The Battle of Midway was a naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It took place from June 4, 1942 to June 7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, about five months after the Japanese capture of Wake Island, and six months after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor that had led to a formal state of war between the United States and Japan. During the battle, the United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll, losing one aircraft carrier and one destroyer, while destroying four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser.(To read more click on the title for a link)
The battle was a decisive victory for the Americans, widely regarded as the most important naval engagement of the Pacific Campaign of World War II
The Japanese plan of attack was to lure America's remaining carriers into a trap and sink them.[4] The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway Atoll to extend Japan's defensive perimeter farther from its home islands. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Samoa, as well as an invasion of Hawaii
If you're ever interested in reading about the BOM, a couple good starter books are Midway: The Incredible Victory by Walter Lord. The foreword of that book contains the famous quote "They had no right to win. Yet they did...." It's engraved on one of the monuments at Midway, and it was thrilling to see it in person.
The second book is A Glorious Page in Our History by Robert J. Cressman, Steve Ewing, and a few other guys.
He was arguably the greatest hero in the history of American cinema, a leader of men who beat the bad guys and symbolised patriotic values
But here in the birthplace of John Wayne, in the snowy wilds of an Iowa winter, the US is picking another leader - a president to command the respect of modern America and deal with the world's villains, who have swapped Stetsons and Colt 45s for suicide bomb belts.......
At the Wayne birthplace museum, tour guide Glenna Finney, 67, has no time for Mrs Clinton, or the memory of her husband's White House dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.....
"People here expect you to have manners. A decent name is to be treasured. How will President Clinton be remembered? Not for any of the good things he did. Where was his decency?
"There's nothing badly wrong with this good old America that John Wayne couldn't have fixed. It was Mid West values that made him so strong. I'm looking for someone who offers leadership, honesty and integrity."
In Des Moines, Iowa's state capital, drivers tooted their horns on Friday as John Strong, 66, a former soldier, brandished a banner reading "Veterans Against Hillary". He has become a familiar sight at campaign events in the city, accompanied by a Halloween effigy of Mrs Clinton in a witch's hat.
He said: "I don't mind her being a woman, but she is weak on national defence and she's very condescending and nasty. She is part of the liberal elite and she is a fake when she says she cares about regular people."......
....my central problem with her candidacy. My central problem is that the next American president will very likely face another big bad thing, a terrible day, or days, and in that time it will be crucial--crucial--that our nation be led by a man or woman who can be, at least for the moment and at least in general, trusted. Mrs. Clinton is the most dramatically polarizing, the most instinctively distrusted, political figure of my lifetime. Yes, I include Nixon. Would she be able to speak the nation through the trauma? I do not think so. And if I am right, that simple fact would do as much damage to America as the terrible thing itself.
"Back Then.."
Looking back on my youth, the best times I had
Were the U of O games that I shared with my dad.
When I was young, back in '75,
I remember the ducks really came alive!
My dad used to work for the great U of O
And Dick Harter's ducks I sure grew to know.
The "Kamikaze Kids" - (I think there were four)
Is what they were called 'cause they dove on the floor.
We had reserved seats, and if mom said "Alright"
Then I got to go while she stayed home for the night.
Yes, they were wild! Those were the days!
It was great to be part of the kamikaze craze!
There were the civil war games, where the whole crowd would cheer,
And "SIT DOWN RALPH" was sometimes all you could hear.
One of the best parts, was after the game,
We'd all go to Farrell's, win or loose, just the same.
I think the best part of all, was the thrill of Mac Court!
Just being in "The Pit" had a magic of some sort!
Who doesn't remember the great Ronnie Lee?
And there was Bruce Coldren - he wore "thirty three."
The "printing department" used to be my dad's trade.
And when Bruce Coldren walked in, a request my dad made.
So that on my twelfth birthday I was given a letter!
It was signed by Bruce Coldren! What could be better?
Stu Jackson was a BIG name, back in my time.
Nowadays LUKE Jackson is truly sublime.
"Greg Ballard" is another great name we all knew.
