What I Wanna Know Is....

Ezra Klein reminds us that although heavily marginalized, Democrats are trying to put forward alternatives to the GOP.

That may be. But, "what I wanna know is", why are our representatives still allowing us to get punked over stuff like this? The We-Need-to-Get-Rid-of-Junk-Lawsuits plank has been in the GOP top 10 list for so long it has its own AARP card (yeah, I stold that from Wolcott) and the fallacy upon which it rests is likewise well known, but nevertheless, our guys still seemed determined to bend over and let the GOP give us the business on it.

And I'll admit I'm clueless why we're promoting this, too:

"Democrats will work to increase our military end strength by up to 40,000 by 2007."
(from S. 11: "Standing With Our Troops")

Huh? We're calling for more troops? If we need greater security (against an army from ?????) and more troops to guard that security, why don't we just bring the ones over in Iraq home? Iraq's had its "successful" elections. The Republicons and the press have told us so.

Of course I'm acting as if bringing the military home from Iraq is a real policy objective that is just waiting for a favorable time. Now, of course it could be, just maybe, that the administration's intention all along has been to establish military bases in Iraq to serve as a visual reminder to Iraq's "leaders" of our desire to better police the Middle East and control its natural resources that we covet. But I don't know why I'd think that.