I was polled by telephone at 6 pm Sunday.  I am a "Decline to State" in CA-48.  I'm sure I was targetted because I live in a red Congressional district.  I'm sorry that I didn't record the poll better; if you ask questions about particulars I'll do my best to remember.

You know the drill in telephone polls.  My poll centered on Bowen vs. McPherson and Brown vs. -?-.  Chung?  There were questions on some of the others but not many.  I was also asked about voter id, electronic voting, trust of elections in CA, and abortion.

See "extended" for what I was able to write down or remember.  Again, if I've missed anything, ask.  I'll do my best to remember.    

Are we retreating into Baghdad?

Put these realities together:

Pakistan's plutonium and how the Bush administration kept it secret.  Key hear is the secret.  The Bush administration is ready, willing and capable of actions without anyone knowing.

Saudi Arabia threatening, eh, warning of war if Israel doesn't stop.  Syria sometimes sounds like it's threatening, eh, warning, too.

The Bush administration's wholesale endorsement of Israel's actions, which means we are unable to be the peacemaker.  The Bush administration doesn't seem to want to be the peacemaker, either.

The Iraqi Speaker of the House being essentially anti-American (he endorsed killing our soldiers) plus his statement that we were following a "zionist agenda" when we invaded.

Let's admit it:  We're not getting out of Iraq until 2009 at the earliest.  Even a disaster for Republicans in November won't force the Bush people to change.  They will not redeploy, period.

Therefore there will be one, and only one, issue in the 2008 Presidential Campaign.  Anything else- education, jobs, immigration, the flag, evolution, abortion, all of it- will be for Congressional and Senate races, though these may overwhelmed by the one issue:

Vote this way and we'll stay.  Vote this way and we'll leave.  That's it.

In short, it was "Brazil."

I believe anyone reading this was stunned by the sheer ignorance displayed by Senator Ted Stevens when he rambled on and on about the internet.  He obviously has never used the internet himself and the fact that he couldn't even call an email an email showed someone who needed to have things explained to him...very...slowly...and...simply.

What I couldn't understand was his thinking that there were tubes somewhere carrying computer information.  I now have an explanation and it isn't because he remembers the old style radios, etc., with vacuum tubes.  I've read posts on different sites that suggested this reasoning.

No, no, no...Whoever briefed Stevens needed an audio-visual aid.  I am convinced that whoever it was showed Stevens the 1985 film "Brazil."  Anyone familiar with the film can see the connection.

This is a serious question.
Perhaps I should rephrase it:  What is the closest relative any Republican Congressman, Senator or administration official has that has died in Iraq?

Did I get this right?  Did Stevens really agree to amnesty because it would be like what we did with Confederates after the Civil War?  He couldn't even say "Civil War" because he knows a certain segment of the Republican Party is adamant that that conflict was "The War Between the States" if not "The War of Northern Aggression."  Is Stevens implying that the Iraqi insurgents are just as right to kill American troops as the Confederates were to kill Union troops, the ones who followed the 1860 flag that contained all the stars, even the ones who said they were separate?

I'm not arguing with the limited amnesty idea.  Properly thought out and planned, with a firm deadline of no further resistance and understood consequences, this might be one real step towards our getting out.

I'm just stunned at how Stevens thinks.

Consider, really consider, what's coming (why does Hunter Thompson have to be dead when we need him so):

Clinton the inevitable.
Edwards the prince.
Feingold the brave voice.
Biden the quotable.
Warner the competent Governor.
Clark the General.
Kerry the Hamlet of Act III.
Richardson the voice of the small West.
Gore the Wise.

Now get nasty...

Clinton the sell-out triangulator.
Edwards, well, he didn't help much, did he?
Feingold the darling of those children who blog.
Biden the copier.
Warner...who?
Clark can't run in only Oklahoma.
Kerry the flawed Hamlet of Acts I and II.
Richardson the small time baseball player, oh yeah, he wasn't.
Gore...it was his to lose and he lost it.
 

Just about every poll for the last couple of weeks show Bush's approval ratings in the lowest 30s.  What would it take for that first two, three or four percent to give up on the President?  These people are the hardcore.  What could possibly happen that would push them over the edge?  Avoid the absurd; Bush will not be caught in bed with a live man or a dead woman.

But what if the new trend of labeling Bush a "liberal" takes hold among Republicans?  What if he is being thrown under the bus by the people who promote the idea?  What if they're sure that he's such a loser now that they're willing to give him up?  Left and left-leaning writers call the whole thing absurd.  But, really, what would break the bond that Bush has with the hardcore?  Answer: The perception that he is not really one of them.  In drips and drops they would push him away.

I wonder if Bush's fish story is his first defense against these, uh, attacks.