I called him "Mr. Rebound" and he wore "forty-two."
At the Valley River Inn, I remember one night,
All of a sudden he came into sight!
He didn't know me, But as we all dined
I picked up a napkin and his autograph he signed!
I was so honored! I thought I would die!
But I tried to act cool - I really did try!
And there was Mike Drummond. He was the shortest of all.
He wore number 10 at just five foot ten inches tall!
Of all the great players, that came and that went,
We can't help but remember the great Ernie Kent!
He was one of "The Kids", and he wore "thirty five".
He was one of the best and that ain't no jive!
I was so very happy, when I heard his name
As the new Oregon coach of the basketball game!
So now that I've turned the big forty years old
I felt a great need for my memories to be told.
Oregon Duck basketball was more than a game.
The players were family and I knew them by name.
Those were great times, and although in the past,
While looking back now, they sure went by fast.
I'm all grown up, and have kids of my own,
And my love of the ducks I have vividly shown!
This new generation now cheers for new guys.
There are plenty of players they can idolize!
Have you seen Ian Crosswhite or James Davis play?
Jordan Kent may pass up his father one day!
They watch Andre Joseph, and watched Freddie Jones, too.
And one of "the Lukes" always knew what to do!
Though this new generation may look up to "Rid"
My dad was my hero when I was a kid.
This investigative news story from Newsweek's Michael Isikoff:One issue likely to get attention is his handling of a sensitive family matter: allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. But John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas's state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee's chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor's request. Bailey, a career officer who had been
(The last of Torpedo Eight's TBDs, T-16 (BuNo 1506), flown by LCDR John C. Waldron with Horace Franklin Dobbs, CRMP, in the rear seat, taking off Hornet on 4 June 1942.) The squadrons first and best-known combat mission came during the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942. Flying the vulnerable Douglas TBD Devastators, Commander John C. Waldron's 15 planes were all shot down during their unescorted torpedo attack on four Japanese aircraft carriers. The squadron did not destroy any enemy aircraft with their rear .30-caliber machine guns, nor did they damage any of the Japanese carriers.A List of Fallen:
All members of Torpedo Squadron 8 who flew from the Hornet on that day perished in the action, with the exception of Ensign George Gay.
A separate detachment of six TBF Avengers from Midway Island saw two survivors, Ensign Albert K. Earnest and CDR (then Radioman 2/c) Harry Ferrier.
Failure of the Hornet's captain and air group commander to provide proper coordination led to the disaster[citation needed], though in fairness, VT-3 from Yorktown (CV-5) and VT-6 from Enterprise (CV-6) fared little better. Of all 41 torpedo planes which sortied that day, only six survived. However, it is possible that the act of drawing away the Japanese Zero fighters during the doomed attack allowed a subsequent wave of American dive bombers to later sink three of the four Japanese carriers.
"So long as men choose to decide the turns of history with the slaughter of youths--- and even in a better day, when this form of human sacrifice has been abolished like the ancient superstitious, but no more horrible form--- the memory of these three American torpedo plane squadrons should not die. The old sagas would halt the tale to list the names and birthplaces of the men who fought so well. Let this romance follow the tradition. These were the young men of the three squadrons, their names recovered from an already fading record."
"In a planned coordinated attack, the dive-bombers were supposed to distract the enemy fighters, so as to give the torpedo planes their chance to come in. Instead the torpedo planes had pulled down the Zeroes and cleared the air for the dive-bombers. What was not luck, but the soul of the United States of America in action, was this willingness of the torpedo plane squadrons to go in against hopeless odds. This was the extra ounce of martial weight that in a few decisive minutes tipped the balance of history."
Statement from University of Oregon football coach Mike Bellotti
Release: 12/21/2007
Ducks' 13th-year head coach to continue at Oregon.
“I have a great job at the University of Oregon and believe we have
built a special football program here. That has been made possible
because of the outstanding people I work for, the caliber of people I
work with, the players who are here now as well as the level of
players we are recruiting.
