Back in a day not too long ago, Bob Schieffer was one of two remaining television journalists with a hint of spine (the other being Keith Olberman).  Every other TV news head in America was afraid of making Condoleezza Rice cry on camera and was just plain afraid of Donald Rumsfeld, but not Schieffer.  Schieffer once snapped "let me just ask you to answer the question" at Condi and growled at Rummy, "Well, you really have not directly answered that question, if I may say so, Mr. Secretary."

I don't know what ever happened to that Bob Schieffer, but he was nowhere to be found on last Sunday's Face the Nation McCain campaign ad featuring Joe Lieberman.  Last Sunday's Bob Schieffer was Tim Russert reincarnate.  

In apparent response to Defense Secretary Robert Gates's complaint that the Air Force isn't providing Central Command with enough unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the Navy is working on a developmental version of the discontinued Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) that it's calling the Naval Unmanned Combat Air System (N-UCAS).  What makes N-UCAS different and far more special than J-UCAS is that N-UCAS can operate from aircraft carriers, which the Navy has and the Air Force doesn't.

There's no special reason that any version of the UCAS needs to operate from an aircraft carrier, but that's no never mind.  The money's in the pipeline to develop N-UCAS; so damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!

There may be such a thing as absolute truth, but evil is, without question, a relative commodity, especially when it comes to elections.  I rejected Hillary Clinton as a suitable presidential candidate because of her penchant for kissing up to the neocons.  She was going hook, line and sinker for their Iran narrative the same way she took the bait on Iraq.  As president of the United States, John McCain would be the most dangerous human being in the history of civilization, so he made for an even worse candidate than Hillary.

On May 19, the (then) least of three evils made the most rational foreign policy statement uttered by a presidential candidate since World War II: "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela--these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us."  

Perhaps more importantly, Barack Obama displayed a greater aptitude for the commander in chief job than McCain and Clinton combined when he said that Iran spends "one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen."

Indeed, who in his right mind would consider it a sign of weakness to listen to a nation that, to paraphrase former Central Command chief William Fallon, we could crush like ants if we needed to?  McCain thinks it's a sign of weakness, of course, but remember; the question stipulated "right mind," so "Gramps" doesn't count as a correct answer.  

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different."

-- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

One problem with using the rational actor model to forecast what the George W. Bush administration may do next is that the model wasn't designed to analyze people referred to as "the crazies in the basement."  There is near universal agreement, for example, that for the U.S. to attack Iran would be the ultimate act of insanity.  Unfortunately for us, the more insane any given course of action is, the more likely it is that the Cheney-centric Bush administration will pursue it.  

"Vlad" Gingrich is molesting the Constitution in the name of national security again.  This time he's on a tirade about the recent Supreme Court decision that grants prisoners held at young Mr. Bush's pleasure in Guantanamo the right to a habeas corpus hearing.  

"This court decision is a disaster and it could cost us a city," Newt said on Face the Nation.  Land o' Goshen.  The only way this court decision could cost us a city is if it makes Newt's head explode.  Driving Newt's noodle to critical mass would be the kind of disaster we need, but it would force us to make some difficult decisions.  Losing New York City or Washington D.C. might be too high a price to pay to be permanently rid of Newt, but if we're talking, say, Minot, North Dakota, well...

I take that back.  Minot's a lovely city and we have a strategically significant military base there.  We'll blow Newt's noggin to smithereens in that chancre sore on the Potomac.  Let's just make sure all the politicians are in town when we push the plunger.

As the End of Bush Days draws near, the desperation and insanity of the administration and its neoconservative policies become more and more apparent.  One of the most recent examples is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's address to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on June 3, where she once and for all crossed over to the dark side and swore fealty to Lord Cheney's quest to start a shooting war with Iran.  

With Boobs-on-a-Billy-Goat Rice onboard the Cheney train, can Armageddon be far behind?

Keystone Kondi is back in the news.  This time she's helping her boss make boo noise about what the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) calls Iran's "relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons."  

On January 8, speaking at an AIPAC conference, Condi said that the Iranians, "continue to inch closer to a nuclear weapon."  This despite the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate finding (.pdf here) that stated, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."

