Yes, it's true. As I sit here at my laptop, craving a cigarette to go with my coffee, I have decided to quit smoking. And I'm doing it to support my candidate, and the future of my country.

Yes, Senator Obama, I have quit smoking - in your honor.

Look, I’m not one to promote wacky conspiracy theories, no matter how delicious they may be. We don’t know who "bombed" the military recruiting station in Manhattan early today; it literally could’ve been anybody. Hell, for all I know, it could’ve been al-Qaeda.
< /snark >

But let’s take a look at what we know about the bombing.

Listen - I'm pretty happy with ALL of our nominees, more or less. Some more, some less, but still - every single Democratic nominee (other than Gravel, who I worry would probably forget to take his medication from time to time) would make a spectacularly better president than what we've had to live through the last seven years.

Not a single one of our nominees is The Source of All Evil. (That, of course, would be Dick Cheney.) None of them are heroes riding in on white magical horses to save us all. None is Al Gore.

I've gone back and forth between Edwards and Obama for a while now and, even though Edwards is still the only candidate I've given money to so far, I think now I'm leaning toward Obama, for reasons I just won't get into right now. (Another diary, another day.)

But I am leaning towards John Edwards - for Attorney General of the United States.

Senator Clinton, you are far - very, very far - from being my first choice for our presidential nominee. At best, you're my fourth choice. Fifth, if either Al Gore or Wes Clark were to enter the race. And that's only when I'm considering candidates who have a chance to win; I would definitely prefer Chris Dodd to you, for example, but he has about as much chance of winning the nomination as Tom Tancredo has of creating a welcome center for brown-skinned immigrants.

You are, for now, the front-runner in the race. (I repeat, for now.) And despite our difference on a number of issues, I've always kind of liked you. If someone can inspire such deep-seated, irrational hatred in wingnuts, they've got to be okay in my book.

I've always thought that, even though you've sold your soul to corporate interests and Beltway insiders for (likely ill-advised) political expediency, deep down you've got a good heart. And, when we need it the most, you will display good judgment.

Until now. Until this whole campaign theme song debacle.

Celine Dion?! Celine fucking Dion?!?!?

... or maybe that should be "I'm a slutty technical virgin" waiting for Al Gore to notice me, while trying to keep John Edwards and Barack Obama interested in me, just in case.

Yes, it's getting harder and harder to keep my maidenhead intact, but my knight in shining armor smiled and winked at me a couple of times this week, so I'm holding out hope.

I'm using all this silly sexual metaphor in the most male heterosexual way, of course, and was inspired by this popular, recommended diary. But the fact remains - if Mr. Gore doesn't enter the race, my other suitors, while fine choices all (well, most of them anyway), will be second choices.

I was looking at the compiled dKos straw poll results, finding things that surprised me (and some that did not). I think polls are fascinating - I find them both encouraging and discouraging, sometimes at the same time.

Polls are slippery, ephemeral things. Polls are informative things. Polls are misleading things.

To paraphrase the Great (mis)Communicator, polls are stupid things.

The problem I'm having most with straw polls of our potential Democratic presidential candidates is that, well, I'm still pretty much undecided, dammit. Laugh at me if you will, but I think it's a pretty strong field. I could probably go at least five deep before I get to someone about whom I'd have to say, "Uh-uh, no way in hell."

I was a Clark man the last time, and I still love the General, but I can't honestly say he'd be my first choice right now. There are several I could get behind very easily, on any given day. I wish I could take the best qualities of Clark, Edwards and Obama and create a super candidate, a candidate for the ages. (Or, convince Gore to run.)

But, with apologies to elishastephens and TrueBlueMajority, I just didn't think Stephen Colbert did all that great a job at the White House Correspondents Dinner last night. I'd rate it as "okay" to "pretty good, but not great."

And, given that I think Colbert is possibly the funniest man on TV, "pretty good" was a disappointment.

Stand Strong diaried earlier on the Freeper's expected attacks on Jill Carroll. (The consensus: the typical wingnuttery about how she's a terrorist sympathizer and how the whole thing was probably faked anyway.)

Now, the "legitimate" right wing press (sic) is piling on. National Review's John Podhoretz seems to think that Ms. Carroll is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome (if not an outright TerrSymp^TM):

It's wonderful that she's free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn't beaten or killed -- while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is -- I expect there will be some Stockholm Syndrome talk in the coming days.

