The following began as a response to a comment in inclusiveheart's outstanding diary, DONE. Much like my waistline, it grew too big to be contained and spilled over into a larger space.

One day, not all that long ago, a bunch of radical freaks got together and signed a petition.

Something big happened on Friday with respect to America's gulag at GITMO and everyone seems to have missed it. Join me over the flip for a tale of executive madness and public courage.

Following last night's South Carolina cock measuring contest GOP debate the emerging narrative among the chatting class is that Rudy won because he showed that he was manly enough to order other people to torture suspected terrorists.

Of course condoning torture is a radical, despicable, and craven departure from everything this country has ever stood for, but, hey, it was the Republican primary debate; what did you expect? That sort of Tom Clancy/24 fictive bullshit goes over real horrorshow with lizard brains in the GOP base. They pine for a Big Mean Daddy who knows how to stick it to "the bad guys" and, on that count, Rudy is just their kind of thug.

Rudy's open-mouthed embrace of torture-for-terrorists puts his ass in serious jeopardy, though. In fact, all it would take is one single question (followed up so he doesn't squirm out) to totally end his campaign for inquisitor-in-chief. Namely:

Are the religious extremists who bomb family planning clinics, shoot doctors, etc. for not going along with their religious views terrorists, or not?

Here are some goals for our involvement in Iraq that I suspect most people (and even some Republicans) could sign on to:

• Get US forces out of harm's way ASAP without looking like we got our asses kicked.
• Leave behind a stabilized, more unified Iraq, preferably under democratic rule.
• Put Iraq in a stronger position with its neighbors so that when we leave, the Iranians, Turks and Saudi's don't just carve it up like a cheesecake.
• Leave open the possibility of working with a sovereign Iraqi government to root out the terror groups that have moved in or sprung up in response to our invasion.

There are no guarantees, and it would require some massive stagecraft and a lot of backchannel diplomacy, but I believe it can be done. In fact, I believe it must to be done if we hope to avoid the worst future consequences of Cheney's ignorant an immoral war of aggression.

My idea is probably going to sound crazy (and, who knows, maybe it is crazy) but we need new ideas. Join me over the flip and help me catch the weak spots...

Once again, Der Fratboy has told the nation that if we set a firm deadline for the withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, the 'terrorists' (note that he never says who exactly) will just "mark their calendars and wait for us to leave".

Now, we all know this a bullshit argument that totally ignores the realities of the US ocupation of Iraq and is meant solely for domestic consumption. The truth is that most of the violence in Iraq is sectarian in nature and perpetrated by Iraqis, on Iraqis. It is their country. They will still be there when we leave, no matter when that is.

But let's play along with Bush's fallacy for a minute...

As if we needed more evidence that the Republicans' adolescent "boot in the ass" approach to foreign policy is actually making the world more dangerous, the State Department is set to release a report showing that the number of terrorist attacks worldwide shot up 25% in 2006.

A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a more than 25 percent increase in terror attacks worldwide in 2006 to over 14,000 - almost all of it due to incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.

Hey, remember the good ol' days of "when they stand up, we'll stand down"? Remember how The Escalation was going to have Iraqi forces "in the lead" and that it was just a temporary bump to give the Maliki government some leeway?

Evidently, we are not even pretending anymore:

Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy

WASHINGTON - Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Its the one theme common to all media figures trying to blunt criticism of Don Imus' admittedly racist remarks:

Look, I know Don Imus personally; he's a great guy.

The speaker then usually launches into to some personal Imus anecdote or conversation that he had with Imus that just proves to them that all the racist talk is just an on-air bit. You know, comedy and all that. If the public really knew him (like they do) we wouldn't take it all so seriously.

All that's fine as far as it goes, and its probably even true. But there's just one problem: Imus' "bit" is transparently racist, even if he is not,  and his listeners-- you know, the millions of folks who don't "know Don Imus" like so many media types do-- have nothing to go on except what Imus actually says on the air.

It has become unchallenged wisdom that Bush is going to veto any bill from Congress that tries to put limits on his ability to make Iraq the next president's problem. More importantly, the entire debate is shifting towards what Congressional Dems should or shouldn't do after the Boy King has his little Decideresque hissy fit; as if he bears no responsibility for his choice to veto.

