Post election wisdom is beginning to surface among some Republicans. Senator Chuck Hagel (R) has a striking article in the Washington Post. It's such a departure from the "party line" type of Republican rhetoric during the past 12 years that I feel the need to reprint the whole thing here. When a member of the opposition party states views so clearly that could easily be mistaken for the view of the Democratic Party, one must conclude that he is writing with full candor and honesty. It is indeed time to retreat to reality. Bravo Chuck Hagel.

Leaving Iraq, Honorably

By Chuck Hagel
Sunday, November 26, 2006; B07

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.

Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.

The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.

It may take many years before there is a cohesive political center in Iraq. America's options on this point have always been limited. There will be a new center of gravity in the Middle East that will include Iraq. That process began over the past few days with the Syrians and Iraqis restoring diplomatic relations after 20 years of having no formal communication.

What does this tell us? It tells us that regional powers will fill regional vacuums, and they will move to work in their own self-interest -- without the United States. This is the most encouraging set of actions for the Middle East in years. The Middle East is more combustible today than ever before, and until we are able to lead a renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, mindless destruction and slaughter will continue in Lebanon, Israel and across the Middle East.

We are a long way from a sustained peaceful resolution to the anarchy in Iraq. But this latest set of events is moving the Middle East in the only direction it can go with any hope of lasting progress and peace. The movement will be imperfect, stuttering and difficult.

America finds itself in a dangerous and isolated position in the world. We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. Unfortunately, that perception is gaining credibility in the Muslim world and for many years will complicate America's global credibility, purpose and leadership. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed as the world seeks a new geopolitical, trade and economic center that will accommodate the interests of billions of people over the next 25 years. The world will continue to require realistic, clear-headed American leadership -- not an American divine mission.

The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We've already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq.

We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build. We've been funding this war dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations, which minimizes responsible congressional oversight and allows the administration to duck tough questions in defending its policies. Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years.

It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton commission gives the president a new opportunity to form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq. If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead.

To squander this moment would be to squander future possibilities for the Middle East and the world. That is what is at stake over the next few months.

The writer is a Republican senator from Nebraska.

Congratulations to Sarah! Wow, I know a flight controller for NASA. I'm really connected. I'm thankful I know you.

I'm thankful that my family is gathered here today. It feels good.

I'm thankful that my wife can cook and does cook. Our whole house smells like turkey dinner, brocholli casserole, sweet potatoes, and homemade biscuits and gravy.

I'm thankful that I can sing.

I'm thankful for the light in a student's eyes when they discover something about their voice, and the joy in their whole body when they sing a song well.

I'm thankful for my students and their parents.

I'm thankful that we are safe. I'm not afraid to go buy bread.

I'm thankful that I understand how to coach beautiful sounds out of people. It is my joy. Until I lose my mind, I'll always have that.

I'm thankful for the thirtysomething Singers who came over last Friday, stayed for three hours, sat on my floor and sang for an hour and a half. I will always remember that.

I'm thankful that I grew up in a loving family, that I married a wonderful woman with a loving family, that my children have become productive happy adults.

I'm thankful for Charles Davidson and his Butterfly songs and the butterflies that now hang on the green wall at casa verde. It ain't Carlos Paez Villaro, but maybe someday I can put him up there too.

Does anyone know if they put "Always Look on the Brightside of Life" in Spamalot before "As Good As It Gets" or after that?

Have a happy day, you can do it, nothing to it. Have a happy day all day.

Buried on page D 5 because it is unimportant to the powers that be:

During the years of his post-presidency, President Jimmy Carter has led the fight against numerous African diseases. Ernie Suggs of the AJC reported today that

"About 18 years ago, Nigeria reported more than 650,000 cases of Guinea worm disease." Now there are 15 cases in the country. These 15 will be the last ones in Nigeria. The article details the horrors of the disease. If you have no idea about it, you should definitely read it to be informed. There is no vaccine nor cure, but a rather simple method of prevention, if you can only educate all the people in these areas of illiteracy of how to prevent it. President Carter has taken on this task using all his influence as a former President to raise funds and organize the effort.

Since 1988 20 African countries have either eliminated or drastically reduced this disease. 11 of the 20 countries have eradicated the disease and all reported cases have dropped to 22,000, 98% of those cases in Sudan and Ghana.

So far the article is not online, but if it shows up later I'll link to it.

