the Senate race is tightening according to tradesports.

* jonathon:

"It really would be easier not to compare Krauthammer's writing to Nazi propaganda if he didn't write exactly like a Nazi propagandist."

* the Senate race is tightening according to tradesports. GOP holding the senate: 69%. GOP holding the House : 33%

* Glenn:

"But inconsequential distortions and stray gaffes will not save the Bush movement because Americans, in huge numbers, have come to see it for what it really is. The dissatisfaction is deep, profound and fundamental because it is the by-product of the very reasoned thought-process which so many people claim is lacking among the American electorate.

* billmon:

"This is one of those strange, Twilight Zone moments when I find myself in agreement with the Cheney Administration -- or at least partially in agreement.

They are almost certainly right that formal partition of Iraq would quickly degenerate into a sectarian bloodbath. But whether it would "draw in" the regional neighbors seems more debatable. They have, in so many ways, already been drawn in. But formal military intervention is a camel of a different color. Uncle Sam may be helpless and impotent on the ground in Iraq, but he still has plenty of carrots and sticks (particularly the latter) to use against any nation that tries to stick a conventional military toe into the Iraq cesspool.

The more alarming possibility is the new domino theory, in which the collapse of Iraq begins the unraveling of the highly artificial state system created from the remains of the Ottoman empire after World War I (David Fromkin's Peace to End All Peace.) Think Bosnia on a sub-continental scale, with oil wells. This is the kind of thing that keeps imperial strategists awake at night.
[]
The system, in other words, paradoxically derives a surprising amount of stability from the fact that the region is so unstable. Most of the major players, Sunni and Alawite and Shi'a -- have a vested interest in keeping Humpty Dumpty perched on his wall. These days, even the Iranians seem more bent on increasing their influence over and within the system, rather than overthrowing it.
[]
The hard truth then, is that American soldiers aren't dying for democracy or to stop the terrorists or to keep Iraq out of the hands of the Iranians. They may not even be dying to keep cheap oil flowing from the Persian Gulf. But they could be dying so that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis can stay alive a little bit longer -- that is, until President Set-in-Concrete leaves office and the new guy bows to the inevitable and pulls the plug on this strategic fiasco. That's what Shrub's so-called humanitarian intervention has come down to."

* OMG! John Kerry!