“The primary issues that have always been important to me are the
quality of life, my family and the opportunities to win. The
University of Oregon has always offered me all of those things.
“UCLA wanted to present to me a scenario that would offer all those
things and asked if I would listen. That’s as far as it ever went. I
never considered it an interview, merely an opportunity for them to
provide me with some information and insights into their program.
“I was approached by them on several occasions and finally agreed to
allow them to come to Eugene and speak with me.
“You’re always flattered when others want to talk to you but that’s
because of the success we’ve enjoyed based on our players, our
support staff and our administration. I have been, and continue to
be, 100 percent committed to the University of Oregon and our pursuit
of a national championship.”
My Christmas Story
As a POW, my captors would tie my arms behind my back and then loop the rope around my neck and ankles so that my head was pulled down between my knees. I was often left like that throughout the night.
One night a guard came into my cell. He put his finger to his lips signaling for me to be quiet, and then loosened my ropes to relieve my pain. The next morning, when his shift ended, the guard returned and retightened the ropes, never saying a word to me.
A month or so later, on Christmas Day, I was standing in the dirt courtyard when I saw that same guard approach me. He walked up and stood silently next to me, not looking or smiling at me.
After a few moments had passed, he rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas, even in the darkness of a Vietnamese prison camp. After a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away.
That guard was my Good Samaritan. I will never forget that man and I will never forget that moment. And I will never forget that, no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up and carry you.
May you and your family have a blessed Christmas and Happy Holidays,
John McCain
Time magazine has chosen Vladimir Putin as the person of the year. This strikes me as an odd choice. Yes, Putin has been an important player on the international stage; yes, he has frustrated American efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; yes, he has been more intransigent on asserting Russian power on the "near abroad," the former Soviet republics, which, like Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltics, seek to take a different course. But he has been doing these things for years, and he has made no important advances, at best incremental progress, in calendar year 2007.
In contrast, Time's fourth runner-up for person of the year, Gen. David Petraeus, has made an enormous difference this past year. With the help of many others (which is true of any leader), he has turned around the military situation and the political situation (if not at the top-down national level, then at the bottom-up local level) in Iraq. What seemed to be an imminent American defeat has been transformed into an imminent American success. And Petraeus has done more than any other person to turn that around.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Time didn't name Petraeus as the person of the year because its editors didn't want to spotlight and honor American success.....
David Petraeus, No. 4 on Time's list, has made a much greater—a huger—difference. But Time doesn't want to acknowledge that, because to do so would be to admit that George W. Bush is not an ignorant tyrant and that the United States is not on the losing side of history. Better to elevate Vladimir Putin to a significance he does not deserve. Shame.
Some times truth is stranger than fiction.
My guess is that a significant number of people who see the new movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” about the exploits of my former Congressional colleague from Texas, Charlie Wilson, will walk out of the theater shaking their heads thinking that Hollywood made all this up. It simply couldn’t be true.
Well, folks, it is true. All of it. Congressman Charlie Wilson, a member of the House Appropriations Committee for much of his 24 years in Congress representing a rural district in East Texas, single handedly convinced Congress during the 1980’s to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars to finance a covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The money went to provide weapons for Afghan rebels who drove the Soviet Army out of their country, humiliating one of the two greatest armies in the world and contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union a few years later.
What makes the story even more incredible is that Charlie Wilson was a rake — a fun-loving Congressman who liked whisky, beautiful women and, allegedly, an occasional dose of recreational drugs.
Tom Hanks plays Charlie and, if anything, portrays him in a somewhat subdued way. If Hanks had really come over as outrageous as the real Charlie Wilson, absolutely no one would have believed the story. ......
Several things make this a great movie: (1) it is true; (2) it does not try to hide the fact that Charlie Wilson had large faults that probably would have made it impossible for him to accomplish something like this today (20 years later); and (3) Hanks, Roberts and Hoffman have real star power and play their roles perfectly. Hoffman is simply brilliant in almost any role and this has to be the best performance of Julia Roberts’ career.
