I'm so frigging depressed. Why can't Hunter magically appear with one of his righteous rants to cheer me and everyone else up.

This isn't really much of a diary but maybe if enough people comment or engage in a good old fashioned group chant of Hunter!  Hunter!  Hunter! he'll appear out of the ethereal electrical meta-void.

I'm having a bad day.  Edwards decides it's best to step aside dashing the hopes of millions, er a thousands, er a maybe just a gaggle of devout followers like me--I'm a little fuzzy here because I've knocked back quite a few unionmade Pabst tall boys since I heard the news.  Working class way of licking my wounds I guess.  Pretty?  No.  Effective?  Yes.  Another couple a sixpacks (of course tearing apart the plastic can connectors to protect the dump frequenting sea gulls) and I might even be ready to support one of the two very shiny "viable" contenders to the throne that Chimpy McCodpiece built.  

Compounding my disillusionment, new Abu Gonzalez clone AG Mukasey gives another dissembling answer based on weak convoluted legal reasoning regarding what constitutes torture under the as yet to be identified or disclosed circumstances.  "It's relative don't you know.  Relative to the potential gain balanced against the degree to which the 'means of information extraction' (Orwellian euphemism for doing something physically and morally repellent to another human being), you know, shocks the conscience."

I know, I know, everything is going swimmingly in Iraq.  Diaries all over the internet with people talking up the idea that the "surge" is behind some degree of decreased violence.

I've consistently responded that it's a fiction.  A purposeful fiction at that.  Andrew Becevich is apparently the only conservative "thinker" willing to debunk the premise in an intellectually honest way.  Glenn Greenwald over at Salon had a great piece on Sunday pointing out the absurd and unsupported opinions of the "serious" war cheerleaders like Gordon, Kagen, Cordesman, and O'Hanlon.

In case you missed Shipjacks's diary a few weeks ago on this important case, here's the NY Times piece on the outcome.

Nothing too shocking here from the neocon clean up crew of Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts and their newest bestest BFF Kennedy.  If there's one overarching reason for us to make nice this primary season and ensure that a Democrat takes the White House it's the future of the Supreme Court.

To save the Democratic Party from a humiliating implosion that's why.  To ensure that the glass ceiling is shattered into a million little pieces in one fell swoop.  To present a stark contrast for the voters between incremental change and significant change (contrasted with the intra-party duo of Edwards/Kucinich).

More below.

No matter how things change, the song remains the same.  I've come to the sad conclusion that no matter how honorable, righteous or right-minded our positions are, fighting the good fight is doomed to yield at best incremental change.  At worst it will be absorbed by the two party system and electoral realities.  Historically progressive movements are assimilated and rendered impotent.  I choose to fight anyway.

Join me below the fold for a few poignant quotes from America's illustrious imperialist past.  Quotes from progressive forefathers(mothers) who in their time faced much the same systemic obstacles as do we but nevertheless continued to fight.  Eerily familiar words and ideas not so hoary as to be irrelevant but hoary enough to be shocking in their capacity to reflect little if any substantive change in our "American way of life."

Uh oh.  This story breaking in the LA Times could cause some trouble for Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama.

More below the fold.

UPDATE:  There seems to be a reasonable explanation here as pointed out on MediaMatters.  Whether or not Mr. Hsu had some previous run-in with the law is really not relevant so long as the money that flowed through the Paw's was on the up and up which is all that matters legally.  Whether or not this will be spun to negative effect, we'll just have to wait and see.

Bush on former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez in the NYT today:

In Waco, President Bush said he had accepted the resignation reluctantly. He praised his old friend as "a man of integrity, decency and principle" and complained of the "months of unfair treatment" that preceded the resignation.

We can break this down quickly into a few paragraphs below the fold.

I did something really dumb.  I lost my cool with someone I presumed to be a troll or Falafalbot.  I engaged in name calling which was inexcusable.  I received my first ever donuts.  I apologized.  My frustration level is at an all time high given our elected officials' unwillingness to even try enforcing the law.  

My TU status evaporated almost instanteously presumably due to my boorish behavior--not a huge deal other than as a constant reminder of my unenlightend behavior and lack of patience.  It stings but my hope is that I will someday be invited back into the fold.  I thought as penance I'd put some effort into bringing a timely issue to light and one of personal relevance because I have a veteran uncle stuggling with this problem--veteran homelessness and housing.  

I'm not sure if this is an appropriate way to draw attention to a topic, but humanities professor Mark Lilla of Columbia University has an essay in the NYT adapted from his soon to be published book titled "The Stillborn God:  Religion, Politics, and the Modern West."

I was mostly kidding about the Pros so I'll leave that until after the Cons.  Nice little piece in The Nation by Tom Engelhardt followed with a few inciteful comments by the usual suspects.  Hey what is it by the way with The Nation's comments section--only the same dozen or so posters ever post there?

    We all likely agree that war as executed is a form of mass insanity.  We deceive ourselves about the efficacy of things like "smart bombs" and the "professionalism of our military."  Whoa, whoa, whoa, before I get flamed, I think the American military is the most professional on earth. They generally conduct themselves as honorably as can be expected in light of being required to make split second life or death judgements turning on moral distinctions that the vast majority of us, thanks to our servicemen and servicewomen, will never have to make.
    I look into my own heart and feel incredible sorrow.  So many days we seem incapable of doing anything even remotely effective in stopping the madness that King George, his courtiers, and their corporate allies have unleased upon the Iraqi people and upon a small segment of America's children, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.  But we can never forget.  We can never stop fighting to stop this madness.

UPDATE:  Part of the point I am trying to make is that maybe we could give it a rest on the Cindy Sheehan diaries and remember what is truly important.

    As this is my first diary it's more test run rant rather than a substantive piece with thoughtful and/or thought provoking reasoning and analysis supported by links and data.  I was really intrigued by a recent piece in the The Nation by Rick Perlstein and I was hoping that others would read it and comment on the implications of what he wrote.  I just wanted to see if I could make the basic diary functions work and stimulate a little free flowing discussion.  Here's the link to the story in The Nation which is also at the bottom of my quick and ham handed effort.