WTF?

Yes, its true that Bush is an insecure little man whose desperate need to play War President on TV makes him more likely to whip out his veto pen and stab the American military in the eye with it.But a veto doesn't happen until it happens and we shouldn't just let him off the hook by treating his veto as a fait accompli.

Its been evident for years that George W. Bush thinks the Executive Branch of the federal government is his to do with as he pleases. As far as he's concerned, the Congress, the courts, our allies abroad, the majority of the country, and anyone else who does not like what he's doing with his government can all go piss up a rope; he's The Decider.

Anyone who passed junior-high civics knows that being elected (or placed into office by a friendly Supreme Court) does not confer the Divine Right Of Kings to a US president. Our system of government just doesn't work that way. In fact, it was specifically designed to avoid that sort of Executive overreach.

Who are the MEK? What role do they play in US policy toward Iran? How are they involved in Iran's purported nuclear weapons program? Why is the Bush administration using the US military to protect them?

The answers will probably surprise you.

While we are all fixated on the growing US Attorney scandal, the most significant free speech case to come before the Supreme Court in decades is gearing up.

Cue the WaPo's Robert Barnes:

Bong Hits 4 Jesus.

That is the slogan that a defiant high school student named Joseph Frederick fashioned with a 14-foot piece of paper and a $3 roll of duct tape. His goal was partly to get on TV as the Olympic torch passed through his town of Juneau, Alaska, and mostly to get under the skin of his disciplinarian principal, Deborah Morse, with whom he had a running feud.

It worked, at least the irritating-the-principal part. Morse crossed Glacier Avenue to Frederick's position across from the school and confiscated the banner. She later suspended him for 10 days. Frederick, a high school rebel who at the time was fond of quoting Thoreau and Voltaire, said Morse tacked on the last five days when he paraphrased Thomas Jefferson's admonition that "speech limited is speech lost."

That's right, Mr. and Ms. Educated Democratic America, everyone's favorite dim-bulb president is playing you for a chump, once again.

Remember when Der Fratboy rolled out his "surge" plan in mid January? Hard to believe its only been about five weeks since then, what with all the non-binding resolutions, Anna Nichole non-burying, bald Brittany non-rehabing and whatnot, but I'm sure you still remember the night Bush's heavily medicated visage appeared on TV and told us about his Big New Idea:

• Send in 45,000 more troops.
• Pursue a riskier basing strategy that deploys US forces across hundreds of "mini-forts" all over the country rather than bringing them back into larger, safer bases each night.
• Stop pretending that the Iraqi forces can ever "stand up" any time soon and make it the US Army's job to kick down doors looking for bad guys.
• Implement a classic counter-insurgency strategy that will take at least five years (and more likely 10) to play out to completion.

You know, that plan.

That's not the plan you remember? No worries, citizen, because that's what is actually happening. We'll just adjust your faulty memory later to compensate.

The way out of Iraq won't be found in cutting off funds for the military forces deployed there. Feingold's proposal is right on target, but it likely doesn't have the votes to pass, and if it does, it certainly doesn't have the votes to overcome Der Fratboy's inevitable veto. It sucks, and it makes me angry that Senate Dems seem content to play defense when the momentum is at their backs, but there it is. We need another way out.

The way out of Iraq leads through the private contracting system. Join me over the flip to see how.

Well, not single-handedly but one of today's posts has to power to reshape the debate on Congressional wartime powers.

Seriously, Greenwald destroys the current GOP minority's claims that the Congress should just defer to The Ultimate Decider the president on matters of troop deployment by using the arguments those same Republicans made prior to the US withdrawal from Somalia.

Jump the bump for the main course.

Katie, bar the door...

By now we have all seen Joe Klein's challenge to us in Left Blogistan to somehow prove that our calls for withdrawal from the occupation of Iraq aren't based on a desire to see America lose. Many of have ably crammed the dishonest question down Klein's despicable, slime-mongering throat, so there's really no need to repeat that here.

However, the way Klein chose to attack his critics-- by demanding them to step away from an outrageous motive that no one actually holds-- is worth examining, and points to a larger issue that goes far beyond his use of the tired and dopey "Teh Left Hates America" right-wing trope.

Submitted for your approval: "The Joe Klein Maneuver"