Charlie pulled this off in the era before 24-hour cable news. CNN was in its infancy. FOX and MSNBC didn’t even exist. Charlie’s foibles probably would have been exposed in great detail in the new media environment and he might have been driven from public office before he could ever have performed this great service to the country.
It is certainly possible that the Soviet Union ultimately would have collapsed even if it wasn’t humiliated in Afghanistan, but Charlie Wilson’s successful personal war may have accelerated the timetable.
The real tragedy of all of this was that the United States walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviets were driven out. We refused to provide vital educational and developmental aid to the new government which eventually was replaced by the extremist Taliban.
Charlie tried to persuade Congress to provide this economic aid after the military aid was successful, but even he couldn’t accomplish that. The movie shows this effort and concluded with a quote from Charlie about how we lost a golden opportunity to avoid Muslim extremism. He was right then just as he was right in helping drive the Soviets out of the country.
This is the type of movie that should be seen by people of all ages because it is truly an inspiring story. However, there is enough nudity and profane language that it couldn’t come close to a "G" rating. The nudity really wasn’t necessary to the story but you couldn’t eliminate the strong language. It wouldn’t have been credible in a sanitized version.
So here it is — warts and all. "Charlie Wilson’s War" is a wonderful story, well told. I loved the movie and I am one of the people who believe that Charlie Wilson is a great American.
A specter is haunting the Democratic Party. The long-awaited defeat of American forces in Iraq, on which so many critics of this administration have built their fondest hopes, seems to have been delayed again and - unsettling thought - may not even materialize. Even the dreaded word, Victory, is being whispered.
Who would have thought it? Besides, of course, that dwindling minority of Americans who never gave up on the valor of America's armed forces - and the flexibility of their commanders, including their much-despised commander-in-chief. (This president's ratings in the polls have dropped almost as low as Harry Truman's during the Korean War.)
The turnaround in Iraq, aka The Surge, is proving embarrassing for the kind of critics of the war who dare not admit being embarrassed. To do so would be to entertain the unthinkable thought that they might, just might, have been wrong.
This is no time for critics of the war to go wobbly. Their outward confidence in American defeat must be preserved, at least till next November. Even if all the indicators they used to cite as evidence that the war was lost have begun to go in the opposite direction:
The number of enemy attacks has fallen month after month since the Surge began to take effect.
Mortar and rocket assaults in Iraq, however highly publicized and bloody awful in themselves, are down to their lowest rate in almost two years.
The number of civilian deaths has fallen dramatically. Iraqi refugees are returning in growing numbers despite continuing risks. Once again they're voting with their feet, this time in favor of a better, not worse, Iraq.
This new strategy in Iraq is really an old one. It amounts to the systematic application of classic counter-insurgency tactics under a new commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, who wrote the Army manual on the subject. The results have been dramatic, and quicker than anyone might have hoped: .........
Those who urge an immediate withdrawal from Iraq have already written the sad history of that war, if a bit prematurely. Why should Democratic leaders trouble to revise it now, after having convinced so many Americans that defeat is unavoidable? It's so much easier to pretend that nothing has changed than to take new facts into account. It would be embarrassing. Better to stick with denial.
Even when the Surge was still an untried plan, even before it was formally announced, the Democratic Party's leadership was almost uniform in assuring the country it would never work:
"Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried, and that has already failed," Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the leaders of the Democratic majorities in both the Senate and House, confidently predicted in a January letter to the president. And they were but two members of the whole, partisan chorus in Congress. There were many others. For notable example:
"A 'surge' of American troops will do nothing." -Chris Dodd, December 24, 2006 ........
"The surge has led to nothing but a surge in Americans dying." -Bill Richardson, June 19, 2007........
"Today a majority of the Senate sees that the surge is not working. Š Do we change course now or wait until September? Š I believe the answer is clear." -Dianne Feinstein, July 17, 2007 .......
"The reports that you provide to us," Hillary Clinton told Gen. Petraeus directly on September 11, 2007, "really require the willing suspension of disbelief."
