Ever looking for a way to revise history and justify their votes giving the President the authority to go to war with the Hussein regime, Democrats are floating a new rhetorical trial balloon, articulated by erstwhile Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. From the LA Times, “Timing Entwined War Vote, Election”: Tom Daschle, the former Democratic senator from South Dakota, remembers the exchange vividly. The time was September 2002. The place

“I’m not going to lie to you, Billy:  the paltry turnout at my combination anti-war protest / celebrity book signing was quite dispiriting.  Quite dispiriting.  Tell me—was it like this when the sixties ended?—a sinking feeling that nobody really much cares anymore that the neocon war machine keeps churning out armed, bloodthirsty deathmerchants who will tragically fall victim to the lies of their greedy, corporate, Jew-coddling leaders?”* “Could be.  Though

**** (BBC story; more here and here)

Like a genital Herpes virus that lies dormant for a spell before reasserting itself at awkward moments in an outbreak of ragged penile lesions or vaginal discharge, cartoonist Ted Rall manages to crash univited into the parlor of civilized cultural discourse from time to time, whereupon he immediately insults the hostess and dips his grubby fingers directly into the clam dip. This is one of those times. But of course,

oatmeal:  “Mrs Butterworth?  I tapped that.  Twice.”