If you think that the Dem Primary for Senate in Ct is pathetic, look at the Dem. Primary for Governor and the Repulican Primary for Lt. Governor in Georgia... its sad.

Fred Barnes? Please! Ever watch him with Bill Kristol, Maura Liason, and Juan Williams? This guy is slanted. Take what he reports with a grain of salt.

Ash, I do understand why you don't like him. I'd feel the same if it where the other way around. That's normal and understandable. So why are you telling us, we'd guess you'd feel this way? Are just "venting", or did you just feel the need to comment, like I just did?

Fred Barnes says Iraq is better off. I suggest he remove his blinders. Sectarian violence in Iraq seems to be up of late. We need real solutions. Such statements as Iraq is better off are not helpful. He clearly indicated with that statement that he is not able to offer anything constructive at this tine. If Bush is in a better place than he was trhee months ago in the polls, it is not likely that this is because Iraq has improved any in the last three months. Iraq does not seem to have improved in a meaningful way over the last three months, at least not in any way that is going to visible to the average American.

Mark, "As for me - I'm sticking with my prediction made last year: after all is said and done, the GOP will gain seats in the House and Senate in 2006."

Really? Bob “Count Orlock” Novak, thinks otherwise:

“Republicans surely seem to need some birdies to keep Senate seats in 2006. Rick Santorum remains far behind in Pennsylvania. Conrad Burns is in trouble in Montana. Jim Talent trails in Missouri. Mike DeWine is threatened by a noxious Republican atmosphere in Ohio. Lincoln Chafee is endangered in Democratic Rhode Island. Jon Kyl faces a surprisingly tough race in Arizona. Despite excellent candidates in Minnesota and Washington state, no Republican challenging for a Democratic-held Senate seat is in the lead. Thus, a six-seat takeover capturing the Senate is possible.”

Good luck with that Mark.

Iraq is getting better? How about this from the Plank:

“One international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed.”

But than again, Iraq is safer than DC or Detroit.

Oh yeah, the left is so depressed by the latest ding-bat ramblings of fawning Bush uber-groupie Fred Barnes! Yep, we're trembling in our boots over here contemplating Bush's stunning rebound.

These are among the dumbest things I've ever heard from Fred - and that's really saying something. Having long ago hitched his rather dim star to the fortunes of W, Fred has no other choice than to cheerlead in the face of grim realities. Reality denial of this magnitude is equal measures comical and painful to watch.

The formula followed by Fred and other Bush worshippers is straight out of a cult handbook: basically all good that happens must be because of the Dear Leader's wise leadership, and anything bad is the result of misfortunes in no way connected to the Dear Leader. Lets examine this simple formula in action:

"A Bush rebound--at least a weak one--was probably inevitable...(that's got to be the lamest way of saying 'Dead Cat Bounce' I've ever heard.) For more than a year, the president was beset by bad luck (Katrina, the Dubai ports deal) (so handing control of our ports to Dubai sort of just happened out of the blue? And handing control of FEMA to a political crony with aboslutely no experience in emergency management was just a stroke of bad luck? Where is Bush in these decisions? Is some phantom hand at work here?)... failed initiatives (Social Security reform, the Harriet Miers nomination)(again, there is no authorship attributed to these decisions - they are just passively called 'failed initiatives' as if they happened on their own), and persistent trouble in Iraq. ('persistent trouble'? besides being the understatement of year, this again demonstrates the 'well, sh*t happens' defense that is the hallmark of an adminsitration where the buck always stops way over there, far far away from the Dear Leader) His approval rating dropped to an artificially low 31 percent in the Gallup Poll, (in other words, low approval polling is portrayed as 'artificial' or just plain inaccurate, while any approval a tad north of 50 is hailed as some sort of enormous 'mandate')... far below its natural zone between 40 percent and 50 percent." ('natural zone'? What the hades does that mean? Now 40-something approval is supposed to be normal? Talk about the 'soft bigotry of low expectations'!)

Oh yeah Barney?

Well my uncle's friend's sister's brother's cat's aunt told me that...

That's the best you can do?

Give it a rest man...

Ash said: "Fred Barnes? Please! Ever watch him with Bill Kristol, Maura Liason, and Juan Williams? This guy is slanted. Take what he reports with a grain of salt."

Argue what he said on the basis of what he said. To admonish us to take what he said "with a grain of salt" without explaining why is intellectually lazy. It is, in short, an ad-hominem attack.

But for those who are looking for a fact-based criticism of Barnes' analysis, this phrase is probably a good place to start: "Iraq is better off". Oh, really? As I see it, whatever else Iraq is, it is increasingly beyond the administration's direct control. And that's a huge political problem.

As I see it (and this is pure speculation on my part) there are three things on a national level upon which this election hinges: (1) immigration; (2) Iraq; (3) the economy. Only on the immigration issue does Bush and the Repubs have any direct control over between now and the election. And even that is more apparent than real. But at least on that score the Repubs control the spin. The other two... not so much. At least that's one out of three.

But there's a fourth elephant in the room: hurricanes. If this is a bad season, all sorts of issues could come to the fore -- most of which the Repubs remain behind the 8-ball on. And if NOLA is flooded again, so will the Repubs.