But even the consistently vitriolic John Murtha, perhaps the harshest congressional critic of the administration's conduct of this war, let it slip just last month: "I think the Surge is working." .......
But he quickly backtracked,......
It would be as foolish to proclaim victory in Iraq now as it was for all these politicos to proclaim defeat for so long. But something has changed and is changing in Iraq. That much is clear. Yet these leaders of the opposition remain in denial.
How strange: Those who long have been critical of this president and commander-in-chief for being so rigid, so inflexible, so unaffected by the changing facts on the ground, can't seem to recognize how flexible this same George W. Bush is finally proving. By now this "inflexible" president has changed his secretary of defense, his commanding general in the field, and the whole American strategy in Iraq - while his critics don't seem to have changed at all.
Interrogation: Anti-Bush Overreaction
By Stuart Taylor Jr., National Journal
Monday, Dec. 17, 2007
Imagine that U.S. forces capture Osama bin Laden or a high-level lieutenant in Pakistan next month and hand him over to the CIA, amid intelligence reports that a massive new Qaeda attack on America may be imminent.
Does Congress really want to make it unlawful for the CIA to threaten to slap Osama bin Laden (if he is captured) in the face?
Should it be illegal for CIA interrogators to try to scare the man into talking by yelling at him? By threatening to slap him? By pretending to be from Egypt's brutal intelligence service? What about turning up the air conditioner to make him uncomfortably cold? Or denying him hot food until he talks, while giving him all the cold food he can eat?
These methods would all apparently be illegal under a rider that the House-Senate conference committee added to the annual intelligence authorization bill. It would bar the CIA from using any interrogation practice not authorized in the Army field manual's rules for military interrogators. This would mean prohibiting almost all forms of coercive interrogation, including many potentially effective techniques that come nowhere near torture and are now clearly legal.
We've come a long way since September 2002, when Nancy Pelosi, then a House Intelligence Committee member and now the speaker, listened without a peep of protest while being briefed about the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on Qaeda leaders.
Now almost all Democrats (and some Republicans) denounce waterboarding as illegal torture. They are probably right -- although you can bet that after the next 9/11 they will backtrack faster than you can say "unprincipled." ..........
But it would be irresponsible in the extreme for Congress to do this. And Bush is right to threaten a veto. .....
If Congress binds the CIA to provisions such as this, it will not only be prohibiting a light slap in a Qaeda leader's face; it will also be prohibiting a threat to slap him. This, even though threats clearly fall outside the legal definition of torture, with the exception of threats specifically intended to cause fear of "imminent" death and "prolonged" mental harm.
Does Congress really want to make it unlawful for the CIA to threaten to slap Osama bin Laden (if he is captured) in the face? Or to put him through the indignity of being served MREs until he cooperates?
This is not to say that the CIA should be free to subject all its detainees to any and all interrogation methods short of torture, and of the "humiliating and degrading treatment" prohibited by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. But the CIA should be able to come a lot closer to that line than the military.
So instead of binding the CIA to the Army field manual, Congress should require it to make public its own list of permitted and prohibited interrogation techniques, perhaps with a classified appendix to avoid giving terrorists a road map for resisting. Congress should then codify the CIA manual as law, with any changes that Congress may consider necessary.
This CIA manual should allow yelling, threats, and other intimidation techniques that clearly do not rise to the level of torture or violate Geneva's Common Article 3
Leading experts on the laws of war have also suggested persuasively that Congress should make a special provision for emergencies, allowing the president to authorize specified interrogation techniques for specified detainees that may violate Geneva -- but not the torture ban. To ensure political accountability, the president should be required to give the Intelligence committees a written finding detailing both his justifications and the authorized techniques.
What about the hypothetical "ticking bomb" scenario, or other dire circumstances in which illegal torture appears to be the only chance of averting catastrophe? Consider former CIA interrogator John Kiriakou's astonishing account in interviews aired by ABC News on December 10 and published in the next day's Washington Post.
