At The Hands Of
Holding hands, no doubt.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin - WI 2nd District
So, if you're like most normal people, you're wondering, "What the hell? This is what they're spending time on in DC?" Apparently so. Just fyi, Tammy voted against the Iraq War, and in favor of impeaching Dick Cheney. She also likes universal health care. She and Lauren are both lawyers.
I'm hoping that Dr. Gates, who is a career CIA spook and generally a smart guy, was embarrassed about wasting time on this silliness. Sadly though, the initial evidence points the other way. Instead of a quick apology and a stern phone call to the airbase, the good doctor insisted that Nancy Pelosi send him written instructions to let the ladies catch their flight, which Ms. Pelosi, to her credit, promptly did, no doubt thinking she had just wasted 10 minutes of her valuable time on a really stupid made-up problem. Then, Dr. Gates, apparently with plenty of time on his hands, tried to lure Fancy Nancy into a verbal pissing contest over whose rules were being followed, the DOD's or Congresses, strongly implying that Nancy had asked him to break a House rule and that he had done so only because she made him.
Very ironically, this little (and it's really little) temper tantrum makes Dr. Gates look like the biggest pussy in this teapot tempest.
Speaking of national defense, back in Iraq, our allies the Shiites seemed to have almost lost the war last week, to other Shiites. The fact that our guy Maliki even started the fight seemed to take Dr. Gates by surprise. And Gates is supposed to be our intel superstar! God only knows what this all means, but the word from the tv people is that Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army beat the pants off the Iraqi government forces, even when our Air Force sent in planes to help. Maybe our Air Force didn't do a good job because it was focused on bigger issues here in the U.S., like keeping girlie girls off their planes. Let's hope that was what happened, and that this was not an example of their best work.
Muqtada - Winning Ugly
I don't know how he does it, but Sadr just keeps on keeping on. He has friends in Iran, where he stays when he needs a few days off. This drives our guys crazy, but I really don't understand why we care. If we had any sense, we would be the ones cutting a deal with Sadr, and not letting the Iranians have him. Duh. So, count this as loss number 2 for the week for Dr. Gates.
And of course, number 3 is Boeing's successful whining about losing the Air Force's KC-45A air tanker contract to Northrop Grumman, after the Air Force screwed up the process five years ago by their officers taking bribes from Boeing. Now Boeing, after phoning in it's bid effort, is trying to call itself, untruthfully, the only domestic plane builder, and accuses the DOD of putting our defense into the hands of dirty little foreigners, including the French. While this is not entirely Gate's fault, he should have seen it coming and managed it better.
KC 45A
I really can't hardly wait for the Democrats to take over.