And when is DeLay's trial? Isn't it scheduled to start in September? The Repubs here tend to stress partisan flavor of DeLay's indictment in Texas, which I think is appropriate. But at the same time they ignore the fact that two of his former top aides (Tony Rudy and Michael Scanlon) have already copped pleas, and another (Ed Buckham) might join them between now and election time. If DeLay himself becomes and issue, it very well might serve to shine a spotlight on rampant corruption in Washington. Additionally, there's always the chance that between now and the elections, more personalities will fall (i.e., cop pleas or be indicted) in the Cunningham kerfuffle.

Personally, I would feel much better if the Repubs would make an effort to address the situation decisively. Instead, it appears the party line is going to be something on the order of... "well, the Dems do it, too." Well, for one thing, there is no corruption charge on the table that goes nearly as deep, or appears to be nearly as pervasive as either the Abramoff or the Cunningham scandals. Jefferson appears to be a corrupt politician (the second oldest profession, some would say, lol!). But what's at stake with the the Abramoff and Cunningham scandals are a corrupt ENTERPRISE. That's a big difference to me. Corrupt politicians are disgraceful and not acceptable. But corrupt enterprises are even more heinous.

Second, to claim that "the Dems do it too" is not a defense. It may help to provide some perspective, but it does not absolve anyone of anything. Worse, the Contract with America was based on higher values than the Dems exhibited. And to my mind, if there is anything worse than someone with reprehensible morals, it is someone that claims to be otherwise but is the same -- a hypocrite, in other words. To me, hypocrites are the lowest of the low. They are both immoral AND and dishonest.

The good news is that it only levels the playing field -- assuming the electorate has any memory. The bad news is... there is precious little evidence of that. So that might be the fifth elephant in the room. And like elephants 2-4, it is hard to predict its effects.

As George Wallace once said:"There ain't a dimes worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans". The corporations run the politics of the USA not "we the people". Power will shift back to the people when the voters throw ALL the bum's out. Peace

This person expresses my opinion exactly:

"In terms of the overall contours of our national debate, I think we may have entered new territory as the catastrophe in Iraq is on the very edge of exploding into uncontrollable bloodshed and unending mayhem on a very large scale. The massacres and violence in Baghdad itself are only the latest indication of what may be in store, and of a trajectory that it may be impossible to stop or alter at this point. The denial and avoidance of facts that contradict or call one's beliefs into question is a necessary part of the True Believer psychology. But when all the available facts are in direct opposition to one's preferred view of the world, the True Believer faces a stark choice: he can either begin to acknowledge the complete failure of his delusions, or he can reject reality completely. I do not exaggerate, and I do not intend to be at all humorous, when I say that the latter is the path to extremely severe neurosis, so severe that it should serve as a frightening warning to others about the grave dangers of placing the demands of a totalist ideology and of cult loyalty above everything else".

You people are the poster boys of this neurosis.

Maroons.

Barney,

The Prince of Darkness has always been anti-Bush, however, and thus has always painted things in the worst possible light. Go look up his articles from July of 2004 and you'll see he was all doom and gloom back then. Novak is an extraordinarily smart and well-informed man, but he does have conservative blinders on - meaning that he sees things entirely throught the prism of whether or not a particular GOPer is conservative enough by Novak's standards...if he's not, then he's in for it.

Sorry if this is a dupe:
What the left doesn't seem to realize is that when they scream bloody murder that the Diebold machines are stealing their votes, that will depress their turnout. In the normal course of events, 2006 should be a bumper year for the Dems, but they are squandering their best chance in a long time with their vote-dampening conspiracy theories. Suckers.

So Ashenine is upset that someone is partial to one side or the other? Well, at least Fred Barnes is honest about it. And he is not a reporter, pretending to be objective while actually slanting and twisting and even inventing the "news". He is an opinion guy. He gives opinions. He does not pretend to be anything else.

The Republcians are in a world of hurt if they don't get a bettet grip on the immigration issue. They are so far out of touch with the people on this one, I think it is going to be a rude awakening if they continue on this path.

I'm not sure why they have bought into this false either/or position---either deportation or citizenship. But they are badly mistaken if they think that appeasement of the illegals is going to bring them the "Hispanic vote" or if they think that America is going to be happy with amnesty.

As for Iraq, yes, it's a mess. It always has been, and it's not going to change quickly. But before Sadaam was ousted, stories like that of the boys' hands being boltedf together were so common they did not even qualify as 'news'. And we are not going to stop Iraqis from brutalizing Iraqis. All we can do is help create an environment where the Iraqis who want to move their country away from such brutality have the opportunity to try to do so.

We are the strongest, richest, freest country in the world---yet we have brutal sadistic killers in our midst, preying on the innocent. Why should Iraq be any different? As long as countries have to be inhabited by human beings, there are going to be atrocities and acts of brutality and general unfairness. You don't give up on an ideal because it does not immediately attain Utopian perfection.

In a meeting where some of us argued for a bold effort and others held back because they were too timid, a woman spoke up and said "If we strive for greatness and fail, we get mediocrity. If we only strive for mediocrity and succeed, we get mediocrity." I have never forgotten that. By the way, the bold initiative was shelved, and every year we achieve mediocrity, but without the fear of failure, because that's all we were shooting for. I would hate to see our country make the same mistake.