The Iraq war is going nowhere fast. To know this, all you have to do is listen to the people selling it, especially General Patraeus and George W. Bush. To them, our success can best be measured by the promise of cutting 30,000 troops by next summer, even though the military long ago told us that there was no way it could sustain the current level of soldiers any longer. Indeed, you go to war with the army you have. Success then, is returning to the way the war was previously prosecuted. 130,000 troops were woefully inadequate from 2003-2007, so let's try it again. That makes absolutely no sense. Does Bush think the country so stupid that it doesn't remember that he was forced to implement the surge in response to the chaos that resulted from his own failed policies? Consider the following exchange between Bush and Nancy Pelosi:

When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to "find common ground" on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to "start doing some redeployment ," the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.

"No you're not, Mr. President," Ms. Pelosi interjected. "You're just going back to the presurge level."

Tonight, the president will do his best to try and convince a television audience that this stale bread is "New and Improved!" but what's new about it, exactly? That we've now armed Sunni militias who have decided it's in their self-interest to rat out Al-Qaida? They still despise the Shia, and now they're better armed. Sounds promising.

If the surge has worked, as Bush and Patraeus insist, wouldn't it be more logical to keep surging? Instead, to build on whatever success we've seen in Anbar, we'll be removing troops. They aren't even following their own strained logic at this point. The real problem, of course, is that the surge hasn't done what we'd hoped. While it may have quelled pockets of violence, its larger objectives remain dramatically void. Today, in fact, we learned that the Iraqi Parliament's attempt at an oil-revenue deal has collapsed.

Well, Barack Obama, among others, has heard and seen enough. On the campaign trail yesterday, he detailed what he would and would not do if he were in charge:

Senator Barack Obama yesterday presented his most extensive plan yet for winding down the war in Iraq, proposing to withdraw all combat brigades by the end of the next year while leaving behind an unspecified smaller force to strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests....

"What's at stake is bigger than this war: it's our global leadership," Mr. Obama said. "Now is a time to be bold. We must not stay the course or take the conventional path because the other course is unknown."

You can read the full speech here. While there are no easy choices in Iraq, this difficult one is certainly better than Mr. Bush's "Back to the Future" plan.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has issued a press release slamming the Bush administration's current plans regarding Iraq mainly because, according to Pelosi, the overall plan of the administration is to keep a significant number of troops in Iraq for ten years or more.

Here is an excerpt:

"Under the Bush plan, 130,000 Americans will remain in harm's way in Iraq at a cost of hundreds of billions of additional taxpayer dollars. This status quo policy was rejected by General James Jones, whose recent report stated that significant force reductions are possible and that we must reduce our military footprint in Iraq."

The press release has been reprinted on the web via Yahoo News and it clearly shows the General Petraeus' report had little impact on the Democratic leadership as this press release is a clear response indicating that the anti-war factions of the Democratic leadership have yet to be swayed. How this press release goes over with the public remains to be seen, but more than likely the public would not support another ten years in the theater.

After speculating whether this was 1968 all over again for the Democrats, I think we now have exhibit A. Cindy Sheehan has formally announced as an independent gunning for Nancy Pelosi's seat.

From AP:

Citing her son as inspiration, a tearful Cindy Sheehan announced her candidacy Thursday for the U.S. House of Representatives.

...Last month, she announced her intention to run against Pelosi if the speaker didn't move to impeach Bush by July 23. On Thursday, she said Pelosi had "protected the status quo" of the corporate elite and had lost touch with people in her district, most of whom, she said, want American troops out of Iraq.

...Sheehan admitted she has no funds for a campaign, but planned to immediately get started raising money. Without giving further specifics, Sheehan said she wouldn't accept money from corporations and would run on a platform of universal health care. Sheehan said she also wants to make college affordable and improve ethics in the legislative and executive branches.

So maybe now the Democrats will actually believe the conservatives and others who suggested that Cindy Sheehan is an unhinged woman trading on the goodwill of her dead son. Just who was it that fed the media reputation, who booked her on all those talk shows? Who funded her camp in Crawford? Talk about pigeons coming home to roost.

I'm a certifiable baseball junkie. I play, coach and watch every chance I get. I coach indoors when it's snowing and frigid in February even.