Condi and AIPAC and the rest of the neoconservative universe have treated the November NIE the way it treats all inconvenient facts; they've ignored it.  And once again, the mainstream media, most notably the New York Times, have been their willing partner in crime.  

A June 7 New York Times editorial commended Defense Secretary Robert Gates for giving the ax to his Air Force secretary and chief of staff.  According to the Times editors, Michael W. Wynn and General T. Michael Moseley were dismissed for "systemic problems in securing nuclear weapons and components, a primary Air Force responsibility."  The Times called the move "absolutely necessary" and applauded Mr. Gates for "raising the bar at the Pentagon."

Gates had good reasons to fire his air service's top guns, but they went beyond the issues the Times discussed, and he may have raised the bar, but he hasn't raised it high enough yet.  

His Air Force is an unmitigated cluster bomb.  

64 years ago today, Allied forces invaded the coast of France and began the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany.  D-Day exemplified two kinds of courage.  One is the kind of courage portrayed in the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan.  The other is the type of courage General Dwight D. Eisenhower displayed when he drafted this memorandum prior to the invasion:

Our landings have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

It was Ike's intention that if the worst happened and Operation Overlord became the greatest military disaster in human history, he would shoulder the responsibility and America and the British Commonwealth could still rally behind Roosevelt and Churchill.

Today's troops have lived up to the extraordinary example their World War II predecessors set.  

Lamentably, we can't say the same about today's generals and political leaders.  

From the sound of things, when John McCain went to address the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on June 2, he took along his buddies Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham and a pair of kneepads.  Senator McCain might as well have come right out and said that President McCain would make protecting Israel America's number one foreign policy objective come hell or Hezbollah.  After all, isn't that our top foreign policy priority now?  Why change losing strategies in midstream?

Alas, irony.  White House Press Secretary Dana Perino calling former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan "sad" is like McClellan calling Perino a "Bush administration whore."  They're both right, but look who's talking.  

No, Scott didn't really call Dana a Bush administration whore--not in public, anyway.  Dana really did call Scott sad though, and she really is a Bush administration whore.  

Dana should have taken it easy on Scott.  He's just the latest in a long line of former Bush liegemen who wrote books so they can make enough money to buy their way out of hell.  Dana's time will come.  After her press secretary gig is over and people start calling her out for fibbing about the surge, she'll get to dwelling on the fate of her immortal soul and boy, will her tune ever change.  

So this guy with an odd name writes an article in the Asia Times that says Bush plans to run an air strike on Iran by August.  Do we ignore it or do we start squirreling away canned pears in the family fallout shelter?

Self described "former broadcast news producer" Muhammad Cohen writes in a May 28 article that "The George W. Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months."  This is according to something "an informed source tells Asia Times Online."  We can be reasonably certain that "Asia Times Online" is Mr. Cohen.  The identity of the "informed source" is somewhat less scrutable.  

A regular visitor at Pen and Sword posited last week that a naval blockade of Iran wouldn't be an act of war if the UN sanctioned it.  I replied that no, acts of war aren't defined by whether or not the UN or any other international organization sanction them.  Dropping a nuke on Tehran would be an act of war even if the UN, the Catholic Church and Oprah Winfrey combined sanctioned it.

That led me to thinking that Memorial Day 2008 would be a good time for a short study of war in the age of American hegemony. War can be a dry subject, but I’ll do my best to keep the discourse lively. I would promise you that the next several hundred words will be more entertaining by far than any lecture you’d ever hear from any professor at any war college in the country, but that promise is so easy to keep it’s not worth the trouble of making.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on May 21 that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has proposed to speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi that "a naval blockade be imposed on Iran as one of several ways to pressure Iran into stopping its uranium enrichment program."

Hmm.  By whom did Olmert propose this naval blockade be imposed, I wonder?  Israel's navy could no sooner get to the Persian Gulf than Iran's navy could charge up the Red Sea to assault the Israeli naval base at Haifa.  Both maritime forces would sink of natural causes before they got anywhere close to each other.  

The concept of this story is laughable enough, but the way the once respectable Haaretz told it is enough to make you spit your martini across the room.