Over and over again in the Primaries, and no doubt ad nauseam during the general election, we hear candidates spar over which of them would make the better "Commander-in-Chief".  We are asked to choose a President based upon whose qualities are best suited to a "commander".

This is despicable nonsense.

This time the beggar was an old man. The young women with their babies stayed home this morning. It is far too cold to venture out for even those whose only means of eating is provided by the generosity of strangers.

His cap and beard and torn thin coat were his only protection from the biting cold. He stood because he could not bear to sit on the frozen ground. His feet moved up and down, each in its turn pleading for relief from the pain his thin shoes could not keep away. His outstretched hand trembled with shivers, his other hand clutching at the neck of his coat to keep the killing cold out. For the pittance I put in that outstretched hand he wished me the blessings of Allah.

Will he survive? Will Tajikistan?

I have been voting for nearly 40 years, but the vote I cast today might well be the one I feel best about.

Being an aging "boomer" I often grumble about the rapid change of technology, but this morning, from 7,000 miles away from home, I was able to cast a ballot by internet as a Democrat Abroad.  

Living here in an authoritarian regime, where although there is a universal suffrage the ruling party always seems to win by about 95% of the vote, I find it a matter of great pride that I can participate in something close to true democracy, to know that from even this far away my vote will count.

And that vote will count for Barak Obama.

I fear Huckabee.

Of all of the GOP candidates I see him as the one most likely to defeat a Democrat in '08.  

Not just because, as Kos points out, his base can get out the vote.  But mostly because of Huckabee's entertainment value.

Bush sneers defiantly at Congress, daring it to challenge him in the Courts, confident that his appointed lackeys will back him up.  Congress appears afraid to move lest adverse rulings of the Supreme Court enshrine the dictatorship forevermore.  The Court has already proven that it intends to continue, for as long as Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas can bring one other Justice into their fold, to move the country further and further toward corporate fascism.

It all comes down, over and over again, to the Court.  What to do about it?  Follow over:

This diary posits that Bush will not "voluntarily" leave the Presidency, that he will either (1) refuse to stop down on inaguration day or (2) cancel or postpone (presumably indefinitely) the '08 presidential elections and thus continue as President.  The diary probably correctly states that Bush will never voluntarily leave office.

A commenter added the thought that even if impeached, Bush would refuse to recognize the impeachment and continue in the Presidency.

It is not necessary for Bush to leave voluntarily.  It's done for him.

I'm sorry if this is distracting from political discussion, but I feel the need to add yet one more "meta" diary to the discussion.

Earlier today a commenter to a diary (http://www.dailykos.com/...) lauding John Kerry for his speech today, complained that Kerry was shooting at the wrong target (Tony Snow) and distracting us from the proper discussion of Republican misfeasance.  I disagree with that opinion; I think Kerry's speech was laudable and I don't think we're so incapable and dimwitted as to be "distracted" from our goal of electing a Democratic Congress.  But the commenter was hit with a blizzard of troll ratings for daring to state his opinion, and that is wrong.

Please follow over the fold.

This topic has been touched on in another diary or comment, which my limited search skills can't find, but I thought it needed a bit of fleshing out, thus this diary.

While we are misdirected to the potential of the vaunted "October Surprise", I think the Republicans have a "December Surprise", post-election, to keep majorities in both Houses of Congress, forever.  More after a word from our sponsor:

Ill fortune and Diebold notwithstanding, and Kos' defensive pessimism aside, it appears that come next January the Democrats will have a majority, however slim, in the House of Representatives.  This is, of course, good.  But I suggest that unless we also win a majority in the Senate, taking the House may mean very little.  More on the flip:

Yesterday someone posted - I can't recall if a diary or comment - information re a group of volunteers in PA, through the Red Cross, getting together a caravan of volunteers to the Gulf Coast on 9/12 returning around 9/23.  I'm very interested in seeing if I can join in but I can't find that post anywhere despite searching every key word I can think of.  Does anyone have that info?  Thanks.

You put her to sleep, this America, a generation or more ago, you drugged her with the opiate of superificiality, soothed her with your words of tax cuts, stroked her forehead with the warm oils of selfishness and egoism, covered her with the blanket of false security.  You hated her love of her children, the way she took the tiniest and dirtiest of them all to her breast, how she faced the world with the pride of righteousness and glared, the wind whipping her long hair behind her, into the face of evil and sent it slinking off.

A little idle speculation:  Bush and his fellow thugs in 2002 were busy spinning multiple lies to justify invading Iraq (obviously, to me, for the benefit of Big Oil).  Wilson's report, obviously to all, was a significant problem, because if one lie can be exposed, perhaps all of them would be.  Thus, the necessity of striking back at Wilson in order to deter other would-be truthtellers.  Originally the plan was to put Valerie Plame's identity into the public domain through Judith Miller, a cooperative stooge in spreading the Bush lies throughout the leadup to war.  Because the gang of murderers trusted Miller, they let her know too much, i.e., not only about the lies for war, but about their intent to "out" Plame.  

Come a sultry summer eve and my good friend Mr. Daniel and I retired to the porch to consider the great questions of our mutual lives.  After much chewing of the cud of self-analysis I have come to the conclusion that I do not support The Defenders of Our Freedom.  I have thus concluded after consideration of the following:
     

On September 11, 2001, about 3000 people, mostly Americans, died on US soil from hostile action.  According to many, this was an incomparable catastrophe that "changed the world".

On September 17, 1862, over 3600 Americans died on US soil from hostile action at the Battle of Antietam.  Another 3600 died later from wounds recieved that day.  In the Civil War althogether about 620,000 Americans were slaughtered by hostile action on American soil.

In October of 1918 and the few months following, over half a million Americans, mostly civilians, died rather suddenly from the Spanish Flu, a gift of WWI.