perfidy

Mike, I believe that John McCain, screwball that he is, is also one of the most forthright people in national politics. In the words of John Shaft (in the 2001 remake), "Do you think that makes me less dangerous... or more dangerous?" He has been against the war [correction] for the liberation of Iraq from the start, and unlike my illustrious Senators Teddy Kennedy or John Kerry has remained steadfast and articulate in his convictions. I know that at least Buckethead is going to try to beat me like a drum for sayin' this, but Democratic candidate Howard Dean (Gov. Vt.) reminds me favorably of a liberal McCain in that regard. I tend to respond well to straight shooters, even the crazy ones.

As for the President's legitimacy, of course Bush lost the popular vote. That tends to happen all the time-- you know as well as I do that the Electoral College is really what elects the President (and it's also why we're in no way a direct Democracy). Besides, if you want to get technical about it, every President since whenever has really lost the popular vote in the sense that only about 30-35% of voters vote-- meaning that a mandate of the people is really concretely a mandate of 17.5% of the people. As with you, my real issue is that the Supreme Court decided the election given all the irregularities that kept being unearthed in Florida, and I'm not just talking about chads.

If you want a really fake election though, just look at 1876, or for that matter, 1824.

I agree with you-- the volte-face attempted by the big dogs as they try to claim that a long war was always the plan is pretty funny, and deeply sad. On that, you're right. Aside from the political issues though, I think I'm rather less pessimistic than you about how the war is going. As Outkast said, "you can plan a pretty picnic, but you can't predict the weather." Forget Turkey-we are on the outs with them on a monthly basis, and at this point, with Turkish troops attempting incursions into Northern Iraq, their help would be more hindrance in the long term. Now that it's on, I just want it all over fast.