I just spoke with a prominent Democratic member of the Senate who is worried that the anti-surge forces won’t be able to muster the 60 votes necessary to open debate this evening on the Warner resolution to oppose the President’s policies in Iraq.

If so, the Republicans are going to have to explain what they have against free …

The Republican National Committee has this
to say about John Edwards on Meet the Press…
If Edwards was “dark” today, what can one say about the Bush operatives who spread the rumor that John McCain had a “mixed race” child in 2000 or spread the lies about John Kerry’s war record in 2004? Can the RNC operatives believe that anybody …

I watched John McCain and Chuck Hagel on Stephanopoulos, then switched to John Edwards on Meet the Press. Some observations:

1. McCain, whether you agree with him or not, has been entirely consistent about the war. I disagreed with him about going to war in 2003, agreed with him about the need for more troops until last summer, when it …

This, from a reader, deserves a serious response:

Gen. Casey didn’t want to run the war the way Rumsfeld instructed him to. He did it anyway, because it’s his job to obey higher-ups. Now he’s pulled from duty and Sen McCain, Bush’s surrogate for the escalation, rakes him over the coals in committee for following BushCo’s orders. The

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Iraq really seems to be falling apart. Read down in this piece and you’ll see that, in addition to the horrific suicide bombing in a Baghdad market, there were eight bombings in Kirkuk, a two-hour gun battle in Mosul and assorted mayhem throughout the rest of the country. The violence in Kirkuk is something to keep an eye on–it’s a city …

Well, this is pretty interesting. Six Democratic candidates for president making, in effect, their Washington debuts…I want to take a look at the texts before I comment in much depth on this, but I’ve got to say that Obama, Edwards and Clinton–in chronological order–made the biggest impression on the crowd, and on me. (Dodd, Clark …

Fred Kaplan, as usual, has the middle east mess exactly right.

Uh-oh. Clinton’s interview with Karen raises several red flags.
1. NAFTA–”We inherited it.” Oh, come on. Now, if I remember correctly, Hillary was opposed to the President spending political capital on NAFTA passage in September of 1993–she wanted him to devote all his energy to her health insurance plan. So an argument can be made …

Several readers were wondering what I was doing at the National Review’s conservative summit last week. Here’s the answer.

I just heard that General Petraeus has asked the very well respected Colonel H.R. McMaster to be part of his Iraq team. McMaster wrote a terrific book about Vietnam and successfully attempted to use counterinsurgency tactics in Tal Afar last year (although as with Petraeus in Mosul, the success diminished after McMaster’s team left). …

I was airborne this morning and missed the first part of General George Casey’s testimony before the Armed Services Committee, but apparently John McCain gave Casey a tough time.

I know there’s belated sympathy for Casey. He’s obviously uncomfortable with Bush’s new strategy in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean Casey wasn’t an utter failure …

Eric Alterman at war with the teachers unions! I’ve long believed that the NEA and AFT were harmful to children, as functionally reactionary as Southern suburban Republican legislators–in fact, I’m sure Alterman has criticized me about my anti-teachers-union harangues at some point or other (before his own kids started going to public …

There’s this from the estimable Roger Simon at Politico. I always thought Edwards’ nicey-niceness was gaggingly dreadful in 2004. He did John Kerry no favors by refusing to dispute him on the issues in the primaries. It’s good he’s speaking his mind now. Especially when he takes these positions with Simon:

To reduce carbon emissions,

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