I see President Carter slammed in the press all the time. I don't think the writers actually know him. I've sat at his feet and listened to him talk and he is amazing. A statesman. An intellectual. A compassionate Christian. Rosalyn can hold her own too. He may turn out to be American President who is most important to the world.

I liked hullabaloo's post today so I'm stealing it.

Dick Cheney is out roaming the country today and he's carrying a gun. Don't let that stop you. Get out and vote for Democrats.

The New York Times sums up my feelings well today. It is time for a revolution in government.
It is difficult to read a blog this long. I challenge you to do it.

Editorial - New York Times
The Difference Two Years Made

On Tuesday, when this page runs the list of people it has endorsed for election, we will include no Republican Congressional candidates for the first time in our memory. Although Times editorials tend to agree with Democrats on national policy, we have proudly and consistently endorsed a long line of moderate Republicans, particularly for the House. Our only political loyalty is to making the two-party system as vital and responsible as possible.

That is why things are different this year.

To begin with, the Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush’s tenure has done a terrible job on the basics. Its tax-cutting-above-all-else has wrecked the budget, hobbled the middle class and endangered the long-term economy. It has refused to face up to global warming and done pathetically little about the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Republican leaders, particularly in the House, have developed toxic symptoms of an overconfident majority that has been too long in power. They methodically shut the opposition — and even the more moderate members of their own party — out of any role in the legislative process. Their only mission seems to be self-perpetuation.

The current Republican majority managed to achieve that burned-out, brain-dead status in record time, and with a shocking disregard for the most minimal ethical standards. It was bad enough that a party that used to believe in fiscal austerity blew billions on pork-barrel projects. It is worse that many of the most expensive boondoggles were not even directed at their constituents, but at lobbyists who financed their campaigns and high-end lifestyles.

That was already the situation in 2004, and even then this page endorsed Republicans who had shown a high commitment to ethics reform and a willingness to buck their party on important issues like the environment, civil liberties and women’s rights.

For us, the breaking point came over the Republicans’ attempt to undermine the fundamental checks and balances that have safeguarded American democracy since its inception. The fact that the White House, House and Senate are all controlled by one party is not a threat to the balance of powers, as long as everyone understands the roles assigned to each by the Constitution. But over the past two years, the White House has made it clear that it claims sweeping powers that go well beyond any acceptable limits. Rather than doing their duty to curb these excesses, the Congressional Republicans have dedicated themselves to removing restraints on the president’s ability to do whatever he wants. To paraphrase Tom DeLay, the Republicans feel you don’t need to have oversight hearings if your party is in control of everything.

An administration convinced of its own perpetual rightness and a partisan Congress determined to deflect all criticism of the chief executive has been the recipe for what we live with today.

Congress, in particular the House, has failed to ask probing questions about the war in Iraq or hold the president accountable for his catastrophic bungling of the occupation. It also has allowed Mr. Bush to avoid answering any questions about whether his administration cooked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Then, it quietly agreed to close down the one agency that has been riding herd on crooked and inept American contractors who have botched everything from construction work to the security of weapons.

After the revelations about the abuse, torture and illegal detentions in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Congress shielded the Pentagon from any responsibility for the atrocities its policies allowed to happen. On the eve of the election, and without even a pretense at debate in the House, Congress granted the White House permission to hold hundreds of noncitizens in jail forever, without due process, even though many of them were clearly sent there in error.

In the Senate, the path for this bill was cleared by a handful of Republicans who used their personal prestige and reputation for moderation to paper over the fact that the bill violates the Constitution in fundamental ways. Having acquiesced in the president’s campaign to dilute their own authority, lawmakers used this bill to further Mr. Bush’s goal of stripping the powers of the only remaining independent branch, the judiciary.

This election is indeed about George W. Bush — and the Congressional majority’s insistence on protecting him from the consequences of his mistakes and misdeeds. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and proceeded to govern as if he had an enormous mandate. After he actually beat his opponent in 2004, he announced he now had real political capital and intended to spend it. We have seen the results. It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

If you really want to be afraid, read all of this TIME magazine list of the 25 most influential evangelicals.

One day twenty years ago, I remember my colleague Terry saying "What will I be when I'm not a Southern Baptist anymore?" We were standing in the copy room of a Southern Baptist church, where we were both ministers. To say that Terry is more conservative than me is something of a gross understatement.