Captured Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah successfully resisted various high-pressure interrogation tactics for weeks in 2002. Then the CIA waterboarded him. He broke after about 35 seconds, and soon was sharing information that, Kiriakou claimed, may have disrupted dozens of attacks and saved many lives.
But as Kiriakou added, the waterboarding also probably amounted to torture. So unless we choose to disregard Kiriakou's account, we have five choices in cases such as this: 1) We should evade the law by pretending that this was not torture, as Bush has done; 2) We should make torture legal in such cases; 3) We should imprison the interrogators (or the superiors who gave them orders) for crimes, on the ground that they should have stood by and waited for the possibly preventable mass-murder attacks that they expected; 4) We should imprison them for crimes even if we think they did the right thing; 5) The president should pardon them. I would choose Option 5. But the question now before Congress is much, much easier: Should it be illegal for CIA interrogators even to threaten the likes of Zubaydah with waterboarding, or with any unpleasantness at all?
-- Stuart Taylor Jr. is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal magazine, where "Opening Argument" appears. His e-mail address is staylor@nationaljournal
Time magazine hasn’t announced its pick for “man of the year” yet, but we certainly know ours: Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the multinational force in Iraq and architect of the surge strategy that is turning the tide in the war. Petraeus formulated a brilliant counterinsurgency plan. He executed it with care and diligence. And when much of the country didn’t want to notice the security gains that the surge had wrought, he took the national media spotlight to defend his strategy and his honor. In all this, he was nothing less than masterly.
When Petraues testified on Capitol Hill in early September, much of the media and the Left simply refused to believe that violence in Iraq was down. The Government Accountability Office’s comptroller general had appeared before Congress to ask why the Pentagon was reporting much lower numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths than the GAO had (answer: the GAO assessment was based on incomplete figures). And the day Petraeus’s testimony began, MoveOn.org ran its infamous “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” ad. It said that “every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed”; that Petraeus “is constantly at war with the facts”; and that the general “is cooking the books for the White House.” Throughout his testimony, Petraeus continued to suffer slanders from members of Congress who cared about politics more than truth. Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped just short of calling him a liar, saying that to believe his report required “a willing suspension of disbelief.” ***********
For making victory in Iraq look possible again, and for pulling a nation back from the brink of civil war, Petraeus deserves the praise and thanks of all Americans. With or without a Time cover, he is the man of the year.
"Romney is an intelligent, articulate, and accomplished former businessman and governor. At a time when voters yearn for competence and have soured on Washington because too often the Bush administration has not demonstrated it, Romney offers proven executive skill. He has demonstrated it in everything he has done in his professional life, and his tightly organized, disciplined campaign is no exception. He himself has shown impressive focus and energy."
"Unlike some other candidates in the race, Romney is a full-spectrum conservative: a supporter of free-market economics and limited government, moral causes such as the right to life and the preservation of marriage, and a foreign policy based on the national interest. While he has not talked much about the importance of resisting ethnic balkanization — none of the major candidates has — he supports enforcing the immigration laws and opposes amnesty. Those are important steps in the right direction.Uniting the conservative coalition is not enough to win a presidential election, but it is a prerequisite for building on that coalition. Rudolph Giuliani did extraordinary work as mayor of New York and was inspirational on 9/11. But he and Mike Huckabee would pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives. A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards would be much diminished in the service it could give the country."
This thought occurs that Hillary Clinton's entire campaign is, and always was, a Potemkin village, a giant head fake, a haughty facade hollow at the core. That she is disorganized on the ground in Iowa, taken aback by a challenge to her invincibility, that she doesn't actually have an A team, that her advisers have always been chosen more for proven loyalty than talent, that her supporters don't feel deep affection for her. That she's scrambling chaotically to catch up, with surrogates saying scuzzy things about Barack Obama and drug use, and her following up with apologies that will, as always, keep the story alive. That her guru-pollster, the almost universally disliked Mark Penn, has, according to Newsday, become the focus of charges that he has "mistakenly run Clinton as a de facto incumbent" and that the top officials on the campaign have never had a real understanding of Iowa.
