Today, the President announced his plan for draw-down of US troops in Iraq. The plan would withdraw about 100,000 American troops from Iraq by August of 2010 - or 18 months from now - and would leave an estimated 35-50,000 troops, with a plan for all troops to be withdrawn by the end of 2011. Interestingly enough, the president's plan has drawn overwhelming support and praise from Republicans, while causing some in his own Democratic party to question if the residual force is not too much. I found the following comment from the petulant Republican House whip Eric Cantor to be amusing, though:

President Obama deserves credit for not listening to the chorus of voices calling for a rapid drawdown of forces regardless of the consequences for Iraq, our military and the American people.

No, seriously. Is this guy high? Listen to Michael Steele, the newly minted Chairman of the Republican National Committee, babble on about President Obama's jobs bill, "jobs vs. work" and how "work" created by government contracts aren't really "jobs."



One more time. Is this guy high? Because contracts end, jobs created by a contract aren't jobs? What about all the contracts that private companies have for limited times? And I am not just talking about people working for them on contract, but say a private company wants a new building, and they hire a builder and contract for 2 years. The builder hires construction workers to do the job. Those aren't jobs, Michael Steele?

I'll have whatever he's smoking...

I am a loyal Democrat. I voted for Barack Obama. I support the President and I want him to be a big success. But I have got to be fair.

When John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his Vice Presidential running mate on the Republican ticket, progressive America and much of the media was rightly appalled with one question: Who the hell was doing McCain's vetting? Where was the vetting? How do you pick a running mate on 2 meetings and a phone call, especially when we found out that the Democratic opposition research were the first people that were asking for documents related to Sarah Palin in Alaska, meaning that McCain's team never vetted her? This, probably more than anything else, plunged the public's confidence in John McCain, or whatever of it he still had left.

Former Senate Democratic Leader and current Health and Human Services Secretary nominee of President Obama, Tom Daschle has a serious tax problem. Daschle's tax problems are not Geinter-sized $15,000 tax problem. Oh, no. The former Senator forgot to pay $120,000 in taxes. Yes, he later paid it with interest. But it's not as though he forgot a line item on his tax forms. He forgot to include a whole use of a car and a driver, while probably talking to his tax advisers in that very car while being driven by that very driver.

Enough already. Whether Tom Daschle is merely incompetent or a crook is a discussion for another day. I tend to think the former. But haven't we had enough incompetence to deal with for the past eight years?