The Army Links War Or Car

I put up the last War or Car post two days ago. But as I was going through the referral logs today, I noticed that a few visitors had come from http://www4.army.mil/news/standto.html. At the bottom right hand corner, under "What's Being Said On Blogs", there's an item saying "Buy every U.S. Soldier who died in Iraq their own nuclear submarine."

Obama becomes commander-in-chief, and War or Car is linked by an official army website! It's a happy way for the blog to end.

People Who Should Not Be the Next Senator From Florida

Allen Boyd.

Boyd, you may recall, was the leader of the "Fainthearted Faction" that said nice things about George Bush's 2005 proposal to privatize Social Security, and, in fact, went so far as to lend his name to a bipartisan plan to Save Destroy Social Security. In the 109th Congress he was the tenth-most conservative Democrat, alongside Chet Edwards, Charlie Melancon, and the Bluest of Blue Dogs. In the 110th, he's been a bit better, but Florida was almost in line with the national average; a more or less Generic Democrat with one or two conservative tendencies really ought to be able to win the seat. Alex Sink is the only statewide elected Democrat, having won an open seat contest for CFO in 2006 53-46. She's almost certainly a better choice on both policy and political grounds.

Those are the noises I like to hear. Now, back in your box.

Who's saying this? (Answer halfway through)

"Let me just say this: I don't regret having supported John McCain because I sincerely believe in his experience and his extraordinary record of working across party lines to get things done. But I do regret, as I said to the caucus and afterward publicly, there were some things I said in the heat of the campaign that I wish I'd said more clearly. There are other things, frankly, I wish I hadn't said at all. That happens to all of us in the heat of a campaign. But nonetheless, I regret it."

Lieberman said he called Obama after the campaign but didn't hear back from him.

"He's busy," he said. "I heard back from Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel. I'm sure, in time, Sen. Obama and I, who have developed a good friendship and working relationship over the years he's been in the Senate, will talk. In some sense, he talked to me through Harry Reid and his spokespeople, and I appreciate very much the spirit of reconciliation that he evoked.

We don't have the luxury of looking back to the campaign," Lieberman added. "He's the winner. He's the president-elect. We've all got to work together with him to make him successful, and that's what I'm committed to doing."

One of the reasons it was relatively easy to talk me down from my unhappiness over Lieberman keeping his committee chairmanship is that he has no incentive to be anything other than a perfectly good Democrat in the next couple years. In four years he's facing re-election in a state Obama won by 21%, and unless Obama completely fails as a president, being an opponent of the administration will end his career. Assuming that Lieberman accepts this calculation, he'll be a reliable ally unless things totally fall apart.

Of course, Lieberman has made bizarre political decisions in the past. A few token attempts to moderate his hawkishness in early 2006 would've won him the Democratic primary and saved him a big headache, but he didn't do that. But seeing him this humble suggests that he's going to play it the only way that makes any sense whatsoever.

Obama's decision to not punish Lieberman (and as I understand it, it was the conciliatory behavior from Obama that set the course Harry Reid and everyone else followed) is something to judge based on the future, not the past. We'll see how things go.

Words That Deserve To Be Banned In 2009

Since it's December, we've reached the point in the year where it's acceptable to make end-of-year lists. Watching the introduction of Barack Obama's security team, I observe that potential DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano referred to America as "the Homeland", a word which did not exist in the vernacular prior to 9/11. It really sounds too close to "Fatherland" for my tastes. Let's get rid of it. And while we're at it, how about these as well:

• "Thrown under the bus", which is what you're supposed to do when someone goes off message.
• "Body Language", a phrase used by pundits to assess what public figures "really" mean, without any evidence that their conjectures are accurate.

Add your phrases you could do without hearing in the next year to the comments.

Welcome to Donkeylicious!

This is the political blog of Neil Sinhababu and Nicholas Beaudrot. Recently we were blogging at Cogitamus with some very nice people. For two years or so before that, we were weekend guests for health care blogging superstar Ezra Klein.

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