UPDATE:

I missed this story which was posted by Don Surber yesterday. Surber’s comment caught my eye:

Tom Daschle admitted to a couple of LA Times reporters what I have suspected all along: Much of the Democratic support for the war was merely to get votes.

I find this actually shameful. It is one thing for a politician to put in their political equation the preferences of their constituents – especially if they cannot come up with a solid argument to go against them. That kind of fair assessment is different from what this sounds like. Voting people into harms way to not lose an election. But Surber is right – as usual:

“There was a sense I had from the very beginning that this was in part politically motivated, and they were going to maximize the timing to affect those who were having some doubt about this right before the election,” Daschle said.

This is what Daschle is whining about:

“I asked directly if we could delay this so we could depoliticize it. I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: ‘We just have to do this now.’ “

The truth is the offensive needed to be in the spring at the latest to avoide the summer heat. Tracking backwards from there for troop deployments and staging to a vote in Congress to support the effort you find yourself back in August – before the elections. What Daschle is admitting is he was not for the war (which was obvious) but was to afraid to make his stand prior to the election. So he did not vote on the merit of the action, he voted on the basis of political survival (and his Senate Leader position).

END UPDATE:

Couple of things to point folks to today before getting to the news of the day.

Rick Moran has the 23rd installment of the Carnival of The Clueless up – don’t miss it!

The Able Danger Blog is working with some DC sources on a petition drive to force the Pentagon to have open Congressional Hearings on this very important subject. If you agree, you may want to go sign up.

I had expected the word coming from the troops as they returned from Iraq would have penetrated the liberal media’s anti-war mindset before now, but maybe it is starting to happen. The news that Bruce Willis is planning a heroic film of the Iraq conflict based on work by Michael Yon was a great start. Now this excellent piece in CS Monitor lets be believe we may be seeing more and more from those who know best what is happening in Iraq: our brave military men and women.

Cpl. Stan Mayer has seen the worst of war. In the leaves of his photo album, there are casual memorials to the cost of the Iraq conflict – candid portraits of friends who never came home and graphic pictures of how insurgent bombs have shredded steel and bone.
Yet the Iraq of Corporal Mayer’s memory is not solely a place of death and loss. It is also a place of hope. It is the hope of the town of Hit, which he saw transform from an insurgent stronghold to a place where kids played on Marine trucks. It is the hope of villagers who whispered where roadside bombs were hidden. But most of all, it is the hope he saw in a young Iraqi girl who loved pens and Oreo cookies.

Like many soldiers and marines returning from Iraq, Mayer looks at the bleak portrayal of the war at home with perplexity – if not annoyance. It is a perception gap that has put the military and media at odds, as troops complain that the media care only about death tolls, while the media counter that their job is to look at the broader picture, not through the soda straw of troops’ individual experiences.

The only ‘soda straw’ is the liberal media’s focus on defeating Bush by ignoring all that is working out in Iraq. Single mindedness on the media’s part puts them at odds with the country they supposedly serve. The military, on the other hand is doing what the liberal media can only pray to achieve

“We know we made a positive difference,” says Cpl. Jeff Schuller of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, who spent all but one week of his eight-month tour with Mayer. “I can’t say at what level, but I know that where we were, we made it better than it was when we got there.”

One group making a difference, one group making fools of themselves.

Apparently Vivica Novak’s testimony to Fitzgerald’s grand jury is to shore up Rove’s side of the story, if you can believe ‘lawyers close to the case’:

The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove’s effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

What did Viveca tell Rove? Did she spill the beans on her fellow journalists? As I noted here, there is a connection between Novak and Mathew Cooper: John Dickerson. Dickerson co-wrote the infamous Time article that got Cooper in the prosecutor’s cross hairs. Want to bet Dickerson talked to Novak when they teamed up on their later articles? Want to bet that discussion supports Rove’s version of events?

Tom Maguire has more on this matter here. He has lots of speculation there, all different from mine!

Lots of sites are linking to Joe Lieberman’s support for our current approach in the war, so this may be redundant. But it is worth the read.

On the Able Danger front, 9-11 Commission member Tim Roehmer was on Lou Dobbs last night (Weldon tonight and Louis Freeh Tomorrow) and called for public hearings. Able Danger Blog has the full transcript.

Have a great day!