That said, this Barry Bonds issue has me irate. Hank Aaron's home run record of 755 is arguably the single most coveted record in any sport. Think about that number and consider that Willie Mays only came within 90 of it. To see Bonds break it last night made me sick. No, not because he' plays for the hated Giants or the fact that he's black that has been thrown around without thought, it is pure and simply the fact that Bonds cheated.

Granted, everything is allegation at this point but when a guys foot size increases 2 1/2 sizes and his hat size goes from 7 1/8 to 7 3/4, you have to figure there's something to these allegations. The fact that he has been widely implicated in the BALCO scandal just ices it for me. The fact that Hank Aaron was not on hand says all you need to know about how he feels getting beaten by a man who is enhanced by chemicals.

Yesterday I was in Seneca Falls, New York, visiting the Women's Rights National Historical Park. I enjoyed taking a tour of the Wesleyan Chapel where five women organized the Seneca Falls convention on July 19-20, 1848, the first women's rights conference in American history. It gave me a chance to reflect upon how women's rights have progressed -- and what struggles remain -- in our nation.

Today, in Hillary Clinton, we have a woman running for president as a candidate of a major party. Last fall, in my home state of Massachusetts, a woman ran for governor as a candidate of the other major party (Kerry Healey, Republican). Women occupy the positions of speaker of the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi, first-ever) and Secretary of State (Condoleezza Rice, second-ever). Whether you agree or disagree with the political beliefs of the women on this list, it seems that, politically, we have made progress since the days when women could not vote, pursue higher education, or hold political office.

Will we have a female president? We've had TV shows on the topic, yes, but will this occur in real life? The vision of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in some ways, remains to be fulfilled.

Cindy Sheehan is bitter. It's been a classic example of what the media will do with people who they need for a purpose and then kick to the curb when they're finished. They anointed her the leader of the "peace movement" and followed her every move. From Crawford, Texas to Washington D.C., Sheehan was exulted and enabled. She actually seemed to believe the press about herself. The ultimate hard-left blog Daily Kos allowed her to post her thoughts at will.

But then a funny thing happened. They tired of her antics and you started seeing less flattering stories printed. The public as well grew weary of her and wished she would just go away and grieve. We felt for her, but she took it to an extreme. Kissing Hugo Chavez was the last straw for a great many people.

Eventually, she "retired" from the movement for a short time and did what we had hoped. But instead of getting her life together, it seems that she seethed and turned on the Democrats who once lauded her when she was "Mother Sheehan" dogging the president.

Cindy Sheehan is another gift that keeps on giving, as the Democrats are finding out. Although she has no chance of beating Nancy Pelosi, she promises to be very entertaining all the way up to election day. Her latest screed was published yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle. In it, along with the usual anti-Bush stuff, she claims that the response to her pending congressional campaign against Pelosi has been 3-to-1 positive, and that she has discovered the true nature of the Democratic Party:

I was a lifelong Democrat only because the choices were limited. The Democrats are the party of slavery and were the party that started every war in the 20th century, except the other Bush debacle. The Federal Reserve, permanent federal income taxes, not one but two World Wars, Japanese concentration camps, and not one but two atom bombs dropped on the innocent citizens of Japan -- all brought to us via the Democrats. Don't tell me the Democrats are our "saviors" because I am not buying it -- especially after they bought more caskets and more devastating pain when they financed and co-facilitated more of President Bush's abysmal occupation.

Oh, and she calls Hillary Clinton a "Republican":

I was frightened out of ever voting for a third party, or an independent candidate, but voting out of fear is one of the things that bestowed us with the Bush crime mob and may give us the Republican, if not in party affiliation, Hillary Clinton.

Hey, third parties also gave us Bill Clinton, but who's counting. This train wreck is going to be so much fun to watch. I happen to think that Sheehan is a very sick woman, and one to be pitied -- however, she is so self-righteous that she just begs to be mocked. But hey Democrats, it was you (via Fenton Communications and others) who created her and used her for your 'evil' purposes. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

...or does it? Earlier this evening the House of Representatives passed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's much heralded Responsible Deployment From Iraq Act by a vote of 223 to 201. When I logged on tonight and saw the vote results, I thought it was a pretty important accomplishment by the Democrats. Then I read the bill and began to laugh.