I went to a the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the early 70's. The current crop of SBC leadership would have said it was a bastion of liberalism then. What they mean by that is that the professors did not tell you what to believe. They gave you a list of 13 prominent interpretations of a scripture passage, proposed by Bible believers over 20 centuries, and asked you to chose one of those for yourself and be able to defend your position. I actually remember the test question on that one. At no time did I ever hear a professor say that he knew the definitive way to interpret any part of scripture. It was confusing to study the Bible. That is liberal. In the conservative world there is one answer and it is simple. Do it this way.

Christian conservative zealotry has taken over the Southern Baptists since then. The organizational shell is still there, but it has been hollowed out. All the buildings are still there, but the occupants have all changed. The president of my seminary now advocates that all forms of birth control should be abolished, even for married couples. God only intended sex for the procreation of children. Albert is thinking about other people having sex way too much. Take a break man.

My brothers-in-law have been taken in by the "Muslims are out to get you" fear mongering conservative right that is also well represented in the Southern Baptist Convention. Muslims are being trained from birth to murder all infidels. Can you feel the cold, steel blade of their scimitar against your neck?!! Their religion demands world domination. All muslims must be eliminated.

What can you say to stuff like this? They send me emails of warning and dare me to refute any of their "facts." Another of my favorites: Muslims are moving here to take over our country from within. Poor me, I was just realizing that the Mexicans were taking over, now it's Muslims too?

The Rev. David Clippard gave the opening address to the Missouri Baptist Convention this week. According to the St. Louis Dispatch, he said "Today, Islam has a strategic plan to defeat and occupy America." The audience cheered. According to Glenn Greenwald, Rev. Clippard's speech emphasized that the greatest threat America faces is the Grand Plan of Muslims to take over the United States, establish a Caliphate inside our country, and then either force everyone to convert to Islam or kill those who refuse.

Whew! These are bad guys. How could I be so unaware? How could John Stewart have not reported this on the Daily Show? It is eye-opening to read the whole article.

My daughter is Episcopalian. My son attends a Methodist congregation. We are members of a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church.

We move closer and closer to totalitarianism with this administration. Every independent or investigative voice must be silenced. The Republican congress is not a silent partner in the takeover. Rather, they are walking hand in hand with the administration. The biggest scandal of the week is not the Ted Haggard story, which made the front page of the AJC at the bottom of the page. (The story does not say that this man has weekly conference calls with the white house to influence their policy, but he does.) Though it is scandalous that Haggard has been seeing a male prostitute for three years and buying drugs through him. Haggard has told a number of lies about the situation and is now backtracking as more and more comes out. True to the Jimmy Swaggart model, his 14,000 member church is supporting his versions of the events, even as they change. Circle the wagons. Liberals are attacking us. If you think about it, Haggard is a gay drug user and a religious right hypocritical mouthpiece. What is news in that?

But the BIG scandal is not in the AJC anywhere.

The congress has passed a bill in the dark of night, a big bill with so many items in it that no member of congress knows what is in the bill. And secretly (Really. I mean secretly. Isn't that a weird thought?) a provision was added to end oversight of waste and fraud of the 8 billion dollars that is being spent in Iraq each month. Those reports of shoddy construction, missing weapons, faulty vests for soldiers, etc., have been an embarrassment to Haliburton and others with no-bid contracts, so the office doing the investigating and reporting the fraud has been eliminated. It no longer exists by congressional fiat. [sound of a bubble popping]

Who put in this provision? Oddly, there are no fingerprints. No one will admit to having had it done. No one did it! Those who saw the "final" version of the bill say that it was not in there when they reviewed the final version. No one put it there, no one saw it, no one debated it. It is just there. This sounds a lot like what my sister and I had to say when Mom and Dad came home and we had broken something. I don't know Mom. Didn't hear the crash. We've been outside playing. Maybe there was an earthquake.

You'll have trouble finding any information on this in your local paper, so find the details, spelled out in order here.

I have a feeling that we are only seeing the tip of the iceburg with the Republican corruption that is currently in the news.

Bride's immediate family


Cousins


Brother, Grandfather and Dad


Aunt and Grandfather of the bride

Departure
The maid of honor
Frodo Baggins?

The bride's relatives gather in Saturday's sunshine. Parents of the bride below.




Grace Calvary Church in Clarksville, built in 1840.