Can someone please tell me what night during the last week of January and the first week of February there will be no moon in the skies?

That’s the night it looks like the war begins.

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Tom Friedman is looking for a new kind of Democrat:

Right now the Bush bumper sticker reads: “You Can Have It All: Guns, Butter, War With Iraq, Tax Cuts & Humvees.” This is nonsense. America has never won a war without the public’s being enlisted and summoned to sacrifice. Is there a Democrat ready to push for a crash oil conservation program and development of renewable energy alternatives

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It doesn

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Richard Nixon was a liar and a cheat. But in the end, he showed a measure of honor by resigning.

Trent Lott won

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The people who bid on the house we

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Has Lileks been eating my patented Sun-Ripened Mayonnaise?

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You “Wobbly Watch” people really ought to read something more that just the New York Times and Washington Post. Try StrategyPage — you’d know we’re already at war in Iraq.

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The VodkaCondo went on the market yesterday — and we have yet to put in the new linoleum or ground floor carpet. So if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do, um, everything.

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The Independent says the Iraq Phase of the current war will take less than a week.

I told you so.

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What is it about the Reynolds Boys that they get to marry such talented, good-looking women?

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Drudge (above the mast, no story link) says Trent Lott will hold a press conference today at 5:30 Eastern. Since that’s too late to be on anything but the weekend news cycle, I expect him to announce he’s stepping down from his leadership role.

UPDATE: I’m told Lott won’t be annoucing his resignation. Who was it that picked next Wednesday in the betting pool?

FURTHER UPDATE: Looks like my first call might be correct, after all. A reader writes to tell me Josh Chafetz’s sources tell him this will be a resignation announcement. Shoulda gone with my gut.

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I think Trudeau was trying to insult Bush, but his shot went wide.

So I’m not sure which is funnier — the comic strip, or GT’s bad aim.

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Peggy Noonan bunts.

It is hard to believe that Trent Lott meant to suggest that segregation was OK. It’s hard to believe any modern American would think that. But he left his remarks open to that interpretation.

“Open to interpretation”? Peggy, it’s nice of you to conclude by saying you think Lott should step aside, but that phrase of yours is (un?)characteristically wiggly.

Lott said, quite plainly, that the US would have far fewer troubles if Strom Thurmond — running on the issue of permanent segregation — had been elected in 1948. How many interpretation is that open to? (Er, to how many interpretations is that open?) Especially given Lott’s well-documented life-long flirtation with Confederate and white supremacist groups?

Yes, Peggy, Lott has got to go. Along with him, let’s toss out Republican prevarication on race, shall we?

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Also in today’s Washington Post, David Ignatius thinks that the EU’s new Eastern members will save it from itself:

“Look East” should be the motto of this united Europe. For the 10 new members, far from being a burden, can bring a needed energy and dynamism to the union. They can blow apart the bureaucratism and welfare-state culture that still hobble much of Europe, if the core 15 will let free markets function the way they should.

When it comes to free trade, Paris thinks Washington is a sucker. When it comes to free political expression, Berlin (how odd, even now, not to say “Bonn”) compares Bush to Hitler. What makes Ignatius believe that the Franco-Prussian (er, Franco-German) cabal that runs the EU will give more weight to Warsaw or Prague or Budapest’s sensibilities than they do ours?

Slovakia won’t liberate the EU any more than Hong Kong will liberate China.

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Jim Hoagland writes to Saddam:

This is the week you sealed your fate. Your 12,000-page whitewash on weapons of mass destruction you have known and loved gives the Bush team a decent shot at securing a second Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against you. Having to defend that mess of a report should embarrass even the Russians and the French.

Yes, we’re going to go back to the Security Council. Yes, we’ll prostrate ourselves before the SC, so they can give us permission we don’t need to do what needs to be done to salvage their reputation (along with our security). Yes, the process will be overly long, demeaning, and beneath our status as both the hyperpower and the injured party.

Yes, it’s going to be as frustrating as a sober prom date determined to keep her virture.

But that’s the road we’re on, and, like it or not, we’re unlikely to find a reasonable shortcut. The final destination, however, remains the same.

And that’s probably what’s so goddamn frustrating about the whole useless process — having to jump through other people’s hoops in order to get their approval to do what they secretly want us to do, anyway.

NOTE: Bonus points to whichever geeks can identify from where I stole the headline to this post.

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A little over three years ago, I lost my best friend to leukemia.

I think of Dave tonight, because I just spent the last ten minutes playing with one of his old foils, which we used for Midnight Drunken Sidewalk Fencing. No, really. At some point after the third or fifth bottle of wine, we’d go outside and show off for our girlfriends by engaging in a little after dinner en garde. A moral victory was when I lost three touches to two — Dave had serious training; I just had some half-remembered lessons from summer camp.