I encourage everyone to read the bill - it's very short. It says - nothing. No numbers, no plans, no milestones. In essence, it's a Sense of the House act dressed up as legislation. This is from the Summary:

Directs the Secretary of Defense to commence the reduction of the number of Armed Forces in Iraq beginning no later than 120 days after the enactment of this Act and complete the reduction and transition to a limited presence in Iraq by no later than April 1, 2008

That's it. It's never going to get through the joint committee, but let's say it does and the president doesn't veto it. This Act means that in 120 days from the signing the secretary of defense has to start bringing troops home from Iraq. It could be as little as one soldier. The "limited presence" referred to in the bill is undefined, as is any new mission priorities - who's to say that the "limited" number won't be 130,000 troops, all engaged in counter-terrorism missions and support. President Bush is still left to determine how many troops are needed in Iraq, and what they will be doing. In January 2008, the President is required to give Congress yet another plan for Iraq. Not because the surge won't be working, but because the House Democrats say so. He has to update that plan again in July 2008, and then every 90 days thereafter.

This is what Pelosi meant when she said she was going to bring the troops home? What a con job she's pulled on the left.

Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist whose son was killed in Iraq, has threatened to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if Pelosi doesn't introduce articles of impeachment against George W. Bush in the next two weeks:

"I think all politicians should be held accountable," Sheehan told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership. We hired them to bring an end to the war."

With all due sympathy for Ms. Sheehan, she certainly does speak like a politician. The truth is that while dissatisfaction with the Iraq war played a big part in the shift in Congressional power, it is a bit of a stretch to say that many of us expected a cause and effect outcome on that issue alone. The national election was not similar to a California ballot initiative in which the populace gave the war a thumbs up or a thumbs down (though given the chance, it would have done the latter).

Moreover, the threat of running should Pelosi fail to start up the impeachment engine, is another self-righteous piece of grandstanding. Doesn't Sheehan realize that even if she were elected, she would be just one voice in many, unable to realize change without building consensus and reaching across the aisle? If you think Nancy Pelosi is a polarizing figure in politics, just try Congresswoman Cindy Sheehan on for size.

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a KIA soldier, is threatening the House speaker with a primary opponent unless Nancy Pelosi files articles of impeachment.

Sheehan said she will run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 as an independent if Pelosi does not seek by July 23 to impeach Bush. That's when Sheehan and her supporters are to arrive in Washington, D.C., after a 13-day caravan and walking tour starting next week from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.

"Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership," Sheehan told The Associated Press. "We hired them to bring an end to the war. I'm not too far from San Francisco, so it wouldn't be too big of a move for me. I would give her a run for her money."

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the congresswoman has said repeatedly that her focus is on ending the war in Iraq.

"She believes that the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bring them home safely and soon," Daly said in an e-mail to the AP. "July will be a month of action in Congress to end the war, including a vote to redeploy our troops by next spring."

I must admit, I am loving this a little too much. Of course Pelosi isn't going to file articles of impeachment. She may be a liberal Democrat, but she isn't stupid enough to go for an overreach of those proportions. But Sheehan apparently is that stupid, or doesn't care about overreach, and probably has more than a dozen supporters cheering her on.

The part I'm liking is that Democrats will either have to take her seriously, or dismiss Sheehan as a publicity-seeking self-interested rabble rouser. Which of course, is exactly what she has been all along. The Democrats liked her when she camped out in Crawford. Not so much, now.

David Espo of the Associated Press is reporting that the Democrats have capitulated, and will offer an emergency war funding bill without timelines and without much of the criticized pork barrel funding attached that the Democrats used to buy off liberal Congressional votes in the previous bill.

In grudging concessions to President Bush, Democrats intend to draft an Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs, officials said Monday.

The legislation would include the first federal minimum wage increase in more than a decade, a top priority for the Democrats who took control of Congress in January, the officials added.

It is unclear from the article if Field Marshal Pelosi has commitments from the left wing of her caucus to vote for the bill as it appears to be developing. The article goes on to mention that Democrats will "seek other opportunities later this year to challenge" the war.

The minimum wage part of the bill is probably the carrot for the liberal wing, although the Democrats could have approved a bill raising the minimum wage last year, but didn't in order to avoid letting Republicans have a populist win prior to the election. It was also attached to an extension of the tax cuts, and the Dems couldn't be seen voting for that.