This is true of Mrs. Clinton and her Iowa campaign: They thought it was a queenly procession, not a brawl. Now they're reduced to spinning the idea that expectations are on Mr. Obama, that he'd better win big or it's a loss. They've been reduced too to worrying about the weather. If there's a blizzard on caucus day, her supporters, who skew old, may not turn out. The defining picture of the caucuses may be a 78-year-old woman being dragged from her home by young volunteers in a tinted-window SUV.
This is, still, an amazing thing to see. It is a delight of democracy that now and then assumptions are confounded, that all the conventional wisdom of the past year is compressed and about to blow. It takes a Potemkin village.
A thought on the presence of Bill Clinton. He is showing up all over in Iowa and New Hampshire, speaking, shaking hands, drawing crowds. But when he speaks, he has a tendency to speak about himself. It's all, always, me-me-me in his gigantic bullying neediness. Still, he's there, and he's a draw, and the plan was that his presence would boost his wife's fortunes. The way it was supposed to work, the logic, was this: People miss Bill. They miss the '90s. They miss the pre-9/11 world. So they'll love seeing him back in the White House. So they'll vote for Hillary. Because she'll bring him. "Two for the price of one."
It appears not to be working. Might it be that they don't miss Bill as much as everyone thought? That they don't actually want Bill back in the White House?
Maybe. But maybe it's this. Maybe they'd love to have him back in the White House. Maybe they just don't want him to bring her. Maybe they miss the Cuckoo's Nest and they'd love having Jack Nicholson's McMurphy running through the halls. Maybe they just don't miss Nurse Ratched. Does she have to come?
A fictional character from Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She was portrayed by Louise Fletcher in the 1975 film version in an Academy Award-winning role.....
A cold, sadistic tyrant, Nurse Ratched has become the stereotype of the nurse as a "battleaxe." She has also become a popular metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and authority in bureaucracies such as the mental institution in which the novel is set.
The moderator of the affair was an editor (or perhaps THE editor) of the Register.
Whether she unilaterally decided upon the rules (30 second answers, 15 second answers, show-of-hand answers) or whether she was a victim of debate-rules-by-committee, she will go down in political history as the woman Fred Thompson slapped down when he refused to raise his hand in response to a question on global warming, and then refused to answer "yes or no" on that complex issue.
Her make-up made her look like she was one fright-wig shy of appearing on a 1950's Saturday morning children's show and her stern demeanor made her sound like a prison matron in one of those women-in-cages drive-in movies which were so popular during my dating years - also in the 1950's.
About an hour before kickoff, the white-haired man in the crew-neck sweater pulls out his cellphone and calls his son. "Hey, where are you, Jack?" he says. "I'm at the game."
Jack, a 21-year-old Naval Academy midshipman whose formal name is John Sidney McCain IV, has just marched onto the field at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium with hundreds of classmates, wearing dark overcoats and white scarves.
It is the morning of the Army-Navy game, and the midshipman's father, John Sidney McCain III, a senator from Arizona and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is besieged in the Navy hospitality suite.
People want snapshots. People want autographs. People want to introduce their children. But the person McCain really wants to see is not here. And for a few moments on a sunny Saturday in December, the quest for the White House seems less urgent than the search for Jack.
John McCain's life has always been framed by his legendary Navy forebears -- the father and grandfather who were illustrious admirals; the tough, passionate men whose code and calling McCain was preordained to share. He is a product of almost 80 years of family service, which included his 5 1/2 years of torture and deprivation in North Vietnamese prison camps.
Now, at 71, as he seeks the Republican nomination for the second time, the dutiful Navy son who was tempered in one war has become father to sons who may be tempered in another.
Jack is a junior at the academy -- the fourth John S. McCain to attend the school, and the latest to carry the weight of the family legacy there. A younger son, James, 19, known as Jimmy, is a lance corporal in the Marine Corps and has been serving in Iraq for five months. Their father has been among the most ardent supporters of the struggle in Iraq, despite what it has cost him politically and, more important, what it could cost him personally.