(For the record, Midnight Drunken Sidewalk Fencing is not how I got that quarter moon scar between my eyes. That’s another Christmas story, involving my old pickup truck, radio buddy Tim Farley, some brandy laced with coffee, a redwood tree, and. . . well, I’ll save the rest for another Friday.)

Melissa borrowed the sword from Dave’s nephew Jay for her Sexy Pirate Chick costume on Halloween (ask Matt or Tim how she looked), and I haven’t yet had the heart to return it.

Maybe it’s because of the cheap red wine I opened during Will & Grace. Maybe it’s because the foil is right here next to my desk. Maybe it’s because Dave is the guy who taught me enough about wine, food, and romance to win a woman like my bride, who I just tucked into bed.

Whatever it is, right now, I really miss you, my brother.

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At long last, here

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Jim Hoagland writes to Saddam:

This is the week you sealed your fate. Your 12,000-page whitewash on weapons of mass destruction you have known and loved gives the Bush team a decent shot at securing a second Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against you. Having to defend that mess of a report should embarrass even the Russians and the French.

Yes, we’re going to go back to the Security Council. Yes, we’ll prostrate ourselves before the SC, so they can give us permission we don’t need to do what needs to be done to salvage their reputation (along with our security). Yes, the process will be overly long, demeaning, and beneath our status as both the hyperpower and the injured party.

Yes, it’s going to be as frustrating as a sober prom date determined to keep her virture.

But that’s the road we’re on, and, like it or not, we’re unlikely to find a reasonable shortcut. The final destination, however, remains the same.

And that’s probably what’s so goddamn frustrating about the whole useless process — having to jump through other people’s hoops in order to get their approval to do what they secretly want us to do, anyway.

NOTE: Bonus points to whichever geeks can identify from where I stole the headline to this post.

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The Left has met the enemy, and he is, um, them.

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In response to this post from a while back — ages ago, in the Era Before the Last Election — I recieved a lovely email from former Missouri Congressman Jack Buechner.

Strangely enough, I’d praised Presidential Classroom in that post, and it turns out Jack is now running the thing. Nice show, Jack. I’m sure it’s better than ever.

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While I was gone, Will Warren put away his quill, but Sasha and Ian are getting hitched.

Will, you’re already missed. Sasha & Ian. . . I couldn’t be happier for the two of you. Congrats!

UPDATE: Oh, and those hot & brainy Capitalist Chicks started a discussion board. It’s almost a blog, but with tight white t-shirts.

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Double Instalanche. Thanks, Prof — it’s good to be back.

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Kim du Toit has some sage advice for Eastern European leaders:

You might not want to bet on the EU horse for a while. If the Euros don’t want to play with you except on their own restrictive terms, why not wait a while, see how things shake out in the EU, all the while trading with the United States?

Kim is right, of course. The EU admission rules for the former Soviet bloc (bar what was once East Germany) do little more than turn those lands once-oppressed by Moscow into lands oppressed by Brussels. Farming rules alone are basically economic colonialism dressed up in the fancy language of multilateralism.

Fears of mercantilism aside, does Poland really want France as their economic model? High unemployment, high taxes supporting not only a welfare state, but uncompetitive industries, too. Zero growth combined with dictats from the EU is hardly the way for Eastern Europe to shrug off the last vestiges of, well, fifty years of zero growth and dictats from the USSR.

Besides, if the EU truly wants to rival us as a counterbalancing Great Power, what better way to cut them off (early and painlessly) than by promoting a US-led Eastern Europe Free Trade Area?

NAFTA is working for North America, and EEFTA (fun to say!) would do wonders for our friends beyond the Oder-Neise Line.

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Patrick Ruffini is my go-to guy on all things political. So where is he on Lott?

C’mon, man — I’m back from my break, so don’t you go take one now.

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During Bill Clinton

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Taking a stand before the Friday-afternoon-to-Monday-morning news brownout, President Bush had some harsh words for Trent Lott:

Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong… Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. . .

Fiery words — but with how much real heat? Bush never called for Lott to step down as Senate Majority Leader-designate, and rightly so. That’s a matter for Senate Republicans to decide. But had Bush simply said, “it’s up to his conscience and his fellow Senators to decide if my friend Trent Lott remains Majority Leader,” then the message “Lott must go” would be made loud enough for even Trent to understand.

The President’s words today will partly cover Republican asses — including his own — in 2004. But he should have gone that one sentence farther.

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Today’s Doonesbury is worth a chuckle or three. Really.

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