It's estimated that the recall, redesign and redistribution of the system, the contract for which has been awarded to the Halliburton Corporation, will cost taxpayers an estimated $10.5 billion - though expected cost-overruns would probably place the final pricetag closer to $50 billion.

The original, flawed warning system, which cost approximately $30 billion, was designed and constructed by KBR, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation.

What if there were pictures of him eating birthday cake with Ted Kennedy, and pretending to play a custom-made guitar, while Americans were drowning and a city was suffering biblical destruction?

What if 1,300 New Orleaneans were dead, and entire neighborhoods destroyed, on his watch?

What if Geraldo Rivera and Sheppard Smith wailed and rended their garments on FOX and bemoaned the misery they were knee-deep in, while Bill Clinton wasn't even on his way back to the White House?

But there is one big, big problem with this - the people in that 50% aren't being told the truth.

Just as people have been working overtime to kill the lie that the Jack Abramoff scandal is bi-partisan, we must end the biggest misconception that Americans have about the NSA spying: that following the rule of law would prevent the government from conducting surveillance on members of al-Qaeda, or on Americans who may be working with terrorists.

This simply is not true. Following the rule of law will not, in any way, impede the surveillance of anyone who is a threat to national security.

Am I saying that Mr. Gore will hold the same exalted standing in history that Churchill now holds? No; only time will determine that.

And I'm certainly not comparing the personal politics of the two men. Churchill, though certainly one of the great heroes of civilization and a courageous man with many fine qualities, was not exactly the most progressive of statesmen; his adamant, long-time opposition to independence for Ireland and India, and his antiquated, romantic view of British imperialism no doubt would serve as an inspiration to the worst impulses of today's neocons.

But I hope, for the sake of America's future, that one aspect of Churchill's life may, in time, serve as an analogy for that of Al Gore: Churchill's eventual political comeback from what is referred to as his "Wilderness Years."

If you're going to the (Sc)Alito confirmation hearings tomorrow, no need to bring the K-Y:

Insisting that God "certainly needs to be involved" in the Supreme Court confirmation process, three Christian ministers today blessed the doors of the hearing room where Senate Judiciary Committee members will begin considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito on Monday.

Capitol Hill police barred them from entering the room to continue what they called a consecration service. But in a bit of one-upsmanship, the three announced that they had let themselves in a day earlier, touching holy oil to the seats where Judge Alito, the senators, witnesses, Senate staffers and the press will sit, and praying for each of the 13 committee members by name.

"We did adequately apply oil to all the seats," said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who identified himself as an evangelical Christian and as president of the National Clergy Council in Washington.

FISA allows our government a very wide berth in conducting domestic surveillance, and allows it to be done on both foreign nationals and U.S. citizens. It even allows the government to initiate the surveillance before getting the necessary approval, provided an application is made in a timely manner.

I was curious about how often and easily FISA warrant requests are approved, so I googled it and found this handy document. From 2001 to 2004, 5,645 applications for search warrants were filed with the FISC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court). And 5,641 of them were approved.

That would be an approval rate of 99.921%.

Did you know Christmas is under attack? Did you know that if you say "Merry Christmas" to someone while you're going about your day that you'll be tackled, hog-tied and bitchslapped by one of the ACLU's roving multi-culti enforcement goon squads? That if you install your halogen-lighted, neon-trimmed polyurethene creche on your front lawn, the Invisible Knights of the All-Inclusive Holday Season will ride upon you in their rainbow-colored hoods and cloaks, and burn a Festivus pole in your yard?

Because that's what pinheads like Loofah Boy and the Talibaptists and pharisees would have you believe.

In fact, FOX News "journalist" John Gibson has a new book out on the subject. Conveniently, just in time for the holiday - urp, excuse me - Christmas shopping season.

So just watch what you say, people. The evil liberal secularists are makin' a list, and checkin' it twice. For spelling and grammatical errors, of course.

Ironically, the new agency was not involved in creating its own name/acronym: the Office for Strategic, Helpful Initials and Tactics, or OSHIT. Reportedly, now-departed FEMA director Michael "Brownie" Brown was responsible for the new agency's name.

"It was something that someone overheard Brownie say as he was leaving his last meeting with the President. Everyone involved agreed it was the perfect name for the new agency," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

What's that you say? Libby resigned first? So frickin' what.

Let's look at how a similar situation was handled in my favorite make-believe parallel universe, "the West Wing," shall we?

More on the flip...