks. Four of them I can't do, the four most important one."

And the president -- it sails over his and everyone's head. And no one says, "Well, who's going to do that? What do you mean you can't do it?" And the president says, "Kick a**, Jay.""

i can't believe that 'ass' gets bleeped out of adult television in america (the audio was also bleeped)

* drum:

"COUNTERINSURGENCY....The Army's new counterinsurgency manual is nearly completed, and military sources say that this time they're really going to adopt its principles wholeheartedly:

The doctrine warns against some of the practices used early in the war, when the military operated without an effective counterinsurgency playbook. It cautions against overly aggressive raids and mistreatment of detainees. Instead it emphasizes the importance of safeguarding civilians and restoring essential services, and the rapid development of local security forces."

welcome to October, 2006.

* ifill introducing foleygate on lehrer:

"GWEN IFILL: So is this story resonating? And does it hurt all incumbents or just Republicans?
[]
GWEN IFILL: Final question for you both: Do you think Democrats will stay home, because of this, and just say, "A pox on all their houses"?"

jeebus.

* two days ago i mentioned that tradesports had the probablility of GOP holding the House at 40%, now it's 45%. what's up with that? both numbers seem really high to me, and/but i used to be in the gambling biz, so i have a certain faith in the markets. (senate is 3/1 for dems - which also seems on the high side)

* back to our fascination with the CA50 race (i have no idea what the polling is there) - someone has an anti-bilbray site. the headline story there atm is that bilbray took money from foley - oh, and he's racist.

* madsen:

"The Pagegate scandal surrounding ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) is growing in scope. According to congressional sources, Foley's predatory sexual advances on underage male pages was tolerated because Foley was a major campaign cash source for other Republican members. Although it has been reported that Foley gave National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Reynolds (R-NY) a $100,000 contribution, WMR has learned that Foley's contributions to Reynolds' committee totaled $330,000."