the following is my take on the jack ryan issue:
to begin, i think that the republicans are lying. the rumors were of exactly what came out. the republicans knew this was there. the shock is bullshit. i think jack ryan told them everything, and the other republicans are simply claiming they were lied to in order to convince their base that they thought ryan was a much better christian.
still, the republican party actions do make sense and also explain what they are really all about. in the primary, they had a good candidate who might or might not be derailed by these issues coming out. if they did not, he had a chance. that does not mean they did not exist, or are or are not true. this issue simply shows the real connection between the republican party and the religious conservatives. first, they feel dependent on the religious conservative vote. (exactly why dems need to work to neutralize it) second, the party does not really care about the religious issues, or they would have either not supported him if they thought these files might be true, or they would still be defending him and claiming the files are untrue. the party is completely selfish and in it only to win. they now realize that these files taint ryan whether true or not, and they are not willing to stand with him against them. they are more afraid that the files on ryan could taint the party and, along with the trouble for bush, keep the base from coming out. this could mean further defeats in other races in illinois, especially with obama exciting the democratic base. thats all.

what to do about iraq? the nation magazine makes a strong argumentfor dated withdrawal. they also detail many other reasons and issues to be aware of. i said much of the same when moveon asked its members’ opinions. disagreements follow: one is whether giving a target date does more good than the problematic message that missing that date would send. another is my question of whether the UN would involve itself or could be effective in such a large nation.
former president reagan passed last night. i was not a fan. one night, quite a while ago, i pulled over to spit on his statue in some town in illinois where he was either born or lived for a while. i like to think i respect the man more now. let me say i still abhor much of what he did in office. should one try to separate the man from the office, from his decisions and deeds? or is that separation, when applied to one’s self as a governmental representative, what allows people to do horrible things? i dont know. clinton says we need to say that we do not like bush’s policies instead of saying that we do not like him. while bush’s policies are nowhere near as bad as hitler’s, we would be ridiculed for parcing our language in his case. bin laden? somewhat of a different subject, but most americans say that they do not like clinton but liked his policies. word games…with bush, ill just say that his policies are evil.
i forgot. let us only remind those who can cast no critical eye on reagan or dubya about stem cell research. it may hold many cures, as nancy believes, and allowing further research would probably be the best way to memorialize the man. stand against the politics of the day, and bring light to those in darkness.

we might want to pay attention to voices like his. most would trace the major new trouble in iraq to our shutdown of his anti-american newspaper. freedom of the press. yeah, right. in that, we spoke a universal language. let us consider him as a leader of iraq. this guy breaks with the establishment islamic leaders, calling for concern for the poor from an islamic point of view. he is understood to be a true iraqi. he has had his family killed for political reasons by saddam. seems to me that working with him could lead a transformation of the middle-east. he could be a youthful, compassionate voice of islam to give the people of the region another option besides bin laden. it seems that he embodies all the change we should truly want in the region, except that he is anti-american. we need to face that it will be impossible to find anyone acceptable to them that is not. we could have worked for a political dialogue with him, about what he would like the country and the region to be. instead, we showed him that we do not accept disent but only respect violence.

nice piece from vonnegut