NPR interviewed Jimmy Carter this morning. He flatly denied that the State Department begged him to refrain from meeting with Hamas as the White House alleges. Somebody is lying here and I doubt very seriously that it is Jimmy Carter.

The CBS Evening News reported that the VA hid the true numbers of veterans attempting suicide, and now an incriminating email has surfaced.

What can you believe?

Obama was right in saying that even McCain would be a better president than George Bush. That's a fine compliment considering that my neighbor's cat would be a better president than George Bush.

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I do sincerely hope the Anbar Rising and the recent serious defeat dealt to the Sadrists by the Iraqi Army aren't apparitions. The only moral way for us to extricate ourselves from Iraq is for the Iraqi government and Iraqi armed forces to be able to provide for the security of their own country. It's not important for this government to be our allies or even to like us very much. It's not important for this government to be outside the Iranian sphere of influence. But from a moral standpoint, it's absolutely vital that the government we leave behind in Iraq be capable of providing for the security of its citizens.

People keep comparing Iraq to Vietnam. Granted, both wars were unnecessary, unjustified, unpopular, and inbelievably expensive, however, there's a critical difference some on the left either don't think about or gloss over. We always had the moral option of leaving South Vietnam to fend for itself. If it collapsed, North Vietnam was right there to take over. It was a brutally totalitarian regime based upon a discredited political-economic ideology, but at least it was a government. For the United States to pull its forces out of Iraq before its government is able to provide some sort of security and stability for its people is to set the stage for Somolia on a grander scale. We would be leaving the door open for a bloody, genocidal slaughter.

Some seem to operate on the belief that if we just got out, everything would quickly settle down. I'd love to see some evidence for that so that I could believe it. What I see is a nation whose majority ethnic poopulation has suffered terror, abuse, discrimination, and wholesale slaughter at the hands of a minority ethnic population for decades: under the British protectorate, under the Ba'athists, and at the hands of the insurgents/Al Qaeda in Iraq. If we leave behind an Iraq incapable of protecting its citizens from a campaign and counter-campaign of terror, we invite anarchy followed by a textbook genocide as the Shia majority take full revenge for their decades of suffering at the hands of a Sunni minority. The various Mahdi militias encouraged by Sadr and supported by Iran have already provided a foretaste of this kind of backlash. Without either the American armed forces or a capable Iraqi government/Iraqi armed forces to at least keep a lid on it, where else does such a thirst for vengeance lead but genocide? The Ba'athists, especially Saddam, kept control over the Shia majority through systemized terror and brutal oppression. We removed that "pacifying" force and by necessity - not by plan - took over the role of trying to keep the sects from one another's throats. The neocons thought the sunshine of freedom and democracy would bring magical peace to the land. It was yet another in a long line of misjudgments. Before we leave, there has to be another cop ready to take over that beat.

The current president will leave office with blood on his hands and bequeath to his successor an unfinished mess. I don't want his successor to leave office with blood on his hands because he/she lacked the courage to clean up the mess Bush made before extricating our men and women from a place they should never have been sent in the first place. So yes, for the sake of our troops, for the sake of our next president, and for the sake of the people of Iraq, I hope the recent news about this war is believable. I'm heartened to hear that the Iraqi people seem to be growing weary of the violence, that the Sunni have become disenchanted with the terrorists GW allowed to move in amongst them, that the Iraqi government seems to be finding the courage to stand up to Sadr, and that the Iraqi army seems increasingly capable of providing for the security of the Iraqi people. If recent news is true, and if that trend can be maintained, the next president may be able to make Obama's timeline for withdrawal. If I believed in a supernatural power, I'd be praying to it for that to be the case.

No, absolutely not. We honestly have no idea what is really going on. All we get is propaganda.