With Pelosi saying as late as this weekend on the Sunday news shows that she would not give in to President Bush on elimination of the timelines, it's unclear how this is going to play with the netroots. Not well, I suspect.

Almost forgot to update readers on Speaker Pelosi's attempt yesterday to change the rules concerning the minority party's ability to use the Motion to Recommit on the floor of the House.

The minority Republicans have been using the rule to hold Democrats to the PAYGO rules that their own leadership put into place earlier this year. That "pay as you go" rule means that when the Democrats offer up a bill that will increase spending, they have to indicate that either they're going to raise taxes to fund it or cut another program's funding to pay for it. The Democrats were attempting to pass bills without cutting other expenditures, so the only way they were going to be able to fund the new spending under their own rules was by eventually raising taxes -- and they refused to tell the public that in the bills.

The Motion to Recommit offered in these cases was mainly a way of forcing Democrats to go on record within the framework of the bill language itself to indicate that the measure would, under PAYGO, be paid for by a tax hike. Democrats freaked, they didn't want to go on record as supporting tax hikes - hence the attempted rule change yesterday.

In breaking news, House Speaker (and sometimes Field Marshal) Nancy Pelosi, who campaigned along with her Democrat colleagues that she would open up the House to debate and minority participation, is about to eliminate a House rule that has been on the books since 1822 -- the Motion to Recommit, which is made available to the minority.

After losing a string of embarrassing votes on the House floor because of procedural maneuvering, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has decided to change the current House Rules to completely shut down the floor to the minority.

Remember when the Republicans were thinking about changing the Senate rules on cloture during the last Congress? Remember the outcry from the press and the Democrats over that? Think the press is going to do the same now? This Democrat Congress is turning into a bigger circus than I thought...

Sounding more like an ambulance chaser than a national leader, Field Marshal Nancy Pelosi told supporters that if President Bush attaches a signing statement to a supplemental war spending bill she'll sue him. In an article in The Hill, Pelosi is reported to have told a group of liberal bloggers (of course):

"We can take the president to court" if he issues a signing statement, according to Kid Oakland, a blogger who covered Pelosi's remarks for the liberal website dailykos.com.

Sounds sweet to liberals' ears, but signing statements have a long history and are quite legal and proper. Pelosi and Co. should read the memorandum that was prepared by by Walter Dellinger, of Bill Clinton's Justice Department, for the president in 1993 which contains the following statement regarding on the "legislative history" of presidential signing statement, which is the type that has Pelosi and her fellow Dems all hot and bothered:

In support of the view that signing statements can be used to create a species of legislative history, it can be argued that the President as a matter both of constitutional right and of political reality plays a critical role in the legislative process.

As for me, I'd love to see Pelosi attempt to bring this to court. If it doesn't get thrown out of court on separation of powers grounds first (the president isn't rewriting the text of the legislation, he's attaching a separate document to it explaining the Executive Branch's views on it), the Supreme Court will certainly permanently and statutorily validate the president's use of signing statements in this manner. Why am I so sure? Because the Supreme Court itself has already used presidential signing statements as a way to interpret laws.

Have you heard?! One of the most powerful women in the government has met with a Syrian official. Egad! Where are my Republican talking points? We need to ramp up the rhetoric and nail her to the wall. She obviously hates America. Why else would she want to hold discussions with an an avowed enemy of the U.S.? Doesn't she know, as a fellow blogger so breathlessly put it, that she "has signed a death sentence for even more of our troops, as Syria is allowing insurgents to ... attack our military with zero consequences"?

Oh wait. Sorry. My mistake. Call off the dogs. That wasn't Nancy Pelosi meeting with the Syrian foreign minister today. It was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Bush administration has shunned Syria, accusing it of fueling tensions in Iraq and Lebanon _ and it assailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her visit last month to Damascus. But the White House has been under pressure to talk with Syria and Iran, the chief U.S. opponents in the Mideast.

"There was an opportunity to talk about the problem of foreign fighters _ a major source of the suicide bombings. I thought it was a good opportunity to talk to the foreign minister about it," Rice said after the meeting.

Funny how when a Democrat tries to engage an enemy in talks, it's high treason. But when the administration does it, it's just good old fashioned diplomacy.