Quickies

The House and Senate debated a time line for U.S. troops pulling out of Iraq as a pre-election move to show that the Democrats are divided (therefore, weak) and reckless. Today, the White House announces that they've developed such a plan, although they claim their deadlines are flexible. Of course, the deadlines are not flexible at all and have been long in the making to influence the upcoming election.

The Washington Post has an article on Curveball and the alleged Iraqi mobile biological labs. Apparently, the CIA's senior person in Europe warned that the "intelligence" was probably false. At least now we know why Tenet got the medal of honor (even though many Republicans despised him): he lied and continues to lie to cover for the administration. With so much theater coming from these second rate actors, perhaps we should assign an acerbic theater critic to report on them rather than our second rate political reporters dictation experts who missed the skeptical calls before the war.

More on the scandal surrounding Representative Jerry Lewis of California. It seems his former staffer turned lobbyist had special financial arrangements with a company seeking earmarks from Lewis' committee. Oh, and yea, Lewis' daughter worked for the staffer as well. Well, one might say, what were the daughter's credentials? I mean, if she is qualified, then where is the scandal? She's a former wedding planner and has been paid nearly half of the money that the PAC that was formed by